At NASA Headquarters’ Earth Information Center, the display installation turns an architectural facade into the view from a spacecraft looking at Earth. ITI’s challenge was to align and mask imagery across the central LED wall and flanking displays so it fits the facade’s openings.
The brief
The public interactive exhibit opened in June 2023 in the east lobby of NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC, to make Earth observations understandable and usable. Its audiences include the public and decision-makers: emergency managers assessing hazards, farmers tracking drought and storms, and land-use planners considering development and wildfire recovery. NASA developed the center with founding partners FEMA, EPA, NOAA, USAID, USDA and USGS.
Samsung The Wall for NASA’s 22-foot hyperwall
Samsung The Wall at a 0.84 mm pixel pitch forms the central display, which NASA describes as the exhibit’s 22-foot LED “hyperwall.” It presents near-real-time dashboards and satellite visualizations covering subjects such as air quality, agriculture and hurricanes. ITI furnished and installed the wall in 2023, alongside the flanking Samsung displays.
Analog Way Picturall aligns imagery to the facade
The Analog Way Picturall MSP16 MKII media server maps and masks content to the architecture across the main wall and flanking displays. The flanking displays sit behind circular openings, and masking also shapes the imagery on the main wall. Aligning the image to those openings creates the appearance of portals looking out at Earth.
Crestron control with content cue recall
Crestron control gives operators a touch-screen interface for storing and recalling numbered content cue stacks. Audio levels, microphone mute and camera presets are available through the same control system. The installation also provides presentation audio and a press feed, plus a USB camera and audio connection for visiting laptops, allowing the space to accommodate speakers and video calls.
The result
Visitors see Earth imagery framed by the facade’s portals, with playback aligned to the openings. Operators can store and recall content cues from the Crestron touch screen. ITI continues to support the video wall under a one-year maintenance agreement that began in September 2026.
- Location
- Washington, DC
- Sector
- Federal government; public science exhibit
- ITI scope
- Systems integration: display, playback, audio and control
- AV engineering & programming
- Pershing Technologies
- Systems
- Direct view LED, media playback, content cue control, presentation audio, video conferencing
- Systems integration
- ITI Systems
- AV engineering & programming
- Pershing Technologies
Systems installed
- LED wall
- Samsung The Wall built from IW008A direct view LED cabinets at a 0.84 mm pixel pitch, driven over fiber by two Samsung S-Box controllers. Furnished and installed in 2023.
- Media playback
- Analog Way Picturall MSP16 MKII media server with four DisplayPort outputs, a 32 x 32 Dante license, dual 10 GbE ports for control and streaming sources, and 8 TB of NVMe storage. BrightSign XC4055 four-output player as a further content source.
- Flanking displays
- Two 85-inch Samsung QM85R-B displays on Chief LVS1U-G mounts, each fed by a Crestron DM Lite HD-TX/HD-RX-101-C-E extender pair.
- Control
- Crestron CP4 processor and rack-mounted TSW-1070 touch screen. The interface stores and recalls numbered content cue stacks, includes an advanced cue playback mode, and provides audio level, microphone mute and camera preset pages.
- Audio processing
- QSC Q-SYS Core Nano with the SLCOM-8N-P scaling license.
- Amplification and loudspeakers
- Ashly ne8250.70 eight-channel 70 V network amplifier feeding Bose EdgeMax EM180 and EM90 and DesignMax DM5C ceiling loudspeakers.
- Presenter microphones
- Four channels of Shure ULX-D wireless with DPA 4080 lavalier and 4088 headset microphones.
- Press feed
- Dante-fed AudioPressBox APB-112 SB-D with 12 press outputs.
- Laptop video calls
- QSC NC-20x60 PTZ camera and Q-SYS I/O USB Bridge provide a USB camera and audio path for a visiting laptop.
- Additional video extension
- A further Crestron DM Lite HD-TX-101-C-E and HD-RX-101-C-E extender pair was added later in 2023.