Spherical Mirror: A New Approach to

Hemispherical Dome Projection

Paul Bourke
Swinburne University
P.O.Box 218
Hawthorn
Melbourne, Vic 3122 Australia
[email protected]

Introduction Abstract The projector and lens are located in

Historically dome environments Planetariums and smaller personal the center of the dome; fisheye frames
have been restricted to large plane- from movies or generated by real time
tariums and used primarily for pub-
domes can provide an immersive envi- interactive applications are projected
lic education in astronomy, illustrat- ronment for science education, virtual through the lens, and if created cor-
ing the positions/motion of planets, reality, and entertainment. Digital projec- rectly they look undistorted on the
stars, and constellations. These plan- dome. Such solutions have the benefit
etariums have used a variety of spe-
tion into domes, called “full dome projec- of being easy to manage and don’t
cialised projection hardware such as tion”, can be a technically challenging usually require specialised computer
star projectors [1], laser projectors, and expensive exercise, particularly for hardware. There are issues such as res-
and multiple edge-blended slide pro- olution and brightness, but they are
installations with modest budgets. An al- largely a reflection of the price one is
jectors. If the planetarium had the
ability to present real-time digital ternative full dome digital projection sys- prepared to pay for the projector.
graphics, the graphics were limited tem is presented here that is based upon However for small operations based
to a small portion of the dome, typi- a single projector and a spherical mirror around based
public education or research-
virtual environments, the cost
cally using a single CRT projector.
Even though planetariums have
to scatter the light onto the dome sur- of a good fisheye projection system
been limited by the available tech- face. The approach offers many advan- may still be prohibitive. The alterna-
nology, the immersive possibilities tages over the fisheye lens alternatives, tive projection system introduced
have been obvious, mostly due to here significantly reduces the cost of
two characteristics of the hemi-
results in a similar quality, but at a frac- dome projection while maintaining a
spherical surface: the viewers’ peri- tion of the cost. similar quality and even offers some
pheral vision is engaged, and pro- interesting advantages over fisheye
limit the content to movies. The content is projection.
ceedings were conducted in the dark where
not even limited to astronomy or even to
there are often no frames of reference other
than the projected imagery. The former is
science education, but indeed to any subject Spherical mirror projection
matter including, but not limited to, a wider The projection system proposed here uses
responsible for the vertigo one often experi-
range of educational topics, immersive spa- a spherical mirror instead of a fisheye lens to
ences with rapidly rotating imagery; the
tial environments, virtual heritage, and even distribute light in a wide solid angle. It can
later allows the apparent shape of the dome
pure entertainment. be readily appreciated that a spherical mirror
to be changed and is also credited with
With the success of digital projection in can reflect light from a rectilinear frustum
depth perception similar to stereoscopic 3D
large planetariums and the development of (produced by a commodity data projector)
effects.
formal standards [2], interest has been grow- over almost the whole surface of a dome (see
In more recent times planetariums have
ing in how to offer the same experience in figure 1). There are a number of options for
been upgraded to provide full dome digital
smaller domes. These smaller domes are typi- the projector/mirror placement in relation
projection, that is, a movie is seamlessly pro-
cally around 10m in diameter (found in to the dome, but the geometry discussed
jected onto the dome surface at typically 30
many science centers) down to the smaller here will consider a single projector within a
frames per second. For larger planetariums
5m diameter inflatable domes [3] that can be small dome. In this case the spherical mirror
this full dome projection is achieved with
installed almost anywhere. The difference is placed as close as possible to the rim of the
multiple projectors, most commonly CRT
between these smaller domes and the large dome (see figure 2). A number of alternative
projectors. The projectors are carefully
planetariums is largely in the system cost geometries and environments have been
aligned and edge blended across overlapping
they can sustain. Not only do multiple pro- proposed in the past, for example “Enspher-
projection regions. The system is driven by
jector systems have a high initial cost, they ed Vision” that uses a convex mirror to pro-
movies made up of fisheye images, these are
also have higher requirements in local exper- ject into cylindrical environments [4] as well
usually diced into pieces and played back
tise, and incur a significant cost of owner- as polyhedral spaces. The author has addi-
using specialised graphics hardware. Even
ship. The solution to these cost problems has tionally explored dual mirrors/projectors
more recently, high-end graphics systems
been to employ a fisheye lens attached gen- located in the middle of the dome [5] with a
have been able to project interactive graph-
erally to a single commodity data projector. single edge blend across the middle. Another
ics in real-time so it is no longer necessary to

6 Planetarian December 2005

 the mirror and the projector or by varying
the projector zoom. While it is true that
the whole dome surface cannot be totally
covered, it is equally not common for fish-
eye projection to cover the whole dome
for pixel efficiency reasons [4].
4. The system is scalable to multiple projec-
tors and mirrors in order to achieve higher
resolution and complete dome projection.
For example, a dual mirror and projector
arrangement would give a single edge
blend across the middle of the dome [5].
5. Unlike a fisheye projector located in the
center of the dome, the path length from
the projector to the dome is not constant,
resulting in an intensity variation. Fortu-
nately this is straightforward to compute
and correct for.
6. Unlike fisheye projection, where not all
the available pixels in the typically rectan-
Figure 1. Representative rays off a projection source and reflected from a spherical gular aspect ratio of the projector are used,
surface. All illustrations are by the author.
all the pixels can be used in spherical mir-
ror projection if the image is entirely con-
tained on the mirror. Note, however, that
not all pixels are used equally efficiently.
7. Unlike the fisheye lens solution, the
images projected need to be warped before
projection. Strictly speaking this is no dif-
ferent to fisheye projection; it too is a
warped image, but one we are more famil-
iar with.
8. Angular fisheye lens with good optical
design is in focus at all positions on the
dome surface. When using a spherical mir-
ror there is a variation in path length from
the projector to different parts of the
dome. The effect of this focusing problem
can be minimised by choosing projectors
with a good depth of focus.

Warping
For the image on the dome surface to look
correct and undistorted, a precisely warped
image needs to be projected. The form of the
distortion can be seen in figure 4. Figure 4a is

Figure 2. Typical position of the projector (16:9), mirror, and dome in a

planetarium environment. Red lines illustrate the projected distribu-
tion of a regular grid.

installation by the author located a mirror at 2. The projector and optics

the base of a vertically mounted truncated have been separated, mak-
dome [6]. ing it possible to choose
There are a number of comparisons one projectors based upon the
can make between a spherical mirror reflec- characteristics important
tion arrangement and a fisheye lens system: for the application at hand,
1. It can be advantageous to locate the pro- for example: price, bright-
jection hardware away from the center of ness, resolution, or contrast
the dome since the center is generally the ratio. Fisheye lens can typi-
best location for undistorted viewing. This cally only fitted to a very
is the classic problem for single-person narrow range of projectors.
domes with fisheye lens projection; the 3. The coverage on the dome Figure 3. Geometry after the coordinate system has
been transformed to place the spherical mirror at
viewer and fisheye lens cannot occupy the can be controlled by vary- the origin and the intersection of the projected ray
same space. ing the distance between on the mirror/dome in the x-z plane.

December 2005 Planetarian 7

 Figure 4. Warping of lines of longitude and latitude. The fisheye image in 4a consists of equally separated lines of longitude and
latitude and is a convenient test pattern for dome projection. If 4b is correctly projected and viewed from the center of the dome,
the central pole should be at the highest point in the dome, the lines of longitude and latitude should all appear vertical and hori-
zontal respectively, and the line of 0 latitude should encircle the horizon of the dome. Note the intensity is varied so it fades grad-
ually to back at the rear of the dome.

a regular polar grid appropriate for fish- dome, and to implement edge-blending
The alternative projection system
eye projection and figure 4b is the for multiple projector configurations.
warped version that will look correct on introduced here significantly re- Figure 6 shows a fisheye image applied as
the surface of the dome. Figure 5 shows duces the cost of dome projection a texture onto a regular mesh using
the projector and mirror arrangement OpenGL. Similarly, a standard approach
while maintaining a similar quality
with a warped polar mesh on the com- to creating fisheye images in interactive
puter display and the resulting image on and even offers some interesting OpenGL applications is to render four
the mirror. advantages over fisheye projection. faces of a cube and form the fisheye
Creating correctly warped images image by applying those as textures on a
given a particular projector, mirror, and projector is located at P 1 , the mirror is of mesh with precisely specified texture coordi-
dome arrangement requires finding the radius r, and the position on the dome is P2. nates. Figure 7a shows the mesh onto which
point on the projector frustum for any point The path length from the projector to the four cubic map textures are applied to form
on the dome. The problem is three-dimen- mirror is L1, the path length from the dome the correctly warped fisheye; figure 7b shows
sional but can be turned into a simpler two- to the mirror is L2, these are given as a func- a resulting screen dump from a real time
dimensional problem by firstly translating tion of ø below driving simulator.
the geometry so the spherical mirror is at the It should be noted that while the discus-
origin and then rotating the geometry so L12 = (P1x – r cos(ø))2 + (r sin(ø))2 sion here has concentrated on hemispherical
that the point on the mirror, dome, and pro- 2
L2 = (P2x – r cos(ø))2 + (P2z – r sin(ø))2 domes, it can also be employed in any situa-
jector lies in a single plane. In figure 3, the tion where extremely wide angle projection
Fermat’s principle states that is required. In particular, it could be used to
light travels by the shortest wrap the output from a single projector into
route, so ø can be found by a rectangular room, achieving an undistort-
minimising the total light path ed result similarly requires the calculation of
length from the projector to the correct warping function.
the position on the dome,
namely minimising (L 1 2 + Conclusion
L22)1/2. An alternative dome projection system
Once a relationship can be has been designed and demonstrated to be
made between positions in the suitable for small planetarium domes. The
projection plane and the dome, mathematics required and practical issues
a regular mesh can be created involved in warping fisheye images as a pre-
where each node is represented processing stage and in real-time have been
by normalised frustum coordi- developed and tested. By comparison to the
nates (x, y), fisheye image tex- more conventional fisheye solutions, the
ture coordinates (u, v), and an spherical mirror solution suffers from no
intensity value. The intensity serious disadvantages and offers some advan-
value can be used for compen- tages at a significantly lower cost. Future
sating for the brightness varia- work includes creating an optimal mirror
tion due to the range of light surface rather than using a spherical surface.
Figure 5. Projector and mirror in development path lengths, to softly fade the Such an optimal surface will use all pixels in
configuration, the projected image on the laptop image towards the back of the the rectangular image plane and attempt to
screen and mirror surface is a warped polar grid.

8 Planetarian December 2005

 Figure 6. Fisheye image shown in 6a is applied as an OpenGL textured mesh in 6b. Each mesh node in 6b is represented by (x,y) coor-
dinate in normalized projection plane coordinates, a (u,v) texture coordinate that relates to the fisheye image, and an intensity
value that can compensate for the variable light path length.

Figure 7. 7a shows the warped appearance of the four texture regions and mesh outline as used by real-time OpenGL applications.
The textures are derived from 4 virtual cameras each with the face of a cube as the projection plane. 7b is a single frame from a
real-time driving simulator using the warped texture meshes in 7a.

distribute them equally on the hemisphere. Spain, July 7/8, 2004. 65 Bourke, December 2004. [http://astrono
3. Inflatable planetarium domes, Starlab Inc. my.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/projection/dual
References [http://www.starlab.com] dome]
1. The History of the Planetarium, Chartrand, 4. Ensphered Vision, Hashimoto, W., Iwata, 6. Spherical mirror projection for an upright
M.R., Planetarian , Vol 2, #3, September H., Ensphered Vision: Spherical immersive dome. Paul Bourke, May 2005. [http://
1973. display using convex mirror. Transactions astronomy.swin.edu.au/~pbourke/projec
2. Proceedings of the IPS 2004 Special Session of the Virtual Reality Society of Japan, 4 tion/uprightdome] C
Fulldome Standard Summit. Valencia, (3) 497-486.

December 2005 Planetarian 9