I saw this posted up to facebook, so I went and found the youtube version to share here. Thought this was quite the cool thing they did, supposedly even broke a Guinness world record. The facebook version of the video shared the following specs:

The billboard is 68ft x 42ft
1,760 LED screens that move independently
2 records awarded for this billboard:
-Largest 3D Robotic billboard
-First ever 3D robotic billboard

What are your thoughts on this project?

This is amazing. To have that many LEDs moving individually is just mind blowing! Just goes to show how quickly technology is evolving

Whoa, that's really cool! Do you have some more documentation about how it works, exactly? Is it a grid of solenoids underneath RGB LEDs + diffusers, or something more complex? Thanks for sharing.

I dug around a bit, and it looks like we're not the only ones in awe of this sign and how it's made. Sadly, little information seems to be up about it, but they did manage to compile a little bit, shown here.

Seems to utilize some form of moving cube module. They also possibly found some basic schematics, and a possible test video.

From first glance, it looks like each small LED (AMOLED? you wish) module has a well-calibrated servo behind it. The modules must have low-friction borders, grease, or tiny wheels in order for each one to slide against another so well. It is also assumed that they tested the module design for a wide variety of temperatures, from -5 degrees F to 105 degrees F, and of course for heavy rain and snow.

I wouldn't be surprised if the 3D effect was turned off if excessive amounts of rain or snow occur.

Can you guys imagine the processing power to not only display all of what was there as smoothly as it was, but to also synchronize all the LCDs moving like that?

Looks awesome, we should build one out of TI-83's!

Could you imagine all the TI-83's we'd need to pull this off.

I'm gunna speculate on how this is done.

They have a heightmap, where one pixel of the heightmap is one cube on the display. Black being 100% extended and White being 0% extended. Then they have a series of videos or clips that are just grayscale patterns. A separate process then looks at each pixel and applies its percentage to the distance each corresponding cube should extend to.

Hopefully that makes some sense. It's likely it could be done another way too.

hmmm

Maybe someone could use $400 worth of displays for this and resell what's left over for repairs.
(that would be ~4800 square inches, if my math is right)

Oh, of course, but I would be more concerned with dead pixels and the entire module simply ceasing to work one day, or the servos failing after operating for 40,000 hours or so. I presume they already plan to remove it before the life expectancy is reached.

What about small servos with RGB LED's to rebuild on a small scale?

Wonder how much electricity this consumes.

Oh, and that'd be a LOT of TI-83's.

Although I wonder what they use to control it, or if it is synced to a controller a distance away?

But yeah, this looks pretty cool. Now I have to make a screensaver that replicates it.