Past Meets Future in an Interactive History

Opened in late 2022, Chinggis Khaan National Museum in Ulaanbaatar immerses guests in a 2,000-year period that surrounds the Mongol Empire with a particular focus on Chinggis Khaan and the imperial aristocracy. The building is home to more than 11,000 exhibits spread over eight exhibition halls and some 10,200 square meters of show space. The facility can accommodate about 500 visitors at a time.

As well as boasting the world’s largest collection of Chinggis Khaan objects, the museum uses state-of-the-art AV technology to entertain and inform through interactive storytelling, immersive gallery showcases, and cinematic experiences, all supported by an AR system that provides information to guests in five languages. Visitors need only to install an app and face a camera embedded in designated displays to access the content in their native language.

Attraction Background

To fulfill its mission to protect and share Mongolia’s cultural heritage, Chinggis Khaan National Museum wanted to use a mix of historical artifacts and first-person perspectives that are brought to life with interactive visual technology. At the beginning of their journey, visitors adopt the identity of a Mongolian resident who lived at the time. Visitors follow their characters’ lives through the rise of the Mongol Empire across six scenes and eight galleries. To bring their concept to life, museum operators engaged local integrators Globalsmart Solutions LLC to enable Panasonic projection technology in six of the eight exhibition halls.

Installation Details

The immersive spatial designs feature a total of 11 wall projections, the largest measuring 12 meters long and 3.2 meters high for a projection area of 38.4 square meters. The Panasonic PT-RZ690 1-Chip DLP™ Projector was selected for its flexible design and compatibility with ET-DLE020 ultra-short-throw and ET-DLE60 zoom lenses.

To simplify the complex task of mapping content over flat and curved screen surfaces within a limited installation space, integrators used the NVIDIA RTX Quadro graphics engine with NVIDIA Mosaic visualization tools to configure the screens and Panasonic’s Geometry Manager Pro software to complete geometric adjustment and edge-blending.

Panasonic’s ET-DLE020 is an ultra-short-throw zoom lens that delivers large images with zero screen offset from very short projection distances. The use of this lens allowed installers to utilize color-rich DLP™ projectors despite the confined installation space. Thanks to the lens’s short focal length, visitors can approach the screen and interact with content without casting a shadow and breaking the illusion.

Outcome Achieved

As well as realizing seamless interactivity without shadows across the museum’s many interactive display surfaces, operators are impressed by the level of integration, automation, and control that installers were able to achieve with Panasonic projectors.

For example, if an unexpected technical problem were to arise, technicians could access the projector remotely to manage content, system updates, and routine maintenance without interrupting the program or disturbing the guest’s experience. In addition, the AV system is automated to a schedule, turning on and off without the need for an operator. This extends hardware life, promotes greater energy efficiency, and streamlines workflow.

Like other parts of the world, Mongolia is enjoying the gradual return of the tourist trade and is confident the unique “tradition meets technology” experience at Chinggis Khaan National Museum will create emotional connections while preserving the nation’s heritage.