Three newly published Disney patent filings lay out how the company built the projection-mapped skeleton pirate that debuted at Pirates of the Caribbean in June, technology Imagineering had teased the previous November. Each filing covers a different piece of the system. While Walt Disney Imagineering has previously outlined the tech, the patents offer additional detail. Here’s a closer look!
Disney Patents Projection-Mapped Faces for Audio-Animatronics
IN THIS ARTICLE:
- Three separate Disney patents describe the mechanical skin, hidden tracking markers, and failure-resistant alignment system behind the effect.
- One patent explains how the pirate’s UV-reactive bandanna markers work, and why Disney moved away from older fiducial-marker methods.
- The filings account for nearly every detail Imagineering has described publicly, with one notable exception.
The Skin That Makes The Face
The first filing, “Dynamic Mechanical Skin Structures For Animatronic Figures,” describes the physical layer beneath any projected animatronic face. Traditional Audio-Animatronics figures rely on a rigid shell with cut mouth and eye openings. This patent instead describes a continuous skin stretched over a shell. Actuators sit behind that skin to push, pull, or stretch the material into shapes.
The skin can include internal substrates, reliefs, or voids that make certain areas fold or stretch more easily than others. That essentially builds flex points into specific spots so the material bends where Imagineers want it to. This matters because a continuous skin without seams or apertures lasts longer than traditional animatronic skins. Those older skins tend to crack and tear at high-stress points like the corners of a mouth. The patent notes the material used can include silicone, neoprene, latex, or self-healing elastomers. Disney chose these partly for how well they hold up over years of repeated motion.
The actuators described in the filing include motors and linkages, pneumatic or hydraulic bladders that change shape under fluid pressure. They also include shape memory alloys that change form when heated or cooled. Any of these can push a recess inward to form an open mouth or a widened eye. The skin then springs back to its resting shape once the actuator releases. These types of behind-the-skin movements are critical to keep the face structure lifelike and consistent with the projected image.
This is the foundational hardware, and it explains how a face can physically move. It doesn’t explain how Disney keeps a projected image locked onto that moving surface, though.
Markers Hidden In Plain Sight
The second filing, “Skin Embedded Markers For Dynamic Projection Mapping Of Animatronic Figures,” addresses that exact point. It lines up almost exactly with what Imagineering described publicly about the pirate’s bandanna. The patent’s background section calls out the industry’s older method: physical QR code fiducials taped to a figure. Those have to be manually placed and removed every time the system needs recalibrating. That approach is slow and labor-intensive. As the patent puts it, the fiducials can also visibly interfere with the look of whatever they’re stuck to.
The fix described here is to embed markers directly into the animatronic’s skin using paint mixed with ultraviolet or infrared pigment. Under normal lighting, the markers stay invisible, but a UV or IR light source changes that. A camera then detects the light signature the markers produce, either reflected light bouncing off the pigment or a fluorescent glow the pigment gives off. From those positions, the system calculates exactly where the camera sits relative to the skin in real time. A controller then aligns projected content to match, adjusting for the skin’s position, orientation, and even its topography if actuators have deformed it.
The manufacturing process also gets a detailed walkthrough. A stencil goes inside a mold first, and paint mixed with UV or IR pigment is then sprayed through the stencil and onto the mold. Once the stencil comes off, the actual skin material is poured into the mold and left to cure around the now-embedded paint. The result is a skin with fiducials built in at the manufacturing stage rather than applied afterward, invisible to guests but readable by any camera watching for that wavelength.
This is very plainly the innovation behind the pirate’s bandanna, though the patent describes the technique generically rather than referencing one specific attraction or character.
Keeping The Projection Looking Good, Even When Something Breaks
The third filing, “Hybrid Approach To Perform Dynamic Projection Mapping Onto Robotic Figures In Real-Time,” ties the first two together. It adds the piece that explains Disney’s redundancy claims. This patent describes combining two categories of tracking data. Intrinsic tracking comes from sensors positioned inside the animatronic itself. These include encoders, inertial measurement units, and hall effect detectors that report on the position and movement of internal actuators. Extrinsic tracking comes from sensors positioned outside the animatronic that observe the figure. These include cameras, LiDAR, radar, or the marker-reading systems described in the second patent.
A sensor fusion algorithm weighs both data sets against each other. The patent explains why that matters: a weakness in one tracking method can be offset by the other. Intrinsic tracking is fast and accurate, but it can’t account for real-world wear, such as motor backlash or a joint that has slipped out of calibration over time. Extrinsic tracking can see the figure’s actual position from the outside, but it tends to run slower and noisier. Combined, the two produce what the patent calls combined tracking data, with less uncertainty than either source alone.
That combination is what allows the system to keep functioning through a mechanical failure. The patent states that its tracking procedures let the alignment between projected content and a moving projection surface continue “even if an actuator or a motor of the animatronic fails or breaks.” That works because the tracking mechanisms can still report the animatronic’s actual position to the controller, broken part and all. From there, the projected content gets adjusted to match wherever the figure actually is, rather than where it was supposed to be. The patent adds that this can make a broken or worn-out motor “less noticeable” to guests until a technician gets to fix it.
Multiple Projectors
Not every detail Imagineering has described publicly about the pirate effect shows up in these three filings, though. Disney has said the scene uses two projectors, with only one active and the second on standby as a backup. None of the three patents describes that specific active and standby arrangement. Each filing refers only to a projection system made up of one or more projectors, phrasing generic enough to include a backup setup without necessarily spelling it out.
Next-Gen Audio-Animatronics
None of the three filings name Pirates of the Caribbean or any specific character. Patent applications don’t always describe technology exactly as it ships in a finished attraction, either.
As a quick aside, I’ve seen fans question what makes this tech different than projection faces that have existed in the parks for some time. The difference here is that those projection faces, like the ones seen on Seven Dwarfs Mine Train, are internally projected. This patent and underlying tech is concerned with externally projected, projection-mapped faces.
In total, the new Pirates of the Caribbean audio-animatronic appears to be more of a test of the tech out in the field than something that was necessarily needed to enhance the storyline of the attraction. The projection-mapped audio-animatronic faces appear to be the tech of the future when it comes to Disney’s plans for next-gen figures.
Keep Reading
- Walt Disney Imagineering Unveils Next Generation of Audio-Animatronics, Possible Sneak Peek at Villains Land Figures: Go back to where this technology started, including the list of characters Disney named as potential beneficiaries of real-time projection mapping.
- Disney Debuts First Projection-Mapped Face On An Audio-Animatronic: Read our full breakdown of the pirate’s in-park debut, including the curse storyline the new face lets him act out for the first time.
As always, keep checking back with us here at BlogMickey.com as we continue to bring you the latest news, photos, and info from around the Disney Parks!