John Weiley's Heart of the Sun
"Digital Dome-Ocracy,"
In 2002, fulldome theater systems capable of showing both real-time and pre-rendered CGI color graphics began to come to market. Prominent manufacturers include Evans & Sutherland, Sky-Skan, Spitz and Global Immersion. The fulldome theater network began to grow rapidly, at a rate approaching 100 new installations per year, today totaling nearly 400 venues. The current industry shows every sign of maintaining or surpassing that pace.
Planetarium and museum operators are attracted to fulldome systems because they provide, at relatively low cost, the ability to navigate 3D astrophysical databases in real-time, and a common playback platform that enables all systems to display shows from the same pre-rendered content library. Projection domes range from portable to mid-size setups of 20-feet to 40-feet in diameter that are popular with schools, to high-profile venues such as Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles having domes up to 70 feet across.
The growth of fulldome systems and of content creation for those systems is being driven by creative collaboration among hardware and software developers, scientists, artists and educators in the community. In researching the article, Silleck spoke with leading educational figures and system vendors including Carter Emmart, director of astrophysical visualization for the Hayden Planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, David Beining of the Lodestar Astronomy Center at the University of New Mexico in Albuquerque, Jeri Panek of Evans & Sutherland (http://www.es.com), Scott Huggins of E&S Spitz (http://www.spitzinc.com) and Paul Tetu of Sky-Skan.
The April-May print edition of IPM Magazine will be distributed at MuseumExpo, the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums (AAM), April 27-May 1 in Denver. For more information and to see the electronic version, visit the IPM Magazine website.
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