Domes, Planetariums, Fisheye, Spherical mirror

The following are documents related to dome projection, including but not limited to, fisheye theory and conversions, the iDome, camera capture and fulldome productions. Included is an image gallery on installations the author has contributed to including both spherical mirror, fisheye lenses and multiple projector systems. Some of the material here relates 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". In particular, a FAQ, Frequently Asked Questions primarily targeted at those contemplating creating their own dome projection system based upon the spherical mirror.

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.

iDome

Image gallery of the iDome, specifications and various applications.

Exhibition in Doha at the innovation showcase at the 2013 WISH (World Innovation Summit for Health) forum.

Ngintaka exhibition at the South Australia Museum.

iJiao exhibition (2011) - Exhibition by: City University of Hong Kong (CityU), Applied Laboratory for Interactive Visualization and Embodiment (ALiVE).

Exhibition as part of the "Expanding sphere of innovation @ CityU", Hong Kong.

Wollongong Science Centre iDome Exhibit Interactive installation at the Wollongong Science Centre largely using 360 degree footage from the LadyBug-3 camera.

Using Blender games in the iDome.

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

iDome as a preview environment for fulldome movies.

Using the Unity game engine and spherical mirror projection

The surest sign of the existence of extra- terrestrial intelligence is that they never bothered to come down here and visit us! Bill Watterson

Fisheye and related mappings

"Distortion", the incorrect and correct usage of the word

Creating fisheye projections from spherical maps and panoramic images.

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

Converting fisheye to Pannini projection.

Square fisheye projection.

Converting dual fisheye images into a spherical (equirectangular) projection.

Exercise to convert images from a 4 fisheye camera rig to equirectangular.

Fisheye "rectification". Correcting for radial non-linearity in a fisheye.

Further information on fisheye rectification.

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

cube2fish. Creating fisheye images from cubic maps.

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

Extreme fisheye projection. Fisheyes greater that 360 degree field of view.

Classification of fisheye mappings Common types of fisheye and their respective mappings between distance on sensor and angle.

A triangle was an improvement to the square wheel. It eliminated one bump. BC comics

Spherical mirror

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. Early presentation given to the Australasian Planetarium Society. and OzViz in 2004

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

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

The original web page created late in 2003.

One of the early articles

One of the early presentations given on this approach.

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

Wide field of view projection in a rectangular room.

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

Warping for dome projection

Tools for Spherical Mirror Projection for Apple Mac.

Why warp? Is there a reason for planetarium display software to be able to warp fisheye images even if they are not using a spherical mirror?

Technical information for developers .. warp mesh files.

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

Screen Capture and Warping with an example using SkySafari Warping fisheye application images with QuartzComposer using screen capture.

tgawarp. An image warper to create prewarped movies.

A real time "warp-on-the-fly" movie player for Windows and Apple Mac based upon VLC.

A real time "warp-on-the-fly" movie player for Apple Mac. Includes navigation modes that was originally designed for spherical mirror projection (mirrordome) but also supports many other movie projections that just fisheye. Now unsupported and for fisheye projection using a spherical mirror the author now recommends this fisheye movie player

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.

Direct rendering of warped fisheye views for spherical mirror projection.

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

Image warping for offaxis fisheye lens/projectors.

Manual camera calibration for fisheye image projection.

Geometry warping for realtime dome graphics (Historical interest only).

America is the only country where a significant proportion of the population believes that professional wrestling is real but the moon landing was faked. David Letterman

DomeLab

Documentation.

Workshop 2016, RMIT, Melbourne.

APS 2016 presentation.

Workshop 2015.

Presentation 2015: Capturing assets for fulldome.

ANAT

I have a stepladder. It's a very nice stepladder, but it's sad that I never knew my real ladder.

Cameras

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 the Canon 5D range, up to high end cameras like the Red Scarlet.

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

Canon 5D MkII + Canon 8-15 zoom fisheye + iDome.

Fisheye circle for Panasonic Lumix GH5 and Sigma 4.5 fisheye lens

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

Maybe in order to understand mankind, we have to look at the word itself: "Mankind". Basically, it's made up of two separate words - "mank" and "ind". What do these words mean ? It's a mystery, and that's why so is mankind.

Fulldome productions

Fulldome test pattern. Measure the actual resolution of your digital fulldome projection.

Dark - A Fulldome production explains and explores the nature of Dark Matter, the missing 80% of the mass of the Universe. (2012) Distributed internationally. Peter Morse, Paul Bourke, Alan Duffy, Cathie Travers, Trevor Hilton, Carley Tillett.

Plant Energy Biology - A fulldome production.

EON: Eye of Nagaur. Visualising the inner life of Ahhichatragarh Fort at Nagaur, Rajasthan. 2009.

Volume visualisation under the Dome, October 2009 Fulldome show reel of volume visualisation datasets. Ajay Limaye, Tim Senden, Alexander Mitchell, Paul Bourke.

Digital Visualisation in the Dome. Presentation at Horizon - The Planetarium. November 2008. Presenters: Peter Morse, Paul Bourke, Carley Tillett. Contributors: Karen Haines, Ajay Limaye, Glenn Rogers

Treasures of the Great Barrier Reef, November 2008. Fulldome video based upon underwater fisheye photography by Karen Haines. Audio by Peter Morse and Trevor Hilton

Artforms Of Nature: A New Way Of Seeing, October 2008. Ajay Limaye, Peter Morse, Paul Bourke.

Fulldome Geometry Series: Part 1, October 2007. Paul Bourke, Peter Morse.

6dF Galaxy Survey: Beyond the Crux, October 2006. Paul Bourke, Peter Morse, Glenn Rogers.

Cosmological Simulation, October 2005. Paul Bourke, Evan Hallein, Dr Chris Power.

Fulldome animation of a flight over the surface of Mars based upon the 1/32 degree topology data from MOLA. Created for SkySkan for the planetarium show "Infinity Express". October 2000.

Experiences With My First 8K Fulldome Production Pipeline

Do not try to teach a pig to sing hymns. It wastes your time and annoys the pig. R. Heinlein

Third party software

Stellarium landscape from the Australia outback.

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

Vuo as a playback solution for domes
Vuo warp node, from version 0.8, now support warp meshes.

Stellarium Notes on the use of Stellarium or Nightshade with spherical mirror projection.

Amateras full dome movie player, and much more.

World Wide Telescope and spherical mirror projection support.

Software Bisque and spherical mirror projection support.

Creating fisheye image sequences with Unity3D

Unity3D. Creating fisheye images in the Unity3D game engine.

Fulldome content creation with the Drishti volume rendering software

Lady Barnaby takes here ease. Knitting overcoats for fleas. By this kindness, fleas are smitten. That's why she's very rarely bitten. Spike Milligan

Other

Contributions to Mandurah Performing Arts Centre dome exhibition. Mandurah, 12 Oct 2017.

Seamans mission, Melbourne.

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.

Rendering molecules for immersive environments.

Image slicing for fulldome (and other applications).

Report on small dome technology.

Magic Planet display.

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

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.

Fisheye lens comparisons.
Comparisons specific to dual projection
Summary of single and dual fisheye systems in common usage.
Fisheye lens options as they apply to the iDome

Full dome projection with three digital projectors

Solar system simulator

Creating content for the SkyVision full dome projection

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

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