Full Dome: What is it and what can we do with it? Part One

For background, you might consider reading the Wikipedia article on Full Dome. Wikipedia also lists Reuben H. Fleet Science Center as an innovator in the historical  section in 1973.
This page describes  Voyage to the Outer Planets as an IMAX film, but is only partly accurate. A better description of it is that is was a multimedia show: Combining film AND custom made devices and our star projector.

Full Dome is pretty much what it’s name implies. A video image that cover the entire dome. There are several ways of creating this imagery.
One way is using standard computer graphic tools such as 3D Studio Max, Maya, Bryce, Blender or the other software packages out there. The images must be specially created to fill the dome – the target media is NOT a flat screen, but the inside of a dome. And yet we create it ON a flat screen. The creator of Full dome sequences must output the video as a “Dome Master”. This series of 30 still frames per SECOND is saved as PNG format images.  As it will be filling a dome you must make some mental interpretations to view it on a flat screen, until you can see it in its intended locale: inside a hemisphere. Wrap you mind around the following concepts to understand…

Note that the top of the image is UPSIDE DOWN when viewed on the flat screen you are probably seeing this on...

West is on the right side, but rotated 90 degrees, and the East is on the left side, but rotated 90 degrees in the OTHER direction. The Northern direction is upside down.
However, imagine projecting this image on the inside of a dome, not a flat screen like your computer screen, and then imagine you can get inside that dome, sit in the center and rotate your whole body to look at every angle, it would be correct.
The North would be projected not upside down, but on one quarter of the dome, directly opposite of the South. Behind you if you are facing South.

Here is a real image, if you are confused, this should help.

50 degree fish eye type lens

A “Fish Eye Lens”?

Using the before mentioned 3D software, the stills are rendered using a virtual fish eye lens. A real fish eye lens captures light from 180 degrees around the camera.
The virtual fish eye uses ray tracing to trace the rays of light from the light source, to the objects in the scene,  and then to the “camera”. Depending on its setting, you can render images for a small flat screen, or for the larger fulldome format.

Fish Eye Lens Diagram

A fish in still water can see the world above the water through a circular window overhead. This is an optical phenomenon known as “Snell’s Window,” and it happens to not only fish eyes.
If you lie in water and look up the water surface, you will see just the same thing: By the action of the refraction of light,
a 180-degree view of the world above the water condensed into a cone angle of about 97.2 degrees in water with refractive index 1.33.

The other method of creating Fulldome content is immediate and does not rely on rendering. Borrowing from the gaming industry and their increasingly powerful graphics cards, a virtual world can be created that will allow the camera to move around it in real time.
If you were playing a video game, you would be likely blasting your enemies and traveling across a landscape, dungeon or spacecraft.
In a more educational use such as we will be presenting, the same sort of software will allow the operator to take the audience through a 3D model of the Solar System, or out to the distant reachs of the Galaxy. But the system will not be restricted to astronomy.
Models exist also of molecules, biological structures, geology and many other scientific disciplines. As time goes on we intend to add more and more uses to this system.
It is a tool to reach the future with, and like a tool, can be used for any purpose.

Would you like to learn more?
Download free software that will allow you to create your own virtual worlds and explore or create images of them.
These are all Open Source, and available in several computer formats.
Blender is FREE and pretty friendly. But DO read the manual!
BLENDER

Perhaps you would like to travel through space? Try Celestia. This FREE software creates a model of the Solar System and places beyond in your computer.
Your mouse and keyboard will explore this model.
CELESTIA

Additional pieces add in spacecraft from history and science fiction.
THE MOTHER LODE

Both of the above software suites have extensive users groups, and I must refer you to them for assistance.

Partiview is outstanding as well, another FREE product, this one is from the Hayden Planetarium
PARTIVIEW

Or if these are too scientific for you, Bryce has a free version also. This fine software gives you the ability to create your own worlds and it has an excellent GUI, or Graphic User Interface.
They also sell objects you can add to your creations, but the basic software is quite free.
BRYCE

renderings of completed installation

The Global Immersion folks have gone home for the holidays, but they left some nice presents!

Being computer graphics oriented, of course they left….. RENDERINGS!

Have a look at some of these glorious pixels…

And glance at this TOP VIEW!

Top view of the Heikoff DOme Theater after installation is finished.

A simulated image on our Spitz Nano Seam Dome screen.
Of course, this blog is on a flat screen, whereas the dome is going to surround and IMMERSE you!

This is where I want to be spending MY holidays! Thanks Santa!

This past week we completed the installation of the lenses, and fine tuned the crucial alignment.
We will start up again in January. I will update these pages in the meantime with my Full Dome  Tutorial.

Brightening the Image

Second lens added as Global Immersion exec Martin Howe watches

The amount of light on the screen doubled tonight, as light from the first 8.2 Kilowatt lamp was joined by a second lamp. Soon 2 more lamps will be brightening our dome. When completed, the total amount of power used in this complex projection system will be 32.4 Kilowatts.

Several folks have asked us who these amazing folks are that are adding this incredible capability to the Heikoff Dome Theater.
We are pleased to announce that we are working with a company called Global Immersion. Tonight their CEO dropped by for an inspection of the work.  Gamely wearing a hard hat against the posibillity of a head injury on the work site,  he was pleased by the progress, and will return tomorrow night for a closer look.

Visit their web site @ Global Immersion

Global Immersion CEO Martin Howe visits the site to inspect the work

The First Image on the Heikoff Dome Screen.

After Thursday night exciting first light, Friday we got another first: The first Image!

This grid is about 50 feet across

Of course, being engineers obsessed with getting the largest and brightest possible image  on our enormous screen, the first image is a test pattern. This image is a sort of polar grid, like the lines of latitude and longitude that cover the globe. Stretching from the far left to the far right,  this image from just one projector covers about 70 percent of the dome, about 50 feet across!  It’s sharpness will of course be greatly increased as it is focused and it will be improved in a number of ways.  My camera does not do it justice either!
Once a grid is looking good, and sharp across the entire surface, we can proceed to more interesting images.

Matt Roberts adjusting lens

Imagine with me for a moment, how difficult this is: Global Immersion has to cover not a FLAT screen, but the entire INSIDE of a large hemisphere. The ENTIRE area must be sharp and crisp and evenly illuminated.

But wait, there’s MORE!

We are using not just one but FOUR projectors. Each set of 2 projectors covers the dome. Why FOUR projectors then? Because they are doubled up, each area covered with the same image, exactly overlapping.This will make the image as bright as an IMAX film, a design goal from the beginning.

First Light from the projectors at 2:10 am on 12-8-11

waiting for First Light

A significant moment in the life of an instrument is the moment when light first flows through it.
Our First Light on Phase 2 occurred at 2:10 am on 12-8-11.

Matt Roberts carefully monitored the lamps performance and did preliminary work on the lenses after the lamps were switched on.

Matt Roberts is thrilled by the light from two of the projectors

Perhaps a small thing, none the less we felt like a part of history tonight, beginning a legacy that will educate the next generation of visitors to the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.

We have Ignition! WOO HOO!

first light reaction from Jan Breens and Matt Fox

WHATS all the excitement?

This shimmery blob, when properly spread out by the completed lens, and driven by the 8,847,360 pixels, will spark imaginations and dreams for many thousands of people when it fills the dome with amazing scientific simulations and more.

Mounting the SONY Projectors

On November 30th, the Heikoff Dome Theater was closed for one of the VERY few times in the 29 years I have worked here. The occasion was the installation of four SONY SRXT420 Projectors on the projector stands that had been installed in past few days. Each projector weighed in at 400 pounds, and they were skillfully  and carefully hoisted into place by our movers.

This ingenious wheeled contraption lowered the projectors onto the stands.

Very expensive and very delicate, the projectors were maneuvered into position and bolted down.

For the next few days the workers added air ducts to the system to bring the air that was heated by the four 4.3 kilowatt lamps away from the projectors.

cooling ducts on projectors

Like a plumbers dream, air ducts twine around the projector, slurping hot air away from the projectors

 The next step is to install the lamps and lenses, as well as the servers for both video and audio.

Running Cables and installing servers

Server rack for Global Immersion. 8 high high speed computers running in perfect synchronization.

All computers have a connection between the computer and the display screen.  In line with our Fulldome system where everything is VERY LARGE, we have many cables. One is not enough.  In order to get 4 K images onto the dome screen, 16 DVI cables have to be run from the servers to the projectors. This ends up as a bundle around 8 inches around!  This bundle has to be run more than 50 feet, from the comfortably cool server room to the projectors in the theater. Along the way, several walls had to be cored because we are now doing things that the pioneers that designed and built this place never imagined.

The cables start in the server room, run through the hall way, through a nice new hole in the concrete wall, through the IMAX sound track vault, across the IMAX projection booth, and finally into the projection pit and attach to the projectors.  Each server has a video card in it that outputs 2 HD resolution video signals. There is also a display on the front of the servers that shows each segment of the image.

Tonight (11/29/11) the Global Immersion guys are running the cables and preparing for the Big Day tomorrow when the 4 SONY SRX T420 projectors are lowered into position.  They are, of course, very heavy. They are so heavy that a special portable crane is being used to swing them over the pit and onto the projector racks.

Prepare to have your socks knocked off!

In the midst of all the construction chaos, it’s good to look back at this video I made in  2008 about our history and future plans. I was a bit optismistic on the start date: I thought it would be in 2009.
It took a bit longer to come up with the money for a project this large.
http://youtu.be/lZ7nA4E8PaI

System designers Matt Roberts and Jan Breens planning layout of equipment.

Also the Cement Cutting Company is also here making more holes in the foot thick concrete.

Masters of Destruction is their slogan but they are excellent builders too!

Phase 2: Asembling the projector stands

The theodolite allows precise alignment of the projector stands, vital to the setup of the projectors

 Jack contemplates the Theodolite

Theodolite information

The first step is knowing just WHERE to put the stands, since so much depends on their perfect placement.
In this image Global Immersion engineer Jack Langley uses the theodolite to plan the location of the projectors.

Jack Langley, Matt Roberts and Andrew Zadarnowsy. from Global Immersion

These folks have been putting in some very long and late hours to install and align the stands and will also be here to place the projectors.  Good job men!
GI and the Fleet has been committed to minimizing the closure and impact. In face we are only closing the theater for ONE DAY, tomorrow, November 30th.
And even then, we are having our 2 school show in the morning, and THEN closing the theater for the rest of the day. The Science Center WILL still be open however.

And the theater will be open the next day!

Prepare to have your socks knocked off!

Phase 2: The projectors and their placement

When completed, phase 2 will display extremely bright and high resolution video imagery covering almost all of our dome.
Full dome video will consist not just of per-created sequences, but also of live created and manipulated in real time video images. Images of astronomy, biology, geology, and other scientific disciplines.
Artistic creations will be included as well, created both by experienced professionals, and new explorers of the visual realm.
Picture a video game, only instead of blowing things up, we are rotating biological structures, and looking at various scientific visualizations.

Our target for resolution is to start with 4000 by 4000 pixels, and eventually to increase that to 8,000 by 8,000 pixels.

Projector placement
Other full dome theaters have placed the projectors around the perimeter of the dome, in what is called a “cove”.
This allows the projectors to be outside of the screen, with the noise and heat of the several thousand watt lamps away from the audience.
A major drawback of this placement is that the light from the projectors in FRONT of the audience that are aimed at the rear of the theater, is very apparent.

However, the Heikoff dome theater does not have a cove. Fortunately we DO have an excellent central space called “The Pit” where the star projector was.

This has the advantage of keeping the light from the projectors out of the audiences eyes. But it has the disadvantage of placing FOUR 85 decibel noise sources in the center of an acoustically reflective area.
Also it requires us to bring cool air IN and warm air OUT. The air will be warmed by passing over four 4.2 KW watt lamps

Global Immersion plans to prevent excessive sound from escaping via a complex and robust enclosure that will maintain the silky silence of space and also route the heat out as needed.
The lenses, colored blue in this computer rendering  have a 90 degree bend in them to place the image where it is needed on the dome.

The Projector
The worlds brightest video projector at 21,000 Lumens.
We’re getting FOUR!

Technical Specifications of the projector.
SONY SRX T420

Routing 16 DVI cables from the server room to the projectors.

CABLES.
Lots of cables

While there are lots of cable ducts, they don’t go where we really need them to go.
And the old ducts are in the way of the air flow we also need.  So we had to remove the old cables in them, and then remove the ducts.
Its a tricky problem, because some of the cables are used daily.
Others have not been used for a long time.
Knowing which is which is very important! Some have not been used in years,
and some are vitally important to our daily operation.

Fleet Director of engineering David McGrew removes bright orange ducking in the IMAX projection booth to make room for projector air flow.
Once the ducts were removed they left a 2 foot square hole in the concrete we can use for air flow.

Making a place for air to flow to the projectors

What is only 3 feet tall, but 20 feet wide? Answer: The crawlspace under the pit!
There is a reason it is called a crawlspace, and it’s NOT because of the excessive headroom.

Mike Lawrence, chief projectionist at the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center begins to
disassemble the old cable ducts that were installed in 1973 to carry control signals for the Spitz Space Transit Simulator.
Loving called the starball because of its unique spherical shape, it was removed in 2001 and replaced by the Evans and Sutherland Digistar II.
That unique piece of equipment has now been removed and the space was needed for airflow for the new system.

John Young ducks into the crawlspace to remove the old, heavy and very dusty cable trays.
After the new installation this space will be all but inaccessible.

The first truck for phase 2 arrives with the projector stand

After 3 days on the road the truck arrived with the projector stand, tool chests and miscellaneous parts for the installation.
This watershed moment marked a huge step in manifesting this incredible project and follows months of planning and discussion between Global Immersion and the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center.

Dave McGrew skillfully negotiates the heavy loads from the truck to the dollys. Then the crates are rolled inside.

Joe Clifford, John Young and Dave McGrew unloaded the truck of some 11,000 pounds of custom designed steel projector stands on a sunny Monday, 11/21/11.

Eugene Heikoff and Marilyn Jacobs Heikoff Dome Theater

On June 22, 2009, the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center announced the second phase of the Digital Dome project in “Creating Possibilities, Inspiring Tomorrow,” a $20 million capital campaign to advance the non-profit organization’s mission to inspire lifelong learning by furthering the public understanding and enjoyment of science and technology.

Eugene Heikoff and Marilyn Jacobs Heikoff Dome Theater

The theater itself will be formally known as the “Eugen Heikoff and Marilyn Jacobs Heikoff Dome Theater.” The Heikoff Dome Theater has been named in memory of the couple by Mrs. Heikoff’s brother and sister-in-law, Irwin and Joan Jacobs, and her children Laurie Heikoff, Lisa Heikoff, both of San Diego, and Erica Heikoff McKeown of Providence, RI.
After 36 years of engaging planetarium shows, more than 100 IMAX titles and nearly 400,000 miles of IMAX film, the Fleet Science Center’s Heikoff Dome Theater is being transformed into the most technologically-advanced facility of its kind. Phase 1, completed in December 2008, featured the installation of the world’s first “NanoSeam™” dome screen in an IMAX theater, which allows for sharper colors and brighter, higher-contrast images. A new, specially-designed
digital surround sound system, more comfortable seating, upgrades to the IMAX projection system and numerous other improvements rounded out the first phase of the project.
The renaming of the Dome Theater signals the launch of the second phase of the Digital Dome project, which includes the installation of a state-of-the-art, full-dome digital planetarium projection system that will complement the existing IMAX projector. This full-dome video projection technology will take the Fleet Science Center’s popular planetarium shows to a new level, featuring stunningly immersive visuals and incredibly realistic simulations of cosmic phenomena. The Fleet is currently reviewing projector systems and plans to complete the installation in 2010.
Major donors thus far to the Dome project include Joan and Irwin Jacobs, Weingart-Price Fund, Don and Maryann Lyle, Patricia Carter, Joseph Cohen and Martha Farish, The Hervey Family Fund, The Nierman Family Fund, Mrs. Audrey S. Geisel and the Dr. Seuss Fund, The Helen K. and James S. Copley Foundation, Margie Warner and John H. Warner Jr., Eric and Peggy Johnson, and Nancy Robertson and Mark Cookingham. The cost of renovations to the theater, upgraded seating, improvements to the IMAX projection system and the new digital surround sound system are estimated at approximately 4.5 million dollars.

The Fleet continues to raise funds for additional aspects of the capital campaign. Planned projects will place the Fleet Science Center at the forefront of digital scientific video creation, with a digital production studio that will develop educational content in collaboration with institutions in San Diego and around the world. Shows produced will use scientific data collected and interpreted from partner institutions to take the public on extraordinary immersive journeys—inside the Heikoff Dome Theater—into a human stem cell, an atomic nucleus or virtually any environment imaginable. Moreover, local scientists, students and artists will be invited to use the Fleet Science Center’s digital projection technology to present data and other visualizations on the giant tilted-dome screen.
Based on a strategic plan that was unanimously approved in November 2005 by the Fleet Science Center’s board of trustees—then led by Board President Dr. Martha Dennis and now led by Board President Dr. Chuck Wheatley—the campaign has already raised more than $14 million from approximately 50 donors. The campaign is chaired by Fleet trustee Lori Fleet-Martin, with the assistance of the Board’s Development Committee members Carol Chang, Patricia Carter, Joseph Cohen, JoEllen Parsons, Maurice Sabado, Margie Warner and Dr. James Whitesell.
Additional information regarding “Creating Possibilities, Inspiring Tomorrow,” will be announced as the campaign progresses.
Located at 1875 El Prado, two blocks south of the San Diego Zoo on Park
Blvd, the Fleet is a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the public understanding and
enjoyment of science and technology. For information regarding current admission prices,
please call (619) 238-1233 or visit our Web site at www.rhfleet.org.

IMAX® is a registered trademark of IMAX Corporation

Space Theater slideshow on SignOnSanDiego.com

The online version of the San Diego Union-Tribune, www.signonsandiego.com, is currently hosting a two-minute audio slideshow focusing on the renovation of the Fleet’s Space Theater.  The slideshow, which features stunning photographs taken by Union-Tribune staff photographer Nancee Lewis, takes the viewer through the entire Space Theater renovation project from start to finish. 

To view the slideshow, click HERE

Nancee visited the Fleet on a weekly basis during the project to capture every detail and nuance of the transformation.  If you recognize a familiar voice, that’s because the slideshow is narrated by the Fleet’s own Eileen Best, who has worked at the Space Theater console for over 30 years. Next time you see (and hear) Eileen at the Space Theater, be sure to compliment her on the slideshow!

WE ARE OPEN!!

From the new entry area....

 

...to the new carpet as you enter the theater...

 

... and new seats and new lighting under the new dome. A new digital sound system. Plus three new films. Come check it out!!