In the last five years, Uniview has evolved and emerged as the leading visualization tool for datasets of vastly different scales, from our home planet to galaxies and quasars, distant in both time and space. Meanwhile, a parallell evolution has occured as the internet has matured from the early days of static World Wide Web pages to today’s complex structures of web-based services and enormous global social networks. To the internet user of today, content and knowledge is always available online, somewhere.

We believe that it is time for the digital dome industry to take this leap into the connected world and we aim to do this by providing the tools to tap into online sources of both knowledge and content.

What is knowledge in this aspect? Knowledge is people, the scientists, the astronomers and geology experts, and the science communicators that tell the story about the data and turn it into information. We know that to tell a story, nothing beats human contact, and by letting the expert communicate directly to the audience a unique level of authenticity is achieved. Even better, the presentation turns into a dialogue where the audience has the option of giving comments and asking questions, to adapt the presentation to better suit their own needs and interests.

In short; by putting real scientific data in the hands of dome users, and providing tools to bring forth the significant stories of that data, we can create a unique and significant experience for digital domes. We do this via Uniview Octopus, a new networking technology that brings live stories from scientific data creators into the dome. Through Octopus, scientists and science communicators from around the world can connect and bring their data onto that very dome and help audiences around the world understand the impact of the data presented.

Furthermore, the Uniview Octopus technology allows multiple scientists to connect to the same dome, to do joint presentations to public audiences or even decision-support debates and discussions with policy and decision makers. We believe that the role of the dome as a scientific outreach tool is important, and that this networking technology is a key step in increasing the sense of realness and closeness to scientific data for dome audiences.

Octopus, together with the general interactivity of Uniview, brings true interactivity to the digital dome, bringing the experience to life and making every session unique.

For a demonstration of the Octopus technology in action please watch the recorded live presentation with Carter Emmart from CAP2007 in Athens.