Spacedome

Introduction

Spacedome is a 30m² geodesic dome structure build with the intention of projecting fully immersive video content, so basically a virtual reality like experience but without glasses and as a group.

Shows

Most shows we did are either purchased or borrowed from their rightful owners and to exhibit them here would possibly violate their right of intellectual property. So two of the shows below are made by myself and the third one was created by Diana Reigenbach, an immersive artist that was so kind to put her creation in the public domain.

These video's are so called dome masters, when viewed on a computer display they of course are shown flat images but in reality what you see left actually happens on the left of you.

The dome

The dome is a hemispherical thin-shell structure based on a geodesic polyhedron covered on the outside by a fire retardant thick layer of PVC, the inside of the dome is covered by a second layer of PVC that makes up the movie screen. Building up the dome takes approximately 6 hours which excludes setting up the projectors and sound system. Usually the floor is covered by a black carpet with below wooden tiles when the surface is not smooth enough for people to lie down comfortably.

Projectors

Getting the right projection system was one of the most tricky things to arrange, it basically comes down to this: you need enough beamers to be capable of touching the full surface of the dome with a more or less equal amount of light. Overlapping of projector output is usually a good thing because basically all projection mapping software is capable of fading the edges of your projectors which makes color and contrast differences between individual projectors less noticeable. The problem with mapping is mostly due to the fact that the aspect ratio of most consumer projectors is not really suitable for this kind of usage or at least in the way my dome was setup. The aspect ratio defines at what rate the image will get larger or smaller when the screen moves closer or more distant from the projector. When the aspect ratio becomes to large, like with most short throw projectors, you will end up with approximately half of the dome being lid out at once but with a very dim result. When the aspect ratio becomes to small, like with most regular projectors, you will end up with an image that only as a diameter of approximately 2 meters. If your dome has a diameter of 6 meters, like mine, your projection screen is 22 meters wide so you would end up with 11 projectors which is of course unrealistic so you need to find projectors that have the right mixture of aspect ratio versus the quantity of lumen they generate.

An excellent tool to help with finding the right projetors is the projection calculator from projection central. They have a database which contains most available projectors with their specifications. In their calculator you can just provide the projector you have in mind and compare that with the diameter or radius of the dome (depending on where you are placing your projectors), the tool will tell you the screen size and amount of light that reaches the surface which you can use to base your choices on.

Mapping

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