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 optimistic 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!