Widescreen Gaming Forum

Several papers have been written that a wide FOV will give a better 3D experience than S3D. Below are some links to some wide FOV solutions - some involving domes and hmd's. Does anyone here know about "fisheye" rendering to support these resolutions with directx or opengl games? I was speculating on getting an s3d projector and a fisheye lens, but if there are no drivers and software that warp the scene, it won't be as pleasant. Has anyone here used a dome?

http://www.jdome.com The Jdome concept.

http://www.leepvr.com/38comparison.html the leepvr HMD concept.

http://www.gundam-kizuna.jp/english/game/index.html The gundman POD system used in arcade centers now.

Bourke on very cheap dome solutions with 1 projector and a spherical mirror:
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/misc.../mirrortalk.pdf
http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/projects/infra_dome.html

http://strlen.com/gfxengine/fisheyequake/ And finally "fisheye" Quake
http://strlen.com/gfxengine/fisheyequake/compare.html

I myself am planning on experimenting with dome projection after we move into our new house in a few weeks. Here is some information that makes a diy project seem do-able.
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/miscellaneous/domemirror/

more specific to gaming. http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/papers/dime2006/

How are you going to build your dome? That is my biggest engineering challenge personally. I would like to find something already fabricated ideally.

Yes Bourke is recognized as probably one of the top experts on the planet. You can see in my original post I link to his website.

In some of his papers he says to use a 3 meter dome as the smallest. He does mention Elumens visionstation at 1.5m, but says he doesn't really recommend it - but he doesn't say why. I would like to know why.

Do you have any ideas why a 1.5m dome will not be sufficient? Perhaps you can email him and get the answer for us, he says he is open to general questions from the public for personal dome building. I wonder if 1.5m is ok for a fisheye lens, but not OK when you start getting into spherical mirror projection, I wish he would clarify.

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/miscellaneous/domemirror/faq.html

What is the smallest sensible dome for digital fulldome projection?

This depends on the application, for single person domes I suggest 3m is about the smallest. The old visionstation by Elumens (no longer available) was 1.5m and while the spherical mirror has been used it isn't ideal. My dome shown below is 3m diameter but as you see it is orientated differently to planetarium domes.

Here is the elumens website showing information about the visionstation the Bourke talks about.

http://www.est-kl.com/aufbau_general/index_discontinued.html?http://www.est-kl.com/projection/elumens/vs.html

http://www.vrealities.com/visionstation.html

System Dimensions & Weight:

Overall Height: 165 cm (5’ 5â€

All that comes to mind when I see this kind of stuff is that JDome video I saw over a year ago.

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All that comes to mind when I see this kind of stuff is that JDome video I saw over a year ago.

The Jdome is better than nothing, but it doesn't have a very wide FOV. You live in Tampa, have you been to the imax dome theater there? Right now they are showing under the sea, what did you think?

yeah been to the imax dome a couple of times as a kid for school field trips.

Its a cool thing but the dome is way up above you so I think it would be different than if you were just outside of the dome where your vision is more to your left/right for the outer edges of the screen.

The the imax dome is HUGE so you still have to look around to see it all.

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Here is an interesting article about the Gundam dome

http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NE ... 29/170942/