Imagine Graphics takes off at London Luton Airport

Imagine Graphics has supplied 132 specifically built PCs to drive all the flight information displays at the new London Luton Airport passenger terminal. Officially opened by HM The Queen, the new terminal is the first in the UK to exclusively use this new technology, large wide-screen plasma display panels (PDPs) from SONY, rather than the traditionally cumbersome CRT video style monitors. With a requirement to display flight arrivals, departures, check-in information and advertising, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, the contractors turned to Imagine Graphics with its renowned reputation for supplying this flexible technology for their new generation system.

During the last 2 years Imagine Graphics has specialised in developing and marketing PCs and graphics cards to drive the new wide-screen PDPs at ‘pixel perfect’ wide-screen resolutions, maximising the benefits of the high quality displays. The need for portrait displays has also been addressed by producing 9:16 software modes to rotate the displays. At Luton Airport, individual and groups of PDPs are mounted at 90 degrees to give a better display of flight arrivals and departures.

Norman Garland, Imagine Graphics MD said "We have been working together with most of the major manufacturers of PDPs including SONY, Fujitsu, Pioneer, NEC and JVC. With a small team of dedicated engineers, producing the special wide-screen software for its graphics cards and PCs, we have generated immense interest and more companies are taking advantage of this leading edge technology." Other recent successes are at the new Hong Kong Airport, where Imagine Graphics has supplied all the special multi-channel PC graphics cards with wide-screen software to drive 125 Fujitsu PDPs, perfect for displaying dual languages, in this case English and Chinese. London’s Heathrow and Gatwick airports have Imagine Graphics’ PCs embedded inside the flight information monitors, and on the rail networks in the South and West of England, several hundred graphics cards drive all the passenger information displays.

From a technical standpoint Imagine Graphics’ aptly named Pixel Perfect graphics cards drive wide-screen PDPs and CRT displays at 16:9 (landscape) and 9:16 (portrait) resolutions such as 852 x 480, 1280 x 768 and 1365 x 768 at true colour.

PANASONIC FURTHER ENDORSE PIXEL PERFECT CARDS AS NO.1 CHOICE FOR BRITISH AIRPORTS AUTHORITY ROLL-OUT

Panasonic UK has been selected as BAA's preferred partner to supply and support large screen dynamic plasma displays at all plasma installations at BAA UK airports - in turn, Panasonic chose Imagine Graphics as exclusive supplier of wide screen graphics cards.

With an exposure to over 179million passengers a year, these 42 inch and 50 inch plasma displays will be used primarily as flight information displays, but in the future may also be used for other commercial purposes such as advertising, retail and any future interactive e-commerce based activity.

The original tender from BAA was for the opportunity to supply up to 1,000 plasma displays over a 3 year period with a support package for 5 years, as part of BAA's ongoing investment programmes.

Hong Kong International Airport:

Imagine Graphics supplied single and multi-channel graphics cards with wide-screen driver software to drive the 125 Fujitsu 42" 16 x 9 plasma displays at the Downtown check-in terminal at the new Hong Kong International Airport.
The wide-screen plasma displays show flight information in both English and Chinese languages.