3 zone displays in landscape mode - Part 1 : Layouts 3a, 3b, 3c, 3d

Ravi Bail -

With piSignage you can create a display divided into multiple zones with each zone displaying independent content. This is done using the LAYOUTS feature. While there are many prebuilt layouts available with piSignage, you can also build custom layouts in piSignage as per your requirement.

In prebuilt layouts there are  1 zone, 2 zone and 3 zone layouts for creating playlists in piSignage. In multi zone layouts, again you have different layouts based on  size of each zone & arrangement of zones  within a layout. There are  separate layouts for displays set in both landscape and portrait orientation.

In this article we will only explore the layouts for 3 zone display in landscape mode. These built in  layouts  are created  keeping  HD/Full HD screens in mind with a 16:9 aspect ratio (720p/1080p)  as most of our customers use these screens.  

Custom layouts can be created if you have different  screens (piSignage supports NTSC and PAL displays), displays of different dimensions or even if  you need a specific layout structure within a standard HD screen.

Multizone displays are achived by creating playlists in required layouts.

To see different types of layouts available in piSignage

  • Go to playlists Tab in your account
  • Open an existing playlist. Alternatively you can create a new playlist and open it.
  • Towards the top right you will see a layout box. Click on it. A popup window opens showing all the prebuilt layouts options available in piSignage.

You can choose required layout and create a playlist in that layout using assets of appropriate dimensions.

In this write up we will explore all the different 3 zone display layouts in Landscape mode in piSignage.

LAYOUT 3a

Layout 3a helps you create a simple and effective 3 zone display with  an upper main zone , a smaller side zone to the left of main zone and a bottom zone . While all the asset types  supported by piSignage can be displayed here, recommended dimensions are given below.

NOTE

The main zone dimension of this layout is 960x540/1440x810 ie they have an aspect ratio of 16:9. So any image/video  asset with this aspect ratio can be used here. For example assets designed for Layout 1 can be used in Main zone of layout 3a. (Also in main zones of layouts 3b,3c,3d)

Below you can see a small sample display in layout 3a with a use case of restaurant digital signage menu. We will see a demo of building  this 3 layout  display in a separate writeup.

LAYOUT 3b,3c,3d

These layouts vary from Layout 3a just as to where the zones are positioned in the display. You can see in  below that the dimensions of  zones are unchanged, just their  positions in the display re-arranged. These layouts give you freedom to structure your display in multiple ways.

Since all the layouts are structurally same, process of creating playlists in all the 4 layouts is similar. We will see a detailed demo of creating a playlist in a separate writeup.

IMPORTANT
Note that the  zone named Bottom zone from Layout 3a is shifted to top of  the screen in layout 3c and 3d . But the zone is still referred to as Bottom zone. While we agree it may be a bit odd, we kept it same to avoid any unexpected confusions, that may have arisen because of multiple zonal names.