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 IMERSA News
April 2010
Immersive Media Entertainment, Research, Science & Arts
Celebrating and promoting immersive and fulldome media for education and entertainment in planetariums, schools, museums, cinemas and attractions
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New IMERSA web site - more resources, more member benefits
- Broader membership categories including a free membership option to build participation
- Social networking capabilities with profiles, groups and forums
- Robust search engine
- Professional web 2.0 design and navigation
- Solid infrastructure allowing for future expansion
- Secure and efficient membership management
- IMERSA WIKI designed for member contributions
- Library feature - a rich media repository
Beta launch scheduled for mid-May 2010
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Welcome to the IMERSA
newsletter. Need a little more background on our organization? Please visit the IMERSA website, become a fan of the IMERSA Facebook Page, and join the IMERSA Group on LinkedIn.
Upcoming Events - Digital Dome Specific
 4th Annual Fulldome Festival
4-8 May, 2010
Zeiss Planetarium
Jena, Germany
IMERSA will conduct a forum at the Jena
Festival on Friday, 7 May. Organized by Micky
Remann and Volkmar Schorcht, the Festival offers an
opportunity for
producers to present their latest, unabridged shows to a
jury and to the
public while allowing theater operators to shop for digital dome content . For the first time, full-length
feature shows
will be presented. The festival will see 27 all-new shows
from
producers in America, Asia, Australia and Europe. There will be two world premieres: Natural Selection by Robin Sip
(Mirage3D) and tempus.ruhr by Rocco Helmchen. Students' work will also be presented and prizes awarded. Details and Registration
Intech Planetarium is a relatively new planetarium, designed and installed by Global Immersion, and
the largest capacity planetarium in the UK.
Note: Program subject to change.
- New full dome live presentation KS3 show Alien Worlds written by
Dr Shipway at INTECH
- Flying UNIVIEW
combined with storytelling session/Domecast with Ghana Science
Project
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Some members of Surrey Uni (who are hoping to set up
their own fulldome company) want to introduce/discuss their Wake up and
Smell the Coffee, A-level biology planetarium show which they made for the
British Science Fest (funded by SEEDA).
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Full dome inside mobiles - including optimal use of
stellarium
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Association of French Speaking Planetariums- 13-16 May - Dijon, France
Manufacturers' news, workshops and debates, full sky shows, planetariums' news. Experience the moon exhibition, visit to the wine coast in Burgundy and taste exotic dining at the Burgundy Botanical Garden.
 Southeastern Planetarium Association (SEPA) 2010 ConferenceKingsport, Tennessee - 8-12 June 2010
Bays Mountain Planetarium is hosting. The theme is "The Art of Storytelling." Highlights of the meeting include keynote speaker, Dava Sobel, presentations and workshops, a storytelling workshop, field trips to the Gray Fossil Site and the Rocky Mount Museum, well-known storytellers, a state-of-the-art theater, vendor displays, and more. The Bays Mountain Planetarium Theater has just currently completed a $1.3M total refurbishment project. The heart of the theater is a Zeiss Skymaster ZKP 4 optical star projector. It also boasts the Zeiss Spacegate Quinto full-dome video projection system with Zeiss PowerDome and the Uniview 3D database/interface. Click here for more details.
 DomeFest - 1st July, 2010 (provisional date) held in conjuction with
26-30 June, 2010 IPS 20th Biennial Conference: Alexandria, Egypt
In addition to DomeFest, there will be several fulldome events and IMERSA presentations run in conjunction with this International Planetarium Society Conference. Details to come.
Dome Day (in conjunction with GSCA Conference)
28 Sept at the McWane Science Center in Birmingham, Alabama IMERSA and GSCA have a cooperative relationship to explore the common interests between film domes and digital domes. Stay tuned to learn about presentations at GSCA that will be relevant to the IMERSA community.
The Bishop Museum
Hosts the ASTC Annual Conference
2-5 October 2010, Honolulu
The Association of Science-Technology Centers Annual Conference will feature the annual Fulldome Showcase of digital dome productions. Check ASTC website for details as they become available.
 2010 GLPA Conference 20-23 October, 2010
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame Indiana USA
Digital Visualization Theater
 Jackson
Hole Wildlife Film Festival Denver Museum
of Nature & Science Denver, Colorado USA
26-28 October, 2010 |
Upcoming Events - Relevant Immersive Topics
Augmented Reality Event
Santa Clara
Convention Center, 2-3 June, 2010
This event includes some 30 sessions aimed at practical applications of augmented reality technology for entertainment, media, education, healthcare,
branding, tourism, customer service, product development, marketing and other areas. Official Site
 SIGGRAPH 2010 Conference and Exhibition Los Angeles Convention Center25-29 July, 2010The established forum for exploring the evolution of computer graphics and interactive techniques and their application to art, research, entertainment, education, science and more: people, companies, technologies, milestones, products and possibilities. Official SIGGRAPH Site
 The 2010 Immersive Technology Summit
UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles)
9 August, 2010
The Summit seeks to encourage development and
adoption of immersive technology by fostering collaboration
between
technologists, business developers, and media. The 2010 Immersive Technology Summit will
showcase pioneers of Immersive Tech and explore themes of
innovation, applications, and future development. Panels and live product demos will delve into brain-control interfaces, augmented reality, virtual
worlds, haptic devices and gesture controls.
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Immersive media news
New Mexico Innovators Join Forces on Digital Dome Research
 A new, statewide research partnership called
"PFI: Consortium for Fulldome and Immersive Technology Development"
received $597,220 in funding March 1 from the National Science
Foundation's (NSF's) Partnerships for Innovation program.
PFI helps organizations form
innovative partnerships in their communities by developing people, tools, and infrastructure to put new scientific
discoveries to practical uses. The new consortium will develop hardware and software with a view to employing digital domes to help people visualize,
simulate, or experientially comprehend a wide range of information, from
educational and artistic material to evaluating scientific data and
complex systems. Participants include the Advanced Graphics Lab and the ARTS Lab of the University of New Mexico (UNM) plus the Santa Fe Complex and the Institute of American Indian Arts. Project leader is Pradeep Sen,
Assistant Professor in the UNM Electrical & Computer Engineering
Department. Full Story.
 New 4d Exhibit Our Dynamic Earth, opens in Scotland Visitor Center, Edinburgh, Scotland
Combining stereoscopic 3D, audio, wind and aroma, Global Immersion has partnered with NSC Creative to create a large-format attraction targeted to kids aged 9-14 to foster an interest in science.
Read Fiona MacLeod's article at New.Scottsman.com
Giant Screen film, Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure being repurposed for digital dome
 Evans & Sutherland and Sky-Skan, in a deal with SK Films will distribute a digital dome version (2D and stereoscopic 3D) of the award
winning giant screen film, Bugs! A Rainforest Adventure (produced by Principal Large Format). The 40 minute exploration of the minuscule world of insects is narrated by Academy
Award winning actress, Dame Judy Dench. The new versions of Bugs! are scheduled to begin shipping in summer 2010.
Ott Planetarium releases
open source planetarium show, offers workshops
The Ott Planetarium is pleased to
announce the release of "Clockwork Skies" their second open source
planetarium show. The show was produced with Blender, a free, open
source 3D creation suite. 
Clockwork Skies is the class project of the Spring 2010 Blender
Production Workshop, held by the Ott Planetarium at Weber State
University. The four workshop students modeled and animated almost all of the scenes in eight hours after only 16 hours of instruction. The show and its source files are now available under the Creative
Commons Attribution 3.0 License.
Visit the
Ceres Open Movie Project for a web preview and access to the source
files.
Click here for information about Ott
Planetarium's Blender Workshops offered this summer, taught by
Ron
Proctor.
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More new digital dome shows
SpacePark360 Thrill Ride
Dome3D's show SpacePark360 is a 38
minute, 9-ride customizable show, that takes audiences on a wild immersive ride through
the solar system. Contact Dome3D for more information.
Unseen Universe -
The Vision of SOFIAThe Planetarium at the University of Texas at Arlington introduces a new
full-dome planetarium show, The Unseen Universe - the Vision of SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory for
Infrared Astronomy). The 40 minute show discusses the properties of
light, EM spectrum, black body radiation, and infrared light as well as
showing several video clips from the construction phase of the aircraft.
Visit http://www.utaplanetarium.com/distribution for more information.
Immersive media at large in the world
Crossing Worldsscreens at Dome Day Asia 2010
xRez Studio's award-winning "Crossing Worlds" was one of the selected
screenings for Dome Day Asia on 9 March 2010, in the Stanley Ho Space Theatre at the Hong Kong Space Museum. The principal photography for "Crossing
Worlds" was shot as high-resolution panoramas that were "camera
mapped" onto 3D geometry. Read More
 The GeoDome in Copenhagen during the UN Climate Change Conference
Elumenati Interactive Projection Design was invited by 350.org to bring the GeoDome to the UN Climate Change Conference
in Copenhagen. The presentation immersed participants in scientific
visualizations that illustrate conditions contributing to humanity's
successes and current predicaments. Watch video.
 3D projection during the Climate Summit in Copenhagen
NuFormer Digital Media was commissioned by Tivoli Gardens and Vestas Wind Systems to tell a story about climate change using its building projection system on the Tivoli entrance during the climate summit in Copenhagen in December. The projection was made on a basis of video footage, chromakey
techniques, 2D and 3D animations. Watch Video
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The Sensorama (above) was an early example of immersive, multi-sensory technology. It was able to display stereoscopic 3D images in a wide-angle view, provide body tilting, supply stereo sound, and also had tracks for triggering wind and aromas. Wikipedia
 | Notes from the Convergence
Theatre professionals and educators are part of the dialogue about immersive storytelling facilitated by technology - a report from the USITT conference in March 2010. Article on Blooloop.com
Giant Screen Cinema,
Digital Domes Converging;
New Special Venue Dome Business Emerging
"In the eyes of
special venue media producers and distributors, a significant new
market is emerging - a network that includes 2D and 3D giant-screen theaters
as well as fulldome, and connects the interests of
planetariums and science centers. The sharing of
content is just getting started..." This article by IMERSA communications director Judith Rubin first appeared in The Planetarian, published by IPS. Full Article
Second Life and the potential for immersive synergy
with museums, planetariums and content creation
by Mark Plattner
New avenues for the distribution and
consumption of digital content emerge as technologies continue to speed
up and handle ever larger processing loads, network pipelines fatten and immersive
media production moves to open source platforms (such as Blender, an open
source, 3D application increasingly used for digital dome content creation). Augmented
Reality points to some possible, intriguing directions and commonalities; the
popular virtual world, Second Life, likewise raises ideas about useful
crossovers and connections between in-home and out-of-home experiences.
The Second Life blog recently announced museum prototyping as
a tool for designers and the public - something that The Tech Museum in San
Jose has been doing (see article here)*.
This got me speculating on its viability to the IMERSA
community in other ways - as a potential vehicle for marketing, content sharing,
and audience testing, fueled by a common architecture such as Blender.
Fueled by this news, I ran some ideas past Ron Proctor at
Ott Planetarium, who is leading the application of Blender to digital dome
content production. Proctor confirmed that:
A) Objects created in Blender have the potential to be ported back and forth
between Second Life and digital dome environments. B) Objects created for digital dome shows can be sold to users in Second Life.C) Virtual classes and seminars in Second Life could complement parallel
gatherings in networked digital domes*. D) Pre-rendered digital dome shows can be displayed
in virtual dome theaters in Second Life.Delving further into Second Life, we discovered it contains working virtual domes in which one can explore digital environments. Second Life users can investigate here: Try it for yourself at the following locations. *via The Imagination Age
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Immersive Social Media Wall
 Become a Fan of IMERSA on FacebookIf you're amember of Facebook you can show proudly show your IMERSA affiliation by becoming a Fan of IMERSA today! By beinga fan of IMERSA on Facebook, you can be kept up to date on all the latest news coming down the pipe and meet with fans in other disciplines you may have not previously known about. Click here to join.
Other Fan Pages
If your company has a page on Facebook and you'd like to see it listed in our next issue, please drop us a line.
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Join IMERSA IMERSA is an international professional association advancing the art,
science, profile, integrity and common interests of large-format
digital immersive media and group interactive entertainment and
cultural experiences including (but not limited to) immersive digital
theaters and digital dome (fulldome) planetariums.For membership categories, benefits and dues information,
visit the IMERSA membership page. Sponsor
IMERSAHelp
our organization grow and fulfill its mission (and yours). IMERSA
needs your support in order to create and participate in events, and
to conduct activities and outreach that increase membership, foster
strategic relationships, promote our message and provide benefits to
members. Contact Martin Howe for details. IMERSA Officers and StaffIMERSA
Newsletter - April 2010
Published
by IMERSA.org
Edited by Judith Rubin and Mark Plattner
Executive Editors: Ed Lantz, Dan Neafus
You may reproduce or re-use the text in this newsletter with credit and a hyperlink to IMERSA.org.
SUBSCRIBE to the IMERSA newsletter - Send a message to Judith Rubin.
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