Staffing Changes at the Digital Dome @ IAIA

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Mats Reiniusson has been appointed as the Digital Dome & Production Resources Manager. He has extensive experience in

  • experimental animated film production
  • sound for film television
  • surround sound for art installations
  • music for film and media arts
  • interactive and digital arts production

Mats has worked with IAIA’s New Media Arts department, Academic Technology and the Digital Dome since 2010 collaborating with former New Media Arts department chair Carlos Peinado and former dome manager Ethan Bach.

Staffing Changes at the Digital Dome @ IAIA

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Ethan Bach, has resigned his position as the digital dome manager at the Institute of American Indian Arts. His last day at this position will be March 15, 2013. We wish Ethan well in his future endeavors.

Ethan Bach standing under his on of his Chaco Canyon images

Ethan Bach standing under his one of his Chaco Canyon images

Ethan has been heavily engaged with digital dome at IAIA and we are very proud of what he has accomplished. In just a short time five dome courses were developed, an artist in residence program is in the final stages of formation (still TBA), and several art shows were curated. As a principal researcher, Ethan and his valued colleague Charles Veasey created vDome. vDome is the world’s first software for the digital dome that runs off a single computer and allows for easy plug and play, VJing, interactive art, and gaming. vDome is currently in Beta testing prior to open source release.

Ethan will continue his work in fulldome and hopes to remain an influencer in this medium.

Please feel free to reach out to Ethan at ethan@ethanbach.com.

IAIA will begin to search for my replacement soon and will have a part-time dome tech in place this week.  In the meantime, you can direct your IAIA digital dome inquiries to digitaldome@iaia.edu.

vDome Real-Time Digital Dome (Fulldome) Software at IMERSA2013

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The IMERSA Summit this year was amazing with workshops, speakers, technology shares, and live dome performances. We were proud to show off our vDome software.
At IMERSA 2013, they showcased the soon to be released open source software highlighting its capabilities for plug and play, external sensor motion generated interactive art, and live VJ performance. The calibration between projectors was seamless without lag. vDome runs on a single Mac computer!

This clip was taken from the IMERSA highlights video created by Derek Osterlund and Jane Crayton. The full video can be seen here vimeo.com/60871691

More information on vDome, and its open source release, coming soon!

 

Introducing IAIA’s Immersive Digital Dome Kiva for live gaming, interactive video installation and performance.

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Dome_rearprojection_sm

The Digital Dome at IAIA is excited to announce a preview to amazing things to come. After we have vDome, interactive fulldome software, running as smoothly as we feel comfortable, we will begin to add rear projection to the six panels of curved rear projection screens to create the Immersive Digital Dome Kiva. For now, we have tucked away the screens in order to continue our preparation of vDome for the IMERSA 2013 summit. Keep posted for developments at the Digital Dome @ IAIA.

How to Shoot Spherical HDR Panoramic Photos using the GigaPan Epic Pro

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Gearing up for tomorrow’s class, Digital Imagery for the Digital Dome, and the workshop I will teach at the IMERSA Fulldome Summit, I have revised our instructions for shooting a spherical HDR panoramic photo using the GigaPan Epic Pro and thought I would share this with you.

I am using a Canon T31 Rebel with an 18mm – 55mm lens. These direction are specifically  shooting exterior landscapes. Camera settings and Field of View settings in the GigaPan menu may need to be adjusted for other settings.

IAIA students using the Gigapan Epic Pro at Chaco Canyon, Summer 2012.

IAIA students using the Gigapan Epic Pro at Chaco Canyon, Summer 2012.

You should end up with around 56 sets of bracketed photographs. I use Photomatix and PT GUI to process the HDR and stitch the photos. If you use these direction, put your photos on 360 cities and share your link here. I would love to see what you create.

GIGAPAN SET UP

  1. MOUNT Gigapan on tripod
    1. make sure your tripod is sturdy and feet are at least 2’ apart
  2. Level using Gigapan level
  3. Go to OPTIONS MENU
    1. Set MULTI PICTURE to 1
    2. Set BRACKETS to 1
    3. Check BATTERY STATUS
      1. Note: this lies – always have a fully charged backup battery
  4. Go to EXPERT OPTIONS
    1. Set PICTURE OVERLAP to 25%
  5. MOUNT CAMERA on Gigapan
    1. Mounting plate words “ GigaPan Systems” should face the back of the camera
    2. Use the small metal lever on mount to lock mounting plate in place
    3. Use the MOVE CAMERA option under main menu to move mounting plate
    4. Adjust mount FORWARD/BACKWARD to reduce parallax – 18 – 55mm lens -= on slider (
    5. Go to CAMERA SETUP (Under Main Menu)
    6. Setup Field of View (FOV) – 18mm lens ~= 40 degrees +/-5


CAMERA SETUP

  1. CHECK MEMORY CARD SPACE
  2. CHECK BATTERY STATUS
  3. Set FOCUS
    1. set to MANUAL FOCUS
    2. Turn on LIVE VIEW
    3. ZOOM IN with the magnifying glass button
    4. ADJUST FOCUS at highest zoom level
  4. Set MODE to MANUAL (“M”)
  5. SET EXPOSURE until light meter reading is centered on bar
    1. For exterior/landscape shots make sure your F-stop is at 22
  6. SET ISO to 100 (outside sunny setting)
  7. MENU SETTING
    1. SET AUTO EXPOSURE BRACKETING (“AEB”) to 2 stops up/down
    2. SET ASPECT RATIO to 3:2
    3. SELECT FOLDER and create NEW FOLDER
    4. SET SHOOTING QUALITY to RAW
    5. TURN OFF IMAGE REVIEW
  8. CONNECT REMOTE CABLE – ensure it will not catch when Gigapan moves
    1. Note: If the camera begins to shoot when you hook up the cable, disconnect the cable, make sure your Gigapan is on and replug in the cable.
  9. REMOVE Camera’s strap to avoid it getting caught


SHOOTING

  1. SELECT NEW 360° PANORAMA on GIGAPAN MENU
    1. START 90° UP
    2. END 90° DOWN
    3. SKIP “SHOW PANORAMA”
    4. Follow the directions on the GigaPan and sit back while the robotic head does all the work.

Special thanks to Jonathan Strawn from UNM ARTS Lab for the first rendition of these instructions.

Courses in the Digital Dome for Spring 2013 – There is still room!

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Open Registration is Open. Courses begin Monday, January 14. To register please call the IAIA admissions office at 505-424-2307.

This spring semester, the Institute of American Indian Arts is offering one course that deals with digital dome production. Digital Imagery for the Dome combines Spherical photography, photogrammetry and special effects in a virtual environment. New student and audit student registration will begin in January and class start January 14 and run for 16 weeks.

Note: Anyone can take a course at IAIA as long as you have a high school diploma or GED.

Fun IAIA apocalypse image by instructor Craig Tompkins. This image was created through spherical gigapixel HDR photography, photogrammetry, using Maya to create grass and sky replacement.

NMAD392J – Digital Imagery for the Dome – Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30am to 12pm
Lead Instructor: Craig Tompkins (with Jane Crayton from UNM)

Course description: Digital Imagery for the Dome will provide advanced skills in high resolution photography and video. Students will learn capture and integration of real world locations and CGI effects for fulldome production. Focus will be on photographic techniques such as advanced skills in spherical panoramic background photography, HDRI capture, photogrammetry for set reconstruction and 360° live action video. Site survey techniques will be demonstrated as well as new techniques for 3D point cloud data capture. (Prerequisite skills: spherical HDR photography and/or 3D modeling.)

*This course is part of our Fulldome Development for Interactive Immersive Training research grant. Full-time degree seeking student who take this course will be eligible for the paid summer digital dome internship.

J. Craig Tompkins is an artist and designer living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he serves as Animation Faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He received an MFA in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009.
Craig works primarily in the fields of 3D animation, previsualization, and scale modeling, branching out into video compositing and installation. As a collaborative artist, he designs and constructs scale models and sets for photography, film, and installation. Tompkins is also the Lead Faculty Advisor to IAIA students at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in the formation of the Creative Humanics Laboratory (CHL). CHL is an ongoing design, modeling, and simulation experiment in collaboration with IAIA, NASA, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).

Jane Crayton focuses on STEM-A (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics through Art) utilizing experimental educational public outreach projects for STEM-A and New Media. Jane has worked in fulldome for the past few years and is one of the organizers of the IMERSA | Immersive Media Entertainment, Research, Science & Arts conference at Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Jane is currently working towards her masters degree in Education at the University of New Mexico where she works with ARTS Lab.

 

Registration for the IMERA Summit 2013 is now Open! IMERSA (Immersive Media Entertainment, Research, Science & Arts)

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Registration is now open!

We are happy to announce the Digital Dome @ IAIA staff will be providing workshops in fulldome production at IMERSA and demonstrating vDome. More details to come.

IMERSA Summit & Workshops, Feb 14-17 in Denver
“Innovations in Immersive Storytelling”
Register now to get the best prices – discounts end January 15
Featured speakers: Ivan Dryer (Laserium) and Barry Clark (Telenova)

Click here for a detailed overview of the event.

Call for participation
Openings still remain for Summit speakers, Workshop leaders, screenings, Fulldome Innovators and sponsors. Volunteers also needed. Information about these opportunities is in the Summit overview at this link.

Michael Daut joins IMERSA Board
IMERSA welcomes Michael Daut of Evans & Sutherland to the Board. Click here for story.

Visit www.IMERSA.org

Contact us: info@imersa.org

Fulldome / Digital Dome custom Adobe Action Pack for Spherical Production – FREE Fulldome Production Tools

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Free fulldome production tools for Photoshop. We just ran into this gem on the Fulldome Database. This free download combines Photoshop tools including grids, one click rotate, and fisheye effects into an easy to use set of actions.

The Domemaster Photoshop Actions Pack is a collection of custom Adobe Photoshop actions – written by Andrew Hazelden – designed to speed up the fulldome content creation workflow.  The actions provide tools for converting images from several common panoramic formats such as angular fisheye, equirectangular, and cube map panoramas, and general utilities for fulldome production.

The Domemaster Photoshop Actions Pack is compatible with Photoshop CS3 to CS6 on both Mac and Windows.

Download the Tools
The Domemaster Photoshop Actions Pack version 0.4 is available for download here:
domemaster-photoshop-actions-pack.zip

We would love to hear from people who are using this. What has been your experience?

Currents 2013 : Santa Fe International New Media Festival 2013 Call for Entries – Digital Dome @ IAIA

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CURRENTS 2013 : The Santa Fe International New Media Festival
June 14th – June 30, 2013
http://www.currentsnewmedia.org

Call for Entries
All submission materials must be received online or postmarked no later than:
February 1, 2013

CURRENTS 2013, the 4th Annual Santa Fe International New Media Festival will be
held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA – June 14th – June 30, 2013. CURRENTS’
curators look for the unique ways artists use technology as a tool for expression and
communication, and ways that scientists, programmers and developers are
integrating the arts and aesthetics into their explorations and projects.
The Festival will be held in several venues throughout Santa Fe: the Center for
Contemporary Arts, El Museo Cultural de Santa Fe, and the digital dome facility at the
Institute for American Indian Arts. In addition to exhibitions CURRENTS 2013 offers
panel discussions and workshops, and evenings of multimedia performances. Festival
events are free to the public.

To view previous year’s exhibitions visit http://www.currentsnewmedia.org/index.html

T h i s Ye a r ’s C a t e g o r i e s
h t t p : / / w w w. c u r r e n t s n e w m e d i a . o r g / a r t i s t s s u b m i s s i o . h t m l

Category A – New Media Installations (video, sound, interactive, computer/
software modulated or robotic sculpture or computer/software assisted fabrications)
Category B – Single Channel Video and Animation
Category C – Multimedia Performance
Category D – Experimental or Interactive Documentary
Category E – Digital Dome Projection
Category F – Web-art, Art-gaming, Mobile Device Apps (phone, iPad,etc).
Category G – Youth New Media Makers

General Guidelines
http://www.currentsnewmedia.org/generalsubmissio.html

The CURRENTS Festivals are produced by Parallel Studios, a 501 (c)(3)
nonprofit organization. parallel-contact@earthlink.net

Spring 2013 Courses in the Digital Dome @ IAIA: Fulldome Production

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This spring semester, the Institute of American Indian Arts is offering two courses that deal with digital dome production. The courses are Digital Dome Production I and Digital Imagery for the Dome. Digital Dome Production I is a great course for newbies to dome production and Digital Imagery for the Dome combines Spherical photography, photogrammetry and special effects in a virtual environment. New student and audit student registration will begin in January and class start January 14 and run for 16 weeks.

Note: Anyone can take a course at IAIA as long as you have a high school diploma or GED.

Fun IAIA apocalypse image by instructor Craig Tompkins. This image was created through spherical gigapixel HDR photography, photogrammetry, using Maya to create grass and sky replacement.

NMAD392J – Digital Imagery for the Dome – Tuesdays and Thursdays 9:30am to 12pm
Lead Instructor: Craig Tompkins (with Jane Crayton from UNM)

Course description: Digital Imagery for the Dome will provide advanced skills in high resolution photography and video. Students will learn capture and integration of real world locations and CGI effects for fulldome production. Focus will be on photographic techniques such as advanced skills in spherical panoramic background photography, HDRI capture, photogrammetry for set reconstruction and 360° live action video. Site survey techniques will be demonstrated as well as new techniques for 3D point cloud data capture. (Prerequisite skills: spherical HDR photography and/or 3D modeling.)

*This course is part of our Fulldome Development for Interactive Immersive Training research grant. Full-time degree seeking student who take this course will be eligible for the paid summer digital dome internship.

J. Craig Tompkins is an artist and designer living and working in Santa Fe, New Mexico where he serves as Animation Faculty at the Institute of American Indian Arts. He received an MFA in Electronic Arts at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 2009.
Craig works primarily in the fields of 3D animation, previsualization, and scale modeling, branching out into video compositing and installation. As a collaborative artist, he designs and constructs scale models and sets for photography, film, and installation. Tompkins is also the Lead Faculty Advisor to IAIA students at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in the formation of the Creative Humanics Laboratory (CHL). CHL is an ongoing design, modeling, and simulation experiment in collaboration with IAIA, NASA, and the American Indian Higher Education Consortium (AIHEC).

Jane Crayton focuses on STEM-A (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics through Art) utilizing experimental educational public outreach projects for STEM-A and New Media. Jane has worked in fulldome for the past few years and is one of the organizers of the IMERSA | Immersive Media Entertainment, Research, Science & Arts conference at Denver Museum of Nature and Science. Jane is currently working towards her masters degree in Education at the University of New Mexico where she works with ARTS Lab.

 

NMAD392J – Digital Dome Production I – Mondays and Wednesdays 9:30am to 12pm – Instructor: Joe Abraham Dean

A great beginner’s course!

Course description: Get in on the cutting-edge of this new technology while learning how to use the DigitalSky 2 software, create gigapixel images, and learn the history, present, and future of the digital dome. This course requires a willingness to experiment, research, take risk and break new ground. From the basics of how to place a still image on the dome to exploring and experimenting with storytelling, installation, and art. Students can work with the dome in various positions utilizing its unique ability to articulate. A public showing of work is required as part of the final project.

Joe Dean has been working and producing in the fulldome theater since 2007. He is the owner of Lumenscapes – a Santa Fe based lighting and digital media company with international projects in design and construction of immersive multimedia installations. His specialties are in domes, trade show booths, theatrical design for performance, motion picture production, content creation for multimedia installations, projection mapping, and immersive film making.