Chicago Field Museum

Xicato’s world class lighting solutions with open API + ETC’s software enable leading light designers to deliver a life-like experience worthy of the world’s most magnificent fossil.

Sue, the world’s longest Dinosaur lives in Chicago within a collection that dates as far back as 1893 in the Chicago’s Field Museum overlooking the Lake Michigan shoreline. Even within the impressive collection of over 40 million artifacts, the museum’s most prized possession is no doubt the very unique member of the family Sue, the world’s most complete Tyrannosaurus specimen. The fossils alone reach forty feet making up the most expensive collection in the world at nearly $8.7 million. Discovered in 1990, Sue’s first debut at the Chicago Field Museum was in 2000 and remains today a rare look into the dinosaur world of 67 million years ago.

The First AV Execution of its Kind

A display of Sue’s magnitude needs to be extremely flexible, of highest quality and lifelike without use of damaging sunlight on the delicate artifacts. For a theatrical presentation, the exhibit designers at the Field Museum deployed ETC color-changing fixtures incorporating Xicato’s class leading complete solutions including Bluetooth controls hardware, software and light sources renowned for their quality. Using the Xicato’s open API platform, ETC created a software module within their Mosaic Show Controller to send show cues to the Xicato Intelligent Modules light source (XIM), triggering preset scenes for the exhibit lighting. This flexibility allowed a seamless integration between the wired DMX controls and Bluetooth Mesh wireless Xicato Controls. Both companies believe in open control platforms and architectures allowing designers the flexibility to customize and deploy the appropriate control solutions for the application.

“The use of theatrical fixtures controls the focus onto different parts of the display, making it appear more life-like. We created drama through fixtures that excite the audience, encourage them to use their imaginations,” Thatcher Waller, Lighting Designer, Lightswitch Chicago.

Xicato is at the forefront of intelligent and connected lighting controls that allows light designers to bring their art to life with unparalleled light quality and consistency with an unmatched 7 years of guarantee. Light designers consistently select Xicato when only the best quality and flexibility is called for.

“With Xicato’s open API, we strive to foster interoperability between control systems and lighting to bring environments to life, all while minimizing the involvement of manual operation,” Sam Miri, Senior VP Sales & Business Development, Xicato.