Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/14320
n n n n Scientific Visualization scripts pull the data into Maya, where the con- tent-creation team works to finesse the imag- ery and make it screen-ready for shows. “If we need to figure out the camera move- ment from Earth to Mars, and then to the edge of the solar system, we want to work with the camera animation as we would in a regular 3D package,” explains Bernhardt. “And, it is better to do it in the dome because of the ori- entation with so much peripheral-vision mat- ter. We can sketch things out and get a good sense of what we want to do.” Working alongside Digital Universe is Uni- view, a Windows-based VR-type viewer that enables the group to examine the compre- hensive galactic database in real time on the dome. Uniview eventually replaced an earlier VR-style of viewer that ran on the Onyx. “It was a bit primitive, but we were able to navi- gate around the data fairly quickly and render out content,” says Bernhardt. Te new viewing system actually sprung out of an internship at the American Museum of Natural History in collaboration with the University of Norrkoping in Sweden, and spawned the company Sciss, which began commercially marketing the software, now named Uniview. Uniview runs on multiple platforms ranging from laptops to multichan- nel PC clusters and is used in a number of digital domes throughout the world. How- ever, other viewers also utilize the Digital Uni- verse atlas via agreements with the museum, including Sky-Skan’s DigitalSky and Evans & Sutherland’s Digistar, which are also popular in planetariums. Global Immersion and Zeiss, meanwhile, use Uniview for their real-time planetarium installations. In addition to using Uniview for previs, the production team has relied on the setup’s real- time functionality to generate rendered content for the show Field Trip to the Moon, a tour of the universe geared for school groups. Te crew also uses Uniview for other real-time operations, such as live presentations during public lectures and allowing speakers to go off script. In addition, the crew uses Uniview for other real-time operations, such as generating edu- cational products for lectures and as a previsu- alization tool when making the pre-rendered space shows. Furthermore, Uniview and Digital Universe are vital components in mixed-media productions and live performances held in the planetarium. Earlier this year, a rendition of Jo- seph Hayden’s opera “Te World on the Moon” was staged at the theater, with the backdrops created by the Gotham Chamber Opera group using the planetarium’s vast image library. “Tis program was a hybrid—it wasn’t using real 42 July 2010 time, but it involved more than just playing back pre-rendered content,” says Bernhardt. Recently, “Te Known Uni- verse” video, which has gone viral on YouTube with more than five million hits, was created at the museum (in partnership with the Rubin Museum of Art) utilizing the Uniview software. A Changing World Ever since going digital, the Hayden Planetarium has contin- ued to evolve, staying ahead of the technological curve as much as possible. And with the 10th anniversary of the Rose Center for Earth and Space approaching quickly, an effort is in full swing to bring the entire museum up from 2000 technology to 2010 technology. Included in that plan is to change out all the LCD monitors in the Cullman Hall of the Universe to high-brightness LCDs; this includes a new Chris- tie Digital Micro Tiles video wall to display the HD Science Bulle- tins’ Astrobulletin there, replacing the current rear-projection video wall. Another big renovation is in the Big Bang Teater, which will now get an updated, four-chan- nel blended display consisting of four LED-based projectors dedi- cated to the explanation of the Big Bang, with two channels per computer, as op- posed to a single channel. “We are also redoing more than 50 visualiza- For Journey to the Stars, the content team had to math- ematically describe and computationally model the cosmic events in the show, and then turn the numerical simulations into graphic animations. In the bottom image, the group also added a 3D model of the space probe Voyager 1. immerses you in ways that sitting in front of a television or flat screen does not.” With such state-of-the-art equipment, the tions that play in the Hall of the Universe, and almost in every case, we are trying to replace pan/scan with real visualization data, which is a pretty large task, but a lot of the data is out there and available from various research insti- tutions,” says Bernhardt. “We want to make it less of a slide show and more current by provid- ing accurate scientific information.” To the Outer Limits Without question, the immersive shows pro- duced by the American Museum of Natural History are pushing the state of the art in computer graphics, computation, and visual- ization. “Tere are few attractions out there that keep up with the speed and advancement, and engagement, of the experience,” says Bern- hardt. “And the digital dome experience is one of those. It engages your peripheral vision and group is able to put together systems that are as fast as anything out there, allowing them to experiment and revitalize the planetarium dome experience, all in a much smaller physi- cal space and at a lower cost and heat and power load, but with far better performance and results. “I’m not just talking about, ‘Gee whiz, look how fast we can fly through the data.’ Rather, it enables us to step beyond just making things work so we can focus on the conceptual stuff beyond that, whereby we can ask ourselves, ‘What if we could do this, or that?’ To do so, we need a platform that is stable, modern, and has forward growth.” According to Bernhardt, the digital tools now enable him and his colleagues to push science visualization to the outer reaches of the universe. “You may think that [new technol- ogy] will save you time and money, but what