For its live coverage of Canada's October 21, 2019 federal election, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) commissioned Montreal-based broadcast-graphics studio Astucemedia to build a suite of real-time augmented reality graphics for its election-night set, continuing a partnership that began with CBC's AR graphics for the 2015 federal election.
On air, hosts and political analysts interacted with 3D representations of party leaders, the House of Commons, and Canada's Parliament building rendered live over the studio floor. AR graphics displayed Share of Votes, House of Commons seat results and Party Standings for the leading parties, updating automatically from live vote-tally data feeds -- for example, a seat in the AR House of Commons graphic would turn red the moment a Liberal candidate was declared the winner. The AR imagery was synchronized to live camera moves and to an LED-panel studio floor built specifically for the broadcast in Toronto, creating a parallax effect that let the AR content appear to grow physically from the set.
The graphics were built on Vizrt's Viz Artist and Viz Engine real-time rendering systems, with camera tracking supplied by Stype. Astucemedia worked with the CBC team for several months beforehand to design and template the graphics ahead of the live results feed. CBC's Melissa Mercer, Senior Manager of Graphic Design and Specials, said the team returned to Astucemedia after their 2015 debut of AR election graphics "to help us bring our AR graphics to the next level."
