Press Room

OLYMPUS AND PANORAM TECHNOLOGIES ANNOUNCE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT ALLIANCE

TOKYO/SUN VALLEY (CA), May 30, 2002-
Two worldwide technology companies-Olympus Optical and Panoram Technologies-have announced an alliance to produce and market advanced display system solutions that feature unprecedented resolutions and serviceability in the area of arrayed projection and imaging. The announcement was made jointly by Koji Miyata, Managing Director and Group President Industrial System Group, OLYMPUS OPTICAL CO., LTD, and Panoram President/CEO Theo Mayer. The first-such product, in a planned series, has already been developed "in record time," according to Mayer, and will be introduced this summer.

Olympus and Panoram come together as veterans of arrayed projection and imaging, with separate reputations for meeting specialized needs. Olympus was founded in 1919 with one goal, to produce Japan's first microscope, and met that objective its first year in business. By 1950, the company had evolved into one of the world's preeminent camera manufacturers, while proliferating other products for a rapidly changing society, including the first Microcassette® recorder.

In 2001, Olympus introduced its "ACP" technology, which provides for the automated calibration and maintenance of projector arrays. The automation opens up a number of new opportunities for extreme resolution display systems using many more projectors than would be practical to maintain manually.

Panoram has been commercially deploying arrayed projection systems since 1993 to industries such as oil/gas, manufacturing, scientific computing, as well as to government and defense. The company's visualization facilities are typically powered by a visual super-computer which is capable of outputting images to multiple projectors . The result is an advanced collaboration environment that lets groups of technical users see more information, understand the data better and decide more quickly on actions. This can have profound impacts on a variety of engineering, strategic and scientific activities.

In these arrayed displays, each projector provides only a piece of the total picture, with all the projectors making up a composite image. Careful alignment, color matching and seamless edge blending technology result in brighter, sharper and higher resolution images than are possible in any other way.

"The relationship between Olympus and Panoram is a very natural one," Mayer says. "Olympus has an incredible depth of technology, which includes their automatic calibration technology as well as their engineering and manufacturing, while Panoram is an innovator who specialized on bringing high-end, niche solutions from the lab into the market.

"Together, we can provide a generation of display products that have real utility for high-end specialized needs."

"We are glad that Panoram adopted one of our advanced technologiesinto their latest product line," said Miyata. "Olympus believes Panoram products are sure to make an impact in the display industry and we want to get involved at the forefront of this revolution."

Olympus Optical has headquarters in Japan and Europe. In the United States, Olympus America Inc. is located at 2 Corporate Center, Melville, NY 11747, telephone (631)844-5608.

Panoram Technologies is headquartered at 10951 Pendleton Street, Sun Valley, CA 91352, telephone (818)504-0714, and has its European Operations Center in Berkshire, U.K.