AR/VR technology

It used to be said that video games were bad for you, but they have become the building blocks of some pretty cool things, including KDKA-TV’s new studio!

Video games, or at least how they are controlled, are sort of the basis of the new KDKA-TV First Alert Weather Sphere and the augmented and virtual reality of our new sets. The graphics behind them are controlled by computers that are the same caliber as computers that control high-end virtual reality video games.

With that fast rendering of our virtual 3D environment, these computers provide some big-time tech to help it look real. There are 18 trackers in the lighting grid to know where to put graphics in relation to the people in the space in the green area.

Old green screens, which are still in use today, are fixed and can’t move with the meteorologist. If the camera zooms, the background remains the same size, and it looks like the person on camera is growing or floating. That is not the case with our AR/VR technology.

Our green screen is more of a “green auditorium.” It is 35 feet wide, 28 feet deep and 14 feet tall. 

That is a lot of green, but with the 18 tracking cameras above us, the trackers on the iPads that KDKA’s meteorologists use to change the Weather Sphere, and the “spider” tracker on the camera, we can move along with the camera to bring you into the forecast!