Uniview - Scaling The Universe

Uniview in stereo at Johann Palisa Observatory

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Johann Palisa Observatory and Planetarium in Ostrava, Czech Republic now features the first European in-dome stereo Uniview installation.

The Observatory and Planetarium of Johann Palisa was founded in 1980. Its sky theater presents astronomical and musical shows for schools as well as the general public. The Observatory and Planetarium was named after astronomer Johann Palisa (1848-1925), one of the earliest and most successful visual discoverer of asteroids.

The installation comprises of two high-resolution Barco projectors with a dual-computer Uniview cluster feeding the realtime stereo 3D imagery and Infitech hardware controlling the stereo aspects of the projection system.

The Johann Palisa Observatory and Planetarium

The YouTube phenomenon continues

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 12:00:00 +0100

Welcome to a new decade, possibly even more exciting than the previous one! The YouTube juggernaut keeps moving and The Known Universe video now has close to 3 million views. We would like to share some of the recent media coverage about this:

Ny Teknik: Svensk rymdresa blev Youtube-succé (Swedish)
Teknik 360: Det kända universum - en utflykt (Swedish)
NASA APOD: The Known Universe
Discovery News: Your Weekend "Wow!"

Uniview in universal YouTube phenomenon

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0100

You may already have seen it, the video that is one of the most Twittered and linked on the internet right now - a journey through the known universe created by American Museum of Natural History in New York using the Digital Universe database and the Uniview visualization software.

It is stunning to see the power of the internet, when people are moved by a visual experience and share it with others, momentum grows and like a seasonable snowball it grows - at the time of writing the video has more than 800.000 views and 2000 comments.

Uniview at President Obama's star party

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 12:00:00 +0100

In October, President Obama invited astronomers, teachers, school children and even astronauts to his garden for a star party of grand proportions. Represented on the lawn of the White House was an Elumenati Geodome running Uniview, showcasing the universe in three dimensions while visitors could gaze into the night sky using a variety of telescopes outside.

NyTeknik: Obama fick svensk rymdresa (in Swedish)
Bad Astronomy: Video from the White House star party
The White House: White House to Host Star Party

Carbon Based Lifeforms live at Cosmonova

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0100

Gothenburg based music duo Carbon Based Lifeforms and Cosmonova in Stockholm team up in a series of concerts on November 27th and 28th, where live electronic music will be performed in the dome accompanied by immersive visuals largely based on Uniview.

Carbon Based Lifeforms LIVE @ Cosmonova (in Swedish)
Carbon Based Lifeforms
Cosmonova

Article on Uniview in Minnesota schools

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:00 +0100

Together with our partner Elumenati we have a network of Uniview users in the state of Minnesota, US - a cluster of enthusiastic and forward-thinking planetarians, teachers and lecturers who were recently recognized for their efforts in an article in the Minnesota School Boards Association Journal magazine. We would like to invite everyone to read this article as it is conveniently posted on an online source.

Minnesota School Boards Association Journal article online

Uniview Theater 1.3 released

Mon, 05 Oct 2009 12:00:00 +0100

We are very happy to announce that the much awaited Uniview Theater 1.3 is now available. For access and installation information, please refer to the Member Zone.

Among other features, users will enjoy smoother camera transitions, object tree improvements, a simplified installation procedure, improved custom event editing, faster startup times, reduced memory footprint, graphics optimizations, atmospheres and limb darkening on Saturn and Jupiter, clouds with parallax movement and shadow casting on Earth, scintillation, animated exoplanet markers and a brand new Profile system with per-profile module selection, bookmarks, custom events and object settings.

The Digital Universe from American Museum of Natural History in New York, the backbone of astronomical data in Uniview, has been updated to the latest version and the object tree has been optimized to reflect the new structure. New datasets include Near Stars, Star Orbits and Sloan Stars as well as updates in many areas such as Exoplanets, 2MASS and Open Clusters.

On top of the Digital Unviverse content Uniview Theater 1.3 also features Oort cloud and Kuiper belt particle systems (developed in collaboration with California Academy of Sciences and Denver Museum of Nature & Science), a volumetric Milky Way galaxy (developed in collaboration with Toshiyuki Takahei, Riken, Tokyo), constellation figures, habitable zones and more.

Furthermore, Uniview Theater 1.3 sees two major features step out of beta stage and into the official limelight - Octopus and Geoscope. Geoscope comes with pre-configured high-resolution data sets for Earth, Moon and Mars.

Additional tools includes a Heads-up-display framework (developed in collaboration with Denver Museum of Nature & Science) for displaying information on the dome, and an Image placer tool for placing arbitrary images on the night sky.

Uniview at Umevatoriet

Wed, 23 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0100

We are happy to announce that Umevatoriet in Umeå, Sweden has chosen Uniview as the platform for astronomy and geosciences in their brand new fulldome environment. Umevatoriet will utilize the new Uniview Producer application to create shows for the Uniview Theater visualization engine.

Together with French partner company Antycip Simulation, Uniview has been installed alongside a fulldome solution using five projectiondesign projectors and a Mersive automatic projection calibration system.

Umevatoriet is based in the Umestan business park in Umeå in northern Sweden and was opened in spring 2006. It is a scientific meeting place for schools, associations, companies and the public, based on the fascination for space and the universe.

Read the full press release here.

Uniview at Ars Electronica

Wed, 02 Sep 2009 12:00:00 +0100

We are proud to announce our collaboration with Ars Electronica, an organisation that has been at the forefront of digital media and culture for the last 30 years. In 2009, the new Ars Electronica Center was finished, a spectacular architecture of glass and LED lights.

Deep Space, part of this new center, is a large-scale platform for interactive, stereoscopic and high resolution content. Applications are ranging from virtual heritage to extreme resolution images to digital storytelling to 3D video and now also to astronomic content.

During the International Year of Astronomy Ars Electronica decided to utilize the Deep Space exhibit to visualize space and the view of Earth from it - in it Uniview feeds an 8 projector large wall and floor 3D stereo projection system to give the visitors a unique tour of the universe.

For the annual Ars Electronica festival, held on 3rd to 8th of September 2009, Staffan Klashed, CEO of SCISS, will attend to do a presentation of Uniview in the Deep Space on Level 0 in the Ars Electronica Center.

Climate visualization at Almedalen Week

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 12:00:00 +0100

The Almedalen Week is an annual event taking place in the first week of July in and around Almedalen, a park in the city of Visby on the Swedish island Gotland. This year, an inflatable Elumenati GeoDome was present running Uniview to help politicians and other visitors learn more about the current state of our planet.

Spearheading this event was the Norrköping Visualization Center and the Centre for Climate Science and Policy Research, who have initiated a co-operation with the Hamburg Planetarium and international climate researchers at a.o. KlimaCampus/Max Planck Institute on climate change and sustainable development. Using Uniview, the project aims at creating a platform for the visualization of climate change and to bring these visualizations to key members of society.

Excerpt of the media coverage in the Swedish press:

SR: Almedalen under vatten om 200 år (in Swedish)
NT: Domen visades i Almedalen (in Swedish)