Dome projection using a spherical mirror

The following is a collection of material related to the projection into a hemispherical dome using a spherical mirror, a projection technique developed by the author in 2003 and variously referred to as "sphemir" or "mirrordome". For information related more towards fisheye lens and projection see this link.

Please note that I am available to assist you with your fulldome projection projects. This can be on an informal basis (just email me your questions) all the way to formally quoting, personally doing onsite installations, providing training and ongoing support. In the former case I am more then happy to advise (free of charge) but please first read the FAQ below since it is where I document answers to the questions I've received so far, as such it has a good chance of answering your questions. If you wish to formally engage me then also read the FAQ and then contact me by email.

• The original paper presentation: Using a spherical mirror for projection into immersive environments.
  Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Computer graphics and interactive techniques in Australasia and South East Asia. pp 281-284.

• Photographic gallery of some installations using this technique

• FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions
  Primarily targeted at those contemplating creating their own dome projection system based upon the spherical mirror.

• iDome: Image gallery of the iDome, specifications and various applications

• Presentation at the Western Alliance Planetarium Conference by Bentley Ousley: Spherical Mirror Projection for Large Domes

• Sketchup to iDome
  Moving Sketchup models to the iDome, via the Unity3D game engine.

• EarthDesk in the dome
  Display current Earth globe interactively in a dome.

• Screen Capture and Warping
  Example with SkySafari
  Warping fisheye application images with QuartzComposer using screen capture.

• Immersive gaming: a low cost projection environment.
  JMM (Journal of MultiMedia), Volume 3, Issue 1, May 2008, pp 41-46.

• Two very simple show controllers based upon Quartz Composer
  One based upon keystrokes and support for some alternative interface devices. Another designed with a graphical user interface and able to be run on a single computer or remotely using a separate playback and GUI computer.

• Technical information for developers .. warp mesh files.

• A calibration tool that creates precise map files for spherical mirror projection.

• An image warper to create prewarped movies.
  

• Notes on the use of Stellarium or Nightshade with spherical mirror projection.
  Comparison of image quality between fisheye and warped images.
  

• Direct rendering of warped fisheye views for spherical mirror projection

• Wide field of view projection in a rectangular room

• The current mirror specification used by the author and supplied as a first surface product by Acril.

Software with mesh file support for fisheye warping

• World Wide Telescope and spherical mirror projection support.

• Software Bisque and spherical mirror projection support.

• A real time "warp-on-the-fly" movie player
  Includes navigation modes that was originally designed for spherical mirror projection (mirrordome) but also supports many other movie projections that just fisheye.

• warppatch
  A Quartz Composer patch that implements the warping of images and movie frames suitable for novel projection problems into immersive spaces, including the spherical mirror based methods.

• An interactive panorama viewer for domes including support for warping for the spherical mirror.

• Using the Unity game engine and spherical mirror projection

• Using Blender games in the iDome

"The brain is an enchanted loom where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern. A.S. Byatt

Material of a historic nature

• The original web page created late in 2003.
  [Now out of date on a few points]

• One of the early presentations given to the Australasian Planetarium Society.
  [Now out of date on a few points]

• One of the early presentations given on this approach.
  [Now out of date on a few points]

• While the author developed this technique for current digital projection, it has been used in the past for film, see Patent 2,299,682.

Information related to general dome/fisheye content

The following is a collection of material related to the general generation and projection of fisheye content onto hemispherical dome surfaces eg: planetariums.

• Tests of various fisheye lenses and the Red Scarlet 4K video camera

• Magic Planet display
  

• Angular fisheye projections
  Including offaxis fisheye projections. Summary of the mathematics.

• cube2dome
  Creating fisheye images from cubic maps.

• Unity3D
  Creating fisheye images in the Unity3D game engine.

• spheremapper
  Geometric correction of fisheye images for direction projection into a hemisphere.

• Testing various fisheye capture options
  Includes low end cameras such as the Oneshot and Lomography still camera, mid range such as the Canon HV20 (with Nikon FC-E9 fisheye lens) for video capture, high end SLR cameras such as te Canon 5D range, up to high end cameras like the Red Scarlet.
  

• Fisheye and spherical capture using the LadyBug camera.
  Including an exercise to capture footage of iron ore ship loading fir a remote operations prototype.

• Tilting and rotating fisheye images
  Compensating for dome orientation and or clipped fisheye lens capture.

• Creating fisheye projections from spherical maps and panoramic images

• Converting fisheye images to ....
  Panoramic images, perspective projections, (partial) spherical maps.

• Wii + MacBook Pro + Dome
  Example using the Wii to navigate within an immersive environment

• iSphere
  A proposed immersive environment.

• Image panels on a fisheye projection
  Various ways of mapping perspective projections on fisheye images.

• Interactive fisheye image generation
  Multipass texture approach

• Fulldome content creation with the Drishti volume rendering software
  

• Experiences With My First 8K Fulldome Production Pipeline

• Fisheye lens comparisons and Fisheye lens options as they apply to the iDome

A wise man can see more from a mountain than a fool from the bottom of a well. Anon

Material of a historic nature

• Full dome projection with three digital projectors

• Solar system simulator

• Geometry warping for realtime dome graphics

• Creating content for the SkyVision full dome projection

Index Papers, Articles, Seminars, Workshops Exhibitions, competitions, productions Data Formats: 3D, audio, image Geometry, Surfaces, Curves, Polyhedra Fractals, Chaos, self similarity Texture, Colour, Tiling Domes, planetariums, fisheye, spherical mirror Stereographics, 3D projection Miscellaneous: Projection, Modelling, Rendering Fun, Puzzles, Travel Old stuff
New :   Space Filling: A new algorithm for procedural creation of game assets Automated 3D Model Reconstruction from Photographs Art and Science of Insight in Research Dark Matter fulldome movie Graphical exploration of the connectivity sets of alternated Julia sets Updates :   Google Earth fractals Conferences :   eResearch Australasia 2013. 20-25 October 2013 (Brisbane)
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