Norxe Shows 8K for Simulation with 240Hz!
Over the last couple of years, there has been a big boost in the interest in creating immersive experiences, whether in headsets like the Apple Vision Pro or in installations like the Sphere. One of the applications that has always needed immersion is simulation. This is especially true for aviation and defense training. The simulator market has for many years been looking to achieve what the industry calls ‘eye-limiting resolution’.
Now, resolution can be quite a controversial topic, but the simulation industry and its customers have very specific and carefully designed requirements to ensure that simulator displays are fit for purpose. (for an interesting deeper dive on this topic, check out this article) As a result, companies involved in the sector tend to be specialists and attend trade shows such as I/ITSEC, which takes place in Orlando each year, and IT2EC which is the European equivalent. These are aimed at the training markets for defense and aviation.
Norxe was at I/ITSEC 2024
At the I/ITSEC in 2024, Norwegian projector maker, Norxe, demonstrated it latest 8K projectors and so we followed up and interviewed Sondre Fauskanger, the Senior Product Manager for the company, to find out more.
We started by getting to understand more about the company. It is based in Fredrikstad, Norway, an unlikely location, you might think, but this town was the home to ASK of Norway, a pioneer in projection technologies. projectiondesign was a start-up that was created by staff that had been at ASK (via Proxima and InFocus) and that company was acquired by Barco. Again some staff decided to start up again and in 2015 formed Norxe. For a deeper dive on the history, you can check here.
Norxe specializes in making projectors for the most demanding markets of simulation and entertainment and, unusually, undertakes all of its manufacture and design in Fredrikstad, where staff have up to thirty years of experience in projection. The firm has sales and support in North America, a key market, but also around the world as the simulation market is global. The company is privately owned by its employees.
Single Chip DLP is a Specialty
From a technology point of view, Norxe specializes in single chip DLP projectors using TI’s DMD devices. It has a very close relationship with TI and is one of only a very few companies that is certified to develop its own processing technology for the chips. This access to the processing pipeline is really important for its ability to optimise its products and their performance for the target applications. Most users of the TI DLP rely on TI’s own processing pipeline to control the DMD.
For those that are not involved with projection, the red, green and blue channels can either be created in parallel, which requires three sets of chips and an optical combiner or created serially, with each of the channels being presented on the image sequentially. The three channel method usually costs more and typically takes up more space, although it is capable of producing the highest performance.
Most single chip DLP projectors use color wheels to create the red, green and blue channels. Historically, filters were used to convert white light from bulbs into the RGB components. More recently blue lasers are typically used with the red and green obtained by downconverting from blue using phosphors. The rotating wheels can be a source of potential failure because of the reliance on mechanics, so Fauskanger told us that Norxe uses solid state illumination based on LEDs or lasers depending on the level of illumination needed.
Norxe Has its Own Green Source
Again, unusually, Norxe has its own light source for the green channel in its LED projectors. At one time it used the HLD green light source that was introduced by Philips Lighting in 2015. This was needed as green LEDs with the right color for display use tend to be quite inefficient. Unfortunately, after Philips Lighting was spun-out of Philips to become Signify, the HLD technology was discontinued. One alternative for Norxe was to buy a lot of inventory to maintain supply, but instead the firm developed its own ‘NXL’ green source based on blue lasers with phosphor to downconvert the blue light to green.
The use of the NXL source means that the firm’s projectors have only the fan as a mechanical component. In turn, this means that the first maintenance for the projectors is at 50,000 hours – a key advantage in the simulator market. For simulator operators, time spent on maintenance has a clear cost so is a key part of the purchase decision.
As well as minimizing maintenance, Norxe offers ‘Constant Light Output’ operation. By starting the projector at just 80% of its maximum output, the unit can maintain a constant level of performance for 75,000 hours.
Simulators need to be able to support night vision training, so Norxe is able to supply its projectors with infrared output to allow training using IR vision systems. It also has pure laser options available for planetariums and other applications that need full Rec. 2020 support, but these are not used in simulators.
8K – at 240Hz?
Fauskanger explained that at the I/ITSEC event in Orlando, Norxe launched its new 8K models which got a great reception. Other 8K options have been in the market (for example based on the JVC D-ILA chips) but they tend to be very expensive. The Norxe projectors use a 4K TI DLP chip with pixel shifting to display 8K images. However, Norxe has pixel shifting with a twist.
Because the firm has access to the processing pipeline, and works closely with the companies making the Image Generator systems (IGs) which create the images, the four frames of 4K resolution that make up the 8K image are dynamically generated to take account of the slightly different timing of each of the frames. This means that the projector is effectively generating an 8K image at 240Hz. The firm’s tests have shown that while pixel shifting typically delivers a boost in resolution of around 30-40%, the use of the different frames really boosts this to close to double.
At the show, a demonstration was made using seven 8K 240Hz projectors in a seamless dome configuration and achieving spectacular and eye-limiting resolution. The content was uncompressed for the highest quality and driven by Aechelon servers. There were a total of around 242-245 megapixels visible – not dissimilar to the resolution of The Sphere in Las Vegas, by our calculation.
The dome at I/ITSEC was set up by IDS Inc and there are more details of the demo here.
The demo system produced a scene that had a 180 degree FOV X 80 degree VFOV (split 50 degrees above equator and 30 degrees below equator) at eye-limited resolution, or 2 arc-minutes per optical line pair as measured from the pilot’s eye point, with a 240Hz refresh speed.
