Technological Pleasure Dome: CR4 Tours EMPAC (Part 2)

The 360 degree screen projecting the "Workspace Unlimited" installation was definitely a cool site to see.

It felt like the room was actually moving and as you can see from the video a bunch of the older people on the tour didn't even feel comfortable entering the room.

Here is a picture of the same room (Studio 1) with the lights on.

Is the only one panorama 360 theater in usa? projected by three or five of 70mm projectors. yes these projectors usually installed in the ceiling.

I was told this type of cinema many years ago as well as dome movie and cinerama movies. serveral year ago our chinese built serveral this type of theaters in movies museum in Changchun and beijing shanghai etc. very shock.( I remmeber film is national geograph magzine shot)

even our city has 4D theater, its pity I havnt goine into it. hehe. nearly fall in a faint if see it over.

From the vedio it seems larger than ours. but what is the surround sound system? Im interested in. How many channels? how arrangement? how many speakers surround the screen? and power?

How is the sound effect? How to decorate the room in the view of the acoustic? any advanced material? how long is its reverbration time etc, are all our interesting.

would yu pls put out more feeling here from your diary or camera?

I'm not sure about the sound system, here is yet another picture of the room at a different event.

This time the screen was raised near the ceiling making an open dance floor for a Madlib show. This show was on the opening night of EMPAC. You can see some of the projectors in the picture.

Not bad, the screen can be moving. so that the site can be used as other stage.

ah, I see, the projectors are not 70mm film projector but vedio projectors. thats why lower lum.

Do you still remmeber Beijing olympic games openning ceremony? they use over 300 such projectors for the last firing.

Hi cnpower - Many thanks for your new comments. There are many "IMAX" and similar surround theatres across the U.S. and Canada. If you do an Internet search on this keyword, you'll find them. I browsed through the official EMPAC web site just now, and couldn't finds specs for the sound and vision systems, so I'm not sure if those are public information or proprietary. I'll be sharing more on advanced materials and acoustics next week in part (3), along with a slide show I plan to put together. Thanks for following this blog. - Larry

Haha, from the site, we can see much contemporary action arts . but I cannt enjoy them from my side. it seems less people in this cr4 concern about this title. I feel your west guys only concern motors, electric engineering. no other favorites in leisure time. at least in this cr4.

Im waiting for your third parts. is there any spot light speakers from Dr.Pempei in it?

Do you know the meaning of the chinese words in your avatar?

I guess you are a girl who just graduated from college.

Hi cnpower - many thanks for your new comments:

- My understanding for my Chinese avatar characters is that they represent a father who has a daughter:

Since I'm a proud dad of (1) girl, and have an interest in learning Mandarin (I took my daughter to some classes a couple of years ago and learned a little myself through osmosis), I thought I'd show my symbolic pride and joy in being a dad, kinda like "dadw5boys" does with his latin-character pseudonym.

However, you can't always believe what you read on the Internet, and so I will double-check my avatar with an engineering colleague from Beijing who works nearby in Schenectady. Many thanks for pointing this out to me.

- I am indeed a guy, and graduated in 1992 from Clarkson University (Potsdam, NY). :)

- Not sure if Dr. Pompei (I think you are referring to MIT researcher and founder of "holosonics" per holosonics.com) works at Rensselaer Polytechnic (or has worked/will work on their holographic project), but if I get word that he or someone working for him does, or will be visiting RPI for a lecture, I'll definitely try and attend, and share what I get there with you and others who follow CR4 via a blog entry.

- Larry

Author's note: Part 3 is available - click here.

Ill visit.