A survey of large-scale immersive displays

Abstract

Immersive displays generally fall within three categories: small-scale, single-user displays (head-mounted displays and desktop stereoscopic displays); medium-scale displays designed for small numbers of collaborative users (CAVEs, reality centres and power walls); and large-scale displays designed for group immersion experiences (IMAX, simulator rides, domes). Small-and medium-scale displays have received by far the most attention from researchers, perhaps due to their smaller size, lower cost and easy accessibility. Large-scale immersive displays present unique technical challenges largely met by niche manufacturers offering proprietary solutions. The rapidly growing number of largescale displays in planetariums, science centers and universities worldwide (275 theaters to date), coupled with recent trends towards more open, extensible systems and mature software tools, offer greater accessibility to these environments for research, interactive science/art application development, and visualization of complex databases for both student and public audiences. An industry-wide survey of leading-edge largescale immersive displays and manufacturers is provided with the goal of fostering industry/academic collaborations. Research needs include advancements in immersive display design, real-time spherical rendering, real-time group interactive technologies and applications, and methods for aggregating and navigating extremely large scientific databases with imbedded physical/astrophysical simulations.

The Immersive Virtual Environment of the digital fulldome: Considerations of relevant psychological processes

“…Empirical investigations need to examine whether this impedes performance significantly, or whether such a limitation could be overcome with other visual cues, and ultimately, the advancement of technology in the fulldome. Lantz (2007) provides a survey of dome video displays, noting projector resolutions ranging between 1024 Â 768 and 5120 Â 4096, with 4000 Â 4000 being the current standard for many productions.…”

“…Fulldome environments are unique among IVEs given their potential to show a single display to a large group of viewers simultaneously (Lantz, 2007;Yu, 2005). Although social processes have been examined using IVEs, most work has focused explicitly on whether social processes can be elicited by virtual agents, or between real agents within virtual environments (Blascovich et al, 2002;Hoyt et al, 2003;Pertaub et al, 2002).…”

“…A specific example of immersive technology recently highlighted is that of the digital fulldome (Lantz, 2006(Lantz, , 2007Law, 2006;Wyatt, 2007;Yu, 2005). However, in comparison with other IVEs, little empirical work has been conducted to understand the impact of fulldome environments on audiences, despite their widespread and diverse uses.…”

“…In the entertainment industry, more recent developments in largeformat cinema technology, such as the IMAX theatre, led to the design of wrap-around cylindrical displays such as the OMNIMAX cinema format, intended to fully immerse viewers in the presentation. As computer technology became more prominent, digital technology became incorporated into planetaria and the use of these environments diversified, to include non-astronomy-based entertainment and education applications (Lantz, 2007). The spherical surface of the digital fulldome can be used as a canvas for real-time or pre-rendered computer animations, live-capture images, or, in principle, any other visual projection accompanied by surround sound.…”

Giant screen film and science learning in museums

“…Immersive environments have been described as an enhancement to traditional learning experiences because they offer a simulated experience with place-based information in the context of other types of science learning (Yalowitz 2010). Lantz (2007) extended the theory to include the GS format based on these same attributes.…”