Fulldome refers to immersive dome-based video display environments. The dome, horizontal or tilted, is filled with real-time (interactive) or pre-rendered (linear) computer animations, live capture images, or composited environments.
Although the current technology emerged in the early-to-mid 1990s, fulldome environments have evolved from numerous influences, including immersive art and storytelling, with technological roots in domed architecture, planetariums, multi-projector film environments, flight simulation, and virtual reality.
Initial approaches to moving fulldome imagery used wide-angle lenses, both 35mm and 70 mm film, but the expense and ungainly nature of the film medium prevented much progress; furthermore, film formats such as Omnimax did not cover the full two pisteradians of the dome surface, leaving a section of the dome blank (though, due to seating arrangements, that part of the dome was not seen by most viewers). Later approaches to fulldome utilized monochromaticvector graphics systems projected through a fisheye lens. Contemporary configurations employ rastervideo projectors, either singly or grouped together to cover the dome surface with full-color images and animations.
Fulldome video projection can use a variety of technologies in two typical formats: single- and multiple-projector systems. The individual projector(s) can be driven by a variety of video sources, typically feeding material rendered in either real-time or pre-rendered modes. The result is a video image that covers an entire domed projection surface, yielding an immersive experience that fills a viewer's field of view.
Single-projector versus multiple-projector systems
Single-projector fulldome video systems use a single (or mixed) video source displayed through a single fisheye lens, typically located at or near the center of a hemispherical projection surface. A single projector has the benefit of avoiding edge blends (see below) between multiple projectors. The main disadvantage of single fisheye systems is that they are limited to the resolution of one projector, and in the smallest dimension of the video image to cover a full dome. Another disadvantage of central projectors is the loss of the center of the dome for optimal viewing of the reconstructed perspective view provided by true hemispheric projection, a problem shared with traditional planetarium projectors. However, this disadvantage fades as audience size increases (everyone cannot be at the center of the dome anyway).
Single-projector mirror systems, initially pioneered by Mirrordome at Swinburne University, are now offered by various manufacturers. These systems are positioned along the edge of the dome to enhance seating capacity, reduce costs, and facilitate the transition of analog planetariums to digital formats without sacrificing their star projectors. It is also possible to build such a system at relatively low cost. The main disadvantage is noticeably lower projection quality compared to purpose-built lenses, despite being able to project a higher proportion of the projector resolution.
Multiple-projector fulldome video systems rely on two or more video projectors edge-blended to create a seamless image that covers a hemispherical projection surface; splitting the entire image up into segments allows for higher-resolution imagery and projector placement that does not intrude on the viewing area underneath the dome. A disadvantage of multiple projection is the need to frequently adjust the alignment of projectors and the uneven aging of separate projectors leading to brightness and color differences between segments. Even minor performance differences between projectors can be obvious when projecting a solid color across the entire scene. Edge blended areas where projectors overlap often have some smearing, double images, and can have very obvious additive black level areas if poorly designed or configured.
For multi-projector systems, in particular, display devices must have a low black level (i.e., project little or no light when no signal is sent to them) to allow for reasonable edge-blending between the different projector footprints. Otherwise, overlapping video images will have an additive effect, causing a complex pattern of grey to appear even when no image is being projected. This becomes particularly important for users in the planetarium field, who have a vested interest in projecting a dark night sky. The desire for projectors to "go to black" has resulted in continued use of CRT technology, even as newer and less expensive technologies have emerged.
LCD projectors have fundamental limits on their ability to project true black as well as light, which has tended to limit their use in planetariums. LCOS and modified LCOS projectors have improved on LCD contrast ratios while also eliminating the "screen door" effect of small gaps between LCD pixels. "Dark chip" DLP projectors improve on the standard DLP design and can offer a relatively inexpensive solution with bright images, but the black level requires physical baffling of the projectors. As the technology matures and reduces in price, laser projection looks promising for dome projection as it offers bright images, large dynamic range and a very wide color space.
DOME lenses and standard lens are similar in some ways. They both depend on the type of display device: LCD, DLP, LCOS, D-ILA, etc.; and the size chip or panel that is part of this device. The unique feature of the DOME lens is the actual shape of the glass, the projected image spill out from the top and all around the circumference of the lens. The biggest advantage is how this type of lens maintains focus over the full 180 x 180 field of view. A single standard flat field or curved field lens would have major focus and distortion issue. Several lens developers offer DOME lenses with each designed to a specific projector class and a display device. These lenses can cover a variety of pixel sizes and display resolutions.
Types of content
360-degree and 180-degreecontent creatorfilmmakers are developing more and more refined feature-length ready fulldome films and virtual reality content every year.[7][8][9][10][11] And computer graphic (CG) content is a source of material for fulldome, that can be live simulator output, such as from planetarium simulation software, or prerecorded fulldome video. Live-Action FullDome videos are becoming more available for dome use as digital video camera resolutions increase. Real Time content can also be displayed, referring to fulldome content that is not pre-rendered and generated using VJ software or game engines.
First dome-based vector/calligraphic scan scientific visualization system at SIGGRAPH, installed by the North Carolina Supercomputing Center using a reprogrammed Digistar I for molecular visualization
British Telecom uses a vertical five-meter Alternate Realities Corporation VisionDome for its "Shared Spaces" media environment research programme, incorporating computer graphics, virtual landscapes, data graphics, video, composited live action. and spatialized sound.[19][20]
August: Full-day SIGGRAPH '95 course entitled "Graphics Design and Production for Hemispheric Projection" introduces spherical perspective, hemispheric projection, and suggests a convergence of simulation systems employing edge-blended raster video projection, virtual reality systems such as the CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment), and planetarium theaters to create a new medium with an enhanced illusion of presence. Organized by Ed Lantz with presenters Mike Hutton, Steven Savage and Chris Ward.
1996
July 13–19: First Goto Virtuarium demonstrated at the International Planetarium Society Conference in Osaka, Japan
April: First permanent installation of Spitz ElectricSky at Northern Lights Center in Yukon Territory, Canada using three Electrohome 9500 CRT projectors, line-quadrupled video playback, and real-time edge-blends for 200x60-degree field-of-view virtual desktop. Bowen Technovation produces the first three shows for this new system.
May 7–10: Spitz ElectricSky publicly unveiled at MAPS conference in Chadds Ford, PA.Bowen Technovation introduces show capabilities and production methods for the new technology.
1998
May 22 – September 30: The Oceania pavilion opens at the EXPO 98 in Lisbon, Portugal. Among numerous virtual reality exhibits, it includes The Artefact Room, a 7-meter dome VisionDome theater with interactive 3D animations of a fly-through of Atlantis that are controlled by 40 participants simultaneously.[21]
June 28 – July 2: Sky-Skan premieres SkyVision at the International Planetarium Society Conference in London, UK. First astronomical digital fulldome animation shown to audiences there, "Pillars of Creation" by Don Davis, and a solar system tour and International Space Station animation by Tom Casey of Home Run Pictures. This marks the first public demonstration of fulldome video, distinguished by playback of actual video—as opposed to previous efforts based on proprietary image generators using vector or raster graphics—covering a full hemisphere.
December: Vertical dome installation by SGI and Trimension at University of Teesside, UK.[22]
BMW Group EarthLounge[24] Premiere of the ADLIP (All-Dome Laser Image Projection) System from Carl Zeiss with SkyVision Full Dome Video System and DigitalSky from Sky-Skan and fulldome film by LivinGlobe (ag4, Exponent3) in the world's largest fulldome projection dome (24m) at the UN World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg South Africa.
2002
First full Digital planetarium in the world installed (RSA Cosmos SkyExplorer) inaugurated in Valladolid, Spain.[25]
2003
Clark Planetarium (formerly Hansen Planetarium) reopens in Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.A., with an Evans & Sutherland Digistar 3
Adler Planetarium upgrades their StarRider to the new Evans & Sutherland Digistar 3 system. The mini-dome also opens in their production department running both the Digistar 3 SP and Producer systems.
The first digital planetarium systems designed for the portable market are introduced independently by Digitalis Education Solutions and by Sky-Skan (in partnership with Rice University and the Houston Museum of Natural Science). HMNS/Rice version subsequently diverges to become Discovery Dome, in distribution through ePlanetarium.
November 3: The Eugenides Planetarium of Athens, Greece, re-opens premiering its first 40-minute production "Cosmic Odyssey" with both a fulldome Sky Skan Skyvision-Digital Sky system and an Evans & Sutherland Digistar 3 system under a 24,5 meter Astrotec dome.
2004
First DomeFest held at the LodeStar Astronomy Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico, U.S.A.
First ASTC Fulldome Showcase held at Tech Museum of Innovation, San Jose, CA
First Immersive Cinema movie R+J[26](Romeo and Juliet) by LivinGlobe
First fulldome animation feature film `Kaluoka´hina, the Enchanted Reef´ Kaluoka´hina, the Enchanted Reef by Softmachine Softmachine
December: Beijing Planetarium New Building opens in Beijing, China, with a Silicon Graphics Onyx 300 and the first fulldome laser display (Zeiss ADLIP)
2005
GOTO installs the first complete fulldome sphere at EXPO 2005 in Aichi, Japan
2007
October: Obscura Digital and The Elumenati develop a temporary 90' diameter geodesic fulldome experience for Google's Zeitgeist event on the Google campus
UCSB AlloSphere opens with full surround audio and video for multiple users
2008
January: Sky-Skan installs the world's first full dome 3D Stereoscopic Planetarium at Imiloa Astronomy Center of Hawaii in Hilo, Hawaii. Imiloa Planetarium first Stereoscopic show is "Dawn of the Space Age" produced by Mirage IIID.
2008
July: Sky-Skan demonstrates Definiti 8K: a 60,000 lumen, 8k x 8k fulldome projection system at IPS 2008 at Adler Planetarium in Chicago rivaling image quality of large-format film (system subsequently opens at Beijing Planetarium)
2008
July: Carl Zeiss demonstrates prototype "Velvet" projectors at IPS 2008 at Adler Planetarium in Chicago. Zeiss designed the Velvet Series from the ground up for the planetarium environment, and achieves an unparalleled black background to preserve the quality of the fulldome/planetarium experience.
2009
March: University of Colorado Denver College of Arts and Media (CAM) set up a 25 Mac Octo-core Cinema 4D and After Effects Render Farm to specifically process full dome content alongside Denver Museum of Nature Science and IMERSA
2010
June: Vortex Immersion Media installs a 50-foot immersive cinema digital dome theater on the studio lot at Los Angeles Center Studios in downtown Los Angeles as an arts and entertainment R&D studio managed and run by Ed Lantz, MEE. Together, he and Kate McCallum, Producer, create an AIR: Artist In Residence Program to promote the creation and presentation of experimental projects in the dome space such as; live music+art concerts, mixed media musicals, a 360 ballet, performance art, theater, and 360 cinema projects.
November: Institute of American Indian Arts opens the world's first fully articulating digital dome.
2011
January: University of Washington Planetarium opens first 6 channel HD full dome digital projection conversion based entirely on Microsoft Research WorldWide Telescope. Done on a hardware and construction budget of 40,000 USD the planetarium features the world's largest all-sky panorama at 1 terapixel, allowing zooming to 1 arc-second per pixel anywhere in the sky. UW graduate student Philip Rosenfield presented a paper[27] at the Astronomical Society of the Pacific 2010 Cosmos and EPO symposia describing the design and construction of the system.
2013
October: Fiske Planetarium at University of Colorado opens true hybrid optical-8K digital theater, with a Sky-Skan 8K Definiti projection system linked to a Megastar IIA optical star projector.
2014
July: Digitalis Education Solutions, Inc releases the lightest all-in-one digital planetarium projection system, the Digitarium Iota. Weighing only 20.6lbs and 33.5lbs respectively, the Digitarium Iota and Digitarium Delta 3 systems represent a portable-first design philosophy to complement its new flagship fixed-dome system, the Digitarium Aethos.
2015
January: Emerald planetariums releases their 3D portable digital theaters, with a stereoscopic fulldome projection system linked to their MV2 planetarium simulation software. As a part of the LITE series of portable planetarium systems.
Virtual reality (VR) is a simulated experience that employs 3D near-eye displays and pose tracking to give the user an immersive feel of a virtual world. Applications of virtual reality include entertainment, education and business. VR is one of the key technologies in the reality-virtuality continuum. As such, it is different from other digital visualization solutions, such as augmented virtuality and augmented reality.
A planetarium is a theatre built primarily for presenting educational and entertaining shows about astronomy and the night sky, or for training in celestial navigation.
An LCD projector is a type of video projector for displaying video, images or computer data on a screen or other flat surface. It is a modern equivalent of the slide projector or overhead projector. To display images, LCD projectors typically send light from a metal-halide lamp through a prism or series of dichroic filters that separates light to three polysilicon panels – one each for the red, green and blue components of the video signal. As polarized light passes through the panels, individual pixels can be opened to allow light to pass or closed to block the light. The combination of open and closed pixels can produce a wide range of colors and shades in the projected image.
Liquid crystal on silicon is a miniaturized reflective active-matrix liquid-crystal display or "microdisplay" using a liquid crystal layer on top of a silicon backplane. It is also known as a spatial light modulator. LCoS initially was developed for projection televisions, but has since found additional uses in wavelength selective switching, structured illumination, near-eye displays and optical pulse shaping.
A video projector is an image projector that receives a video signal and projects the corresponding image onto a projection screen using a lens system. Video projectors use a very bright ultra-high-performance lamp, Xenon arc lamp, metal halide lamp, LED or solid state blue, RB, RGB or fiber-optic lasers to provide the illumination required to project the image. Most modern projectors can correct any curves, blurriness and other inconsistencies through manual settings.
Digital light processing (DLP) is a set of chipsets based on optical micro-electro-mechanical technology that uses a digital micromirror device. It was originally developed in 1987 by Larry Hornbeck of Texas Instruments. While the DLP imaging device was invented by Texas Instruments, the first DLP-based projector was introduced by Digital Projection Ltd in 1997. Digital Projection and Texas Instruments were both awarded Emmy Awards in 1998 for the DLP projector technology. DLP is used in a variety of display applications from traditional static displays to interactive displays and also non-traditional embedded applications including medical, security, and industrial uses.
A cave automatic virtual environment is an immersive virtual reality environment where projectors are directed to between three and six of the walls of a room-sized cube. The name is also a reference to the allegory of the Cave in Plato's Republic in which a philosopher contemplates perception, reality, and illusion.
The Fernbank Science Center is a museum, classroom, and woodland complex located in Atlanta. It is owned and operated by the DeKalb County School District, which announced in May 2012 it was considering closing the facility to cut its annual budget, then quickly shelved the plan after public outcry. The nearby Fernbank Museum of Natural History is a private non-profit organization that is separate from the Science Center.
A handheld projector is an image projector in a handheld device. It was developed as a computer display device for compact portable devices such as mobile phones, personal digital assistants, and digital cameras, which have sufficient storage capacity to handle presentation materials but are too small to accommodate a display screen that an audience can see easily. Handheld projectors involve miniaturized hardware, and software that can project digital images onto a nearby viewing surface.
The grating light valve (GLV) is a "micro projection" technology that operates using a dynamically adjustable diffraction grating. It competes with other light valve technologies such as Digital Light Processing (DLP) and liquid crystal on silicon (LCoS) for implementation in video projector devices such as rear-projection televisions. The use of microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) in optical applications, which is known as optical MEMS or micro-opto-electro-mechanical structures (MOEMS), has enabled the possibility to combine the mechanical, electrical, and optical components in tiny-scale.
A CRT projector is a video projector that uses a small, high-brightness cathode ray tube (CRT) as the image generating element. The image is then focused and enlarged onto a screen using a lens kept in front of the CRT face. The first color CRT projectors came out in the early 1950s. Most modern CRT projectors are color and have three separate CRTs, and their own lenses to achieve color images. The red, green and blue portions of the incoming video signal are processed and sent to the respective CRTs whose images are focused by their lenses to achieve the overall picture on the screen. Various designs have made it to production, including the "direct" CRT-lens design, and the Schmidt CRT, which employed a phosphor screen that illuminates a perforated spherical mirror, all within an evacuated cathode ray tube.
A planetarium projector, also known as a star projector, is a device used to project images of celestial objects onto the dome in a planetarium.
Digistar is the first computer graphics-based planetarium projection and content system. It was designed by Evans & Sutherland and released in 1983. The technology originally focused on accurate and high quality display of stars, including for the first time showing stars from points of view other than Earth's surface, travelling through the stars, and accurately showing celestial bodies from different times in the past and future. Beginning with the Digistar 3 the system now projects full-dome video.
Laser color television, or laser color video display, is a type of television that utilizes two or more individually modulated optical (laser) rays of different colors to produce a combined spot that is scanned and projected across the image plane by a polygon-mirror system or less effectively by optoelectronic means to produce a color-television display. The systems work either by scanning the entire picture a dot at a time and modulating the laser directly at high frequency, much like the electron beams in a cathode ray tube, or by optically spreading and then modulating the laser and scanning a line at a time, the line itself being modulated in much the same way as with digital light processing (DLP).
360-degree videos, also known as surround video, or immersive videos or spherical videos, are video recordings where a view in every direction is recorded at the same time, shot using an omnidirectional camera or a collection of cameras. The term 360x180 can be used to indicate 360° of azimuth and 180° from nadir to zenith. During playback on normal flat display the viewer has control of the viewing direction like a panorama. It can also be played on a display or projectors arranged in a sphere or some part of a sphere.
Rear-projection television (RPTV) is a type of large-screen television display technology. Until approximately 2006, most of the relatively affordable consumer large screen TVs up to 100 in (250 cm) used rear-projection technology. A variation is a video projector, using similar technology, which projects onto a screen.
3LCD is the name and brand of a major LCD projection color image generation technology used in modern digital projectors. 3LCD technology was developed and refined by Japanese imaging company Epson in the 1980s and was first licensed for use in projectors in 1988. In January 1989, Epson launched its first 3LCD projector, the VPJ-700.
B. M. Birla Planetarium is a large planetarium in Chennai, India. The fifth B. M. Birla planetarium in the country, it is located at Kotturpuram in the Periyar Science and Technology Centre campus which houses eight galleries, namely, Physical Science, Electronics and Communication, Energy, Life Science, Innovation, Transport, International Dolls and Children and Materials Science, with over 500 exhibits. Built in 1988 in the memory of the great industrialist and visionary of India B. M. Birla, it is considered the most modern planetarium in India, providing a virtual tour of the night sky and holding cosmic shows on a specially perforated hemispherical aluminium inner dome. Other Birla planetariums in India include the M. P. Birla Planetarium in Kolkata, the Birla Planetarium in Hyderabad, and the planetariums in Tiruchirapalli and Coimbatore.
Abrams Planetarium is the planetarium on the campus of Michigan State University, Michigan, United States.
Projection mapping, similar to video mapping and spatial augmented reality, is a projection technique used to turn objects, often irregularly shaped, into display surfaces for video projection. The objects may be complex industrial landscapes, such as buildings, small indoor objects, or theatrical stages. Using specialized software, a two- or three-dimensional object is spatially mapped on the virtual program which mimics the real environment it is to be projected on. The software can then interact with a projector to fit any desired image onto the surface of that object. The technique is used by artists and advertisers who can add extra dimensions, optical illusions, and notions of movement onto previously static objects. The video is commonly combined with or triggered by audio to create an audiovisual narrative. In recent years the technique has also been widely used in the context of cultural heritage, as it has proved to be an excellent edutainment tool.
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