Tilting images in the iDome: Can the iDome be used as a fulldome preview system?

Written by Paul Bourke
February 2014

The iDome is fundamentally suited to different types of immersive dome content than a planetarium orientated dome. For example, in a planetarium with omni-directional seating the natural viewing direction is typically taken as being 30 or 40 degrees above the opposite spring line. So, content designed for such dome has the main action occurring below the lower truncation of the iDome. The suitability then of an iDome acting as a preview environment for fulldome productions is limited.

One approach to addressing this is to tilt the image on the iDome to raise the opposite point on the spring line, this is illustrated below.

Untitled content, playing the fulldome production directly on the iDome.

Example of tilting the fisheye content by 22.5 degrees.

Example of a tilted configuration such that the opposite point on the spring line is just visible, in this case 45 degrees.

Test movies from the the Geometry series fulldome production.

Note that content developed for an omni-directional seating planetarium is more suited to the iDome because in that case the center point of action is more towards the zenith of the dome/fisheye.