Al Arabiya, the pan-Arab news channel of MBC Group headquartered in Dubai Media City, built a large outdoor augmented-reality virtual-studio set for its coverage of the November 8, 2016 U.S. presidential election. Al Arabiya's Head of Graphics, Fadi Radi, said the channel wanted to cover the election in a way that reflected its impact on the Arab world and to explain its complexity clearly for viewers, after having used AR graphics with live data for prior elections.
For the production, Al Arabiya used its own MBC building in Dubai Media City as a backdrop for a large AR videowall and the adjacent Dubai Media City lake as a platform for further AR graphics -- including 3D maps, a giant rendered U.S. Capitol building with Arabic-language result banners, dynamic 3D models, live social-media comments and live election results. Al Arabiya's own design team built the graphics as immersive objects in Viz Artist; a single Viz Engine rendered and displayed the live graphics in real time; and Vizrt's Tracking Hub processed live camera-tracking data supplied by Spidercam, whose cable-suspended camera rig -- normally anchored to stadium structures -- was instead mounted to temporary cranes on one side of the lake and trusses on the MBC building roof on the other, since no natural mounting points existed at the lake venue. The physical rig was not fully in place until roughly four days before the election, so graphic sizing and positioning had to be estimated in advance and calibrated on-site by Vizrt engineers ahead of election night. Vizrt, which has worked with Al Arabiya for over a decade, supplied its most powerful available Viz Engine plus specialist on-site technical staff for the production.
Approximately 150 people from Al Arabiya, Vizrt and Spidercam worked on the production, which rendered complex 3D models of up to 80 million polygons across roughly 9,290 square meters of AR graphics over the lake and a 2,025 square meter AR videowall in front of the MBC building. Al Arabiya reported that 55% of total Middle East viewers watched its election coverage — a figure supplied by the broadcaster and its technology partner rather than independently audited ratings.
