Founded in 2004 on technology patented at MIT in 1998. Scalable Display Technologies invented camera-based automatic projector calibration — and has spent over two decades proving why it remains the industry standard.
The technology behind every Scalable product was developed in the 1990s at MIT by Dr. Rajeev Surati, Dr. Samson Timoner, and their thesis advisor Dr. Tom Knight, Jr. They were attempting to build a gigapixel display and ran into the problem of display alignment: the difficulty of forming a single seamless image from multiple projectors. The idea was born to automate the process with a camera and sophisticated algorithms, creating a canvas of any size or resolution.
MIT filed a patent on the technology in 1998. The patent was granted in 2002. Scalable Display Technologies was founded in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 2004 to bring that technology to market.
This makes Scalable the original creators of camera-based automatic projector calibration, not a company that adopted the technology, but the company that invented it. Scalable is a true software company, focused on perfecting a niche product to serve a global market. Over two decades of development, deployment, and refinement have produced a software platform that has been tested against the most demanding acceptance criteria on earth and has passed every time.
Scalable remains the only company in the world solely focused on automatic calibration solutions. We aim to provide our clients with a world class customer experience and the best software products on the market to achieve their vision.
Meet the team behind the technology →Camera-based automatic calibration is both simpler and more precise than any manual approach — and Scalable invented it.
Our Scalable Display Client displays dynamic patterns across each projector, which the camera captures. The patterns adapt to lighting conditions and obstructions to maximize the chance of a successful calibration, and multiple pattern options provide added robustness and reliability
Scalable works with a single camera or several, placed anywhere with a clear view of the screen. The camera captures the patterns and reconstructs the precise location of every projector in 3D space. Where those patterns fall on the screen surface tells the software how to compute an accurate pixel warp and edge blend. The camera also calculates the optimal 3D View Frustum for each projector.
Using the same calibration cameras, the software measures color and brightness across the display and applies spatially varying corrections at any point in any projector. It compensates for hot spots and falloff caused by rear projection, collimation, or other advanced display challenges, with transitions imperceptible to the human eye for total immersion.
Projectors drift over time due to heat, vibration, and light source aging. Scalable's software corrects that drift on any schedule, at any time, maintaining display accuracy across the entire operational life of the installation. Recalibration runs without a technician on site, maximizing system uptime and availability so training and operations and the guest experience never has to stop.
Scalable holds over 20 patents covering warp, blend, colour calibration, and automatic recalibration. The core algorithms were developed at MIT and have been continuously refined across two decades of professional deployment.
Flat walls, curved screens, full domes, hemispheres, cylinders, CAVEs, polygonal facets, and freeform 3D surfaces. Scalable software handles every geometry that exists in professional display environments.
Scalable software works with projectors from all major manufacturers — Barco, Christie, Sony, NEC, Panasonic, and others. OEM technology is embedded in Barco, Hitachi, NEC, and Ricoh products directly.
SDM's geometric correction achieves sub-degree arc uniformity across the entire display surface — independently verified using theodolite measurement equipment. This is the specification that military simulation programs require.
Scalable holds a deep patent portfolio covering the core algorithms that power camera-based display calibration — warp computation, edge blending, colour correction, and automatic recalibration. These patents are the result of foundational research at MIT and two decades of continuous innovation.
Scalable enters into non-exclusive technology licensing agreements with OEM partners, allowing them to embed auto-calibration as a feature of their own display products. If you are an OEM supplier of display products, contact us to discuss licensing.
Whether you're designing a new simulation facility, a theme park spectacular, or a large-scale visualization environment — our team has seen it and solved it before. Let's talk.