Museum AV is changing fast. Galleries that once relied on a single screen per exhibit are now built around projection-mapped rooms, seamless microLED and fine-pitch LED video walls, and sensors that let content react as visitors move through a space. These technologies are excellent at creating atmosphere and scale. What they do not do on their own is let a visitor choose what to explore. That is where touch comes in.
Spectacle draws people in. Touch lets them go deeper.
A projection-mapped room or a wall of LED can set the scene for an entire gallery, but everyone sees the same thing at the same time. Touch gives each visitor a way to follow their own curiosity: open a story, zoom into an artifact, compare two moments in history. The most successful immersive galleries pair the two, with large-scale media for the shared moment and touch surfaces for personal discovery.
In an HP experience room, CyberTouch built a large multi-display touch table at the center of a space surrounded by wall-size projection. The projection creates the environment; the table is where guests actually work through the content together.
Adding touch to LED and microLED walls
Direct-view LED is becoming the default for large museum walls because it is bright, seamless and scales to almost any size. Infrared touch works with LED as well as LCD: an IR frame surrounds the surface and senses touch where a finger breaks its grid of light beams, so the wall itself does not need to change. A few things to plan for early:
- Protection. LED modules are not designed to be touched directly, so interactive LED walls usually need a protective glass layer in front of the surface.
- Depth. The touch frame and glass add depth in front of the wall, which affects millwork, niches and sightlines.
- Scale. Infrared touch scales from small displays to walls of 40 feet and beyond, with up to 100 simultaneous touch points, so a whole school group can use one wall together.
- Reach. The most important controls belong in the comfortable reach zone, even on a wall that runs floor to ceiling.
At The Mob Museum in Las Vegas, the Global Networks gallery uses an eight-display CyberTouch touch wall set into a brushed-steel wall, where several visitors explore stories of organized crime around the world side by side.
Sensors and touch work best together
Sensor-driven storytelling uses cameras, proximity and motion sensing to react to visitors: content wakes up as people approach, follows them through a space or changes with the size of the crowd. Sensors are ideal for ambient, hands-free moments. Touch is still the clearest way for a visitor to make a deliberate choice. Many of the strongest exhibits combine them, using sensing to attract and orient visitors and touch for the moment they decide to engage.
Build it into the architecture
Immersive galleries are designed as complete environments, and a touch surface that looks like equipment added at the end breaks the illusion. Touch tables and walls work best when they are planned with the casework, finishes and lighting from the first drawings. At the Sazerac House in New Orleans, a touch table is built into a classic bar and touch tables sit in handcrafted wood and brass pedestals, so the technology reads as part of the exhibit.
Questions to ask early
- Where in the gallery do visitors need to make choices, rather than simply watch?
- Will the touch surface sit in front of LED, LCD or projection, and how much depth is available?
- How many people will use it at once, and of what ages and heights?
- How will the surface be protected, cleaned and serviced in daily public use?
- Does the design call for a standard size, or a surface built to fit the architecture?
CyberTouch designs, engineers and manufactures touch walls, touch tables and custom touch surfaces for museums and cultural institutions, working alongside the exhibit designers, AV consultants and integrators who create the experience.