Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

CHALLENGE

The University of Western Australia (UWA) recently opened a new collaborative learning space that is itself a superb example of collaboration between architect, client and integrator. The project comprised a $6m refurbishment of M Block at Perth’s Queen Elizabeth II Medical Centre that created a technology-rich wet lab and three interconnected e-learning suites for two schools within the UWA Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. The university’s vision was to replace traditional ‘show and tell’ methods of teaching students about cell pathology with practical sessions that would see them work together to analyse data on real patient blood samples.

SOLUTION

An amazingly elegant and simple solution based around the newly-released AMX Enova DVX- 3155HD all-in-one presentation switcher which allowed all sharing to be done entirely in the video domain. Four of the six student laptop inputs were connected using the Enova’s multiformat Inputs 1–4. As a bonus, with a simple cable change, this ensured compatibility with any analogue laptops, which could only provide a VGA signal. The other two laptops, plus the two Mac Mini PCs at each desk used HDMI Inputs 5-8. Finally, one of the two built in DXLink inputs provided a feed from the lecturer’s equipment. Two of the HDMI outputs provided scaled outputs to the local Sony FWD42 LCD displays, while one of the DXLink outputs routed any selected student laptop back to the lecturer’s position for viewing or distribution back to any pod. An AMX seven-inch (180mm) X-series touch panel completed the picture on each pod, providing simple selection of monitor inputs.

IMPACT

"Catering for all kinds of input resolutions could have been a huge nightmare, But the inbuilt scaling on the DVX-3155 handles anything we throw at it and still produces a great picture on the monitor."

– Pro AV Solutions Representative