Taiwan has returned to the world expo stage for the first time since 1970's Osaka World Expo. This year's theme for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo, "Better City, Better Life," denotes a growing global awareness of environmental issues, and promotes inter-city communication.
 
Taiwan Pavilion this year was designed by renowned architect C.Y. Lee and his team. Inspired by eastern philosophies of Nature, Spirit, City, the design reflects the Expo's theme of merging humanity with nature. The sky lantern-shaped exterior symbolizes "hopes" and "prayers"towards the future, while the "Heart of Taiwan" interior made from ten of thousands of LED lights serves as the centerpiece to this year's exhibition.
 
The LED display surrounding "The Heart of Taiwan" is a creation of Opto Tech Corporation (OPTOTECH), part of the Taiwan Pavilion construction team. OPTOTECH, with 27 years of experience, appointed our top R&D team to tackle the technically-demanding design. The design is demanding for four reasons. First of all, the Heart of Taiwan measures 16 meters in diameter, and weighs up to 130 tons. The exterior display has to be lightweight to prevent damage to the design, and flexible enough to mold to the shape of the globe. OPTOTECH employed eight different kinds of weight- and flexibility-appropriate LEDs, tens of thousands of point contacts and various settings all over the surface of the globe to achieve this result. Secondly, the multiple displays must be able to display synchronized as well as independent images. OPTOTECH's controller centralizes the synchronization and individual display controls in a single server, effectively simplifying the process.

The third demand was to compensate for the structural tolerance of the globe, with special-made bracket that allow for 3D adjustment (up, down, left, right, forward and backwards) of the lights to achieve smooth rendering. And lastly, to display perfect, undistorted images, OPTOTECH uses an exclusive Mapping technique (600,000 geometric coordinates corresponding to LED dots), setting plane programs point-by-point to the globe's surface so that they can be displayed without distortion. The globe's features:
- The bottom of the globe (the South Pole), 6 meters high and 360 degrees in breadth, is an interactive area for virtual sky lanterns. Visitors can select a virtual lantern of their choice from the interactive panel and release it into the sky.
- The middle of the globe (the Equator), 8.4 meters high and 270 degrees in breadth, is the main daytime display, and can interact with the electronic film on the sky lantern's surface.
- The top of the globe (the North Pole), 11 meters high and 360 degrees in breadth, is designed for nighttime displays.
- The center of the globe facing the VIP room (around the Equator), 8.4 meters high and 90 degrees in breadth, is the VIP viewing area.

This enormous and brilliantly-illuminated 16-meter LED globe shows off the beauty of Taiwan. It is a visual show-stopper, dazzling visitors to Taiwan Pavilion. OPTOTECH is a leading enterprise in Taiwanese LED production industry. With our trail-blazing LED display applications, we proudly take our place on the world stage as the light of Taiwan.
 
For over 150 years, the World Expo has born witness to the progress of the ages, documenting technological development from around the world. From a demonstration of national prowess to an exhibition of environmental awareness, the World Expo has become a global forum and sentinel. Taiwan would not want to miss such an international exhibition, and neither would OPTOTECH.