In this issue

- OmniMap 1.0.2 Now Available

- Global Universe Tours

- Upcoming Events

- Recent Events

Good hello and welcome to the latest All-Seeing Eye, the occasional newsletter of the Elumenati. It's been a few months since our last update, but you can see from the recap below that we've been quite busy. If you've got any questions about any of this or would like a demo of any of our systems, please contact us.

OmniMap 1.0.2 now available, OmniMap 2.0 coming up
Free API for spherical perspective projection

Version 1.0.2 of the free OmniMap™ Geometry Correction Library API is now available. It provides developers with an easy-to-integrate solution to make real-time OpenGL applications compatible with OmniFocus ™ projection systems. DirectX developers don't despair - our next release will have you covered as well.

The engineering team at Elumenati has been adding some important functionality for the late October release of OmniMap 2.0, including:

1. Support for Direct3D with sample code, multi-sampling in the channels, and integrated Direct3D and OpenGL in one DLL.
2. Assymetrical frustums for custom channel geometries as well as performance improvement.
3. Alpha channel masking to mask out an insert area where an additional projector may be projecting imagery.
   
   

Touring the Universe Across the Earth

Interactive networked immersion in Athens, Tokyo, Stockholm, New York, Milwaukee, and Asheville

On October 8th, we were honored to participate in one of Carter Emmart's Tours of the Universe Uniview sessions that was synchronized across the planet. Carter was logged in from Athens, Greece giving live presentations to an applauding audience of 250 people at Communicating Astronomy With The Public. Simultaneously, the developers of Uniview were logged in from Stockholm along with the Hayden Planetarium in New York, the National Astronomical Observatory in Tokyo, the Elumenati Lab in Milwaukee, and the Elumenati Studio and Applied Viz Lab in Asheville. Using Uniview's Octopus network server, viewers were able to experience immersive networked collaborations in real-time, with any of the groups able to take over control of the visualized Digital Universe tours interactively.

The sessions were a great success, and we look forward to continued exploration of interactive and immersive global collaboration for scientific education and outreach.

Upcoming Events

Presentation at the Festival du Nouveau Cinéma de Montréal
October 10th-12th, 2007
Montreal, Canada

We're headed to Montreal to participate in the Festival du Noveau Cinéma. On October 10th at 7pm, the Elumenati's Light Plumber extraordinaire D'nardo Colucci will be presenting Designing interactivity for immersive environments. The presentation will explore design approaches to creating meaningful interactivity amongst audiences within immersive virtual environments. Examples of several designs will be presented within an immersive dome theater at the La Société des arts technologiques showcasing our most recent efforts in group dynamics and learning using Uniview and a HAL-SX8 in the 18m "SAT-osphere." On October 12th he'll be participating in the Immersion in Cinema - what is immersion? panel panel.

Association for Science and Technology Centers
October 13th-14th, 2007
Los Angeles, CA

We'll be in Los Angeles this weekend for the annual Association for Science and Technology Centers conference. We've teamed up with the MN Planetarium, NASA, NOAA, the American Museum of Natural History, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, and Sciss to showcase the best available content for immersive dome displays. A 6.5 meter GeoDome Theater will be showcasing stories about the Greenland Ice Shelf, Tours of the Universe in Uniview, time-lapse of the Auroro Borealis, and much more.

Cornell "Studio in Space and Time" presentation
October 22nd-23rd, 2007
Ithaca, NY

The Elumenati's Director of Noospheric Research David McConville will be in Ithaca, NY on October 22nd and 23rd presenting Cosmological Cinema: Pedagogy, Propoganda, and Perturbation in Early Dome Cinema at Cornell University. Part of the "Studio in Space and Time" course exploring interdisplinary colloborations between the arts and sciences using technology, the presentation will include a demonstration of the 3 meter GeoDome Pod. Drop us a line if you're in the Ithaca area and interested in coming by.

Over-the-top Skunkworks
October 10th, 2007
San Francisco, CA

We've been working on a "we-tell-you-we-kill-you" kind of projects for the past month with some of our favorite folks, collecting high resolution fisheye imagery from around the world. It's all for an event this week in an undisclosed location in California, which we believe will be capped by the world's largest digital projection dome (90 feet in diameter). It's a one-night-only gig, but hopefully we can mention more about this fascinating project after it's over. Sorry to be a tease...

Recent Events

Overview Effect Symposium
July 18th, 2007
Washington, D.C.

The Overview Effect Day, part of the NewSpace 2007 Conference, was a great success. We had the 3 meter GeoDome set up, with Carter Emmart from the Rose Center for Earth and Space was giving guided, interactive tours of NASA's Digital Universe Atlas in Uniview. We were joined by numerous astronauts, futurists, social entrepreneurs, and artists discussing the role of 'Overview Effect' and human spaceflight (either actual or simulated) in the role of the evolution of human consciousness.

For a somewhat jaded recap of the event, check out Wired's Scratch a Space Nut, Find a Starry-Eyed Hippie.

NASA Education & Public Outreach Colloquium
August 8th, 2007
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Greenbelt, MD

We recently had great few days at NASA Goddard at the invite of NASA's Committee for Education & Public Outreach presenting Absorbing the Big Picture: Immersion and Interactivity in Science Education and giving demonstrations in the 3 meter GeoDome Pod and the 6.5 meter GeoDome Theater. The presentation and video are available at NASA's EPO web site for those of you that missed it. Many thanks to David Herring of NASA's Earth Observatory for being such a gracious host!

About the Elumenati

The Elumenati is a full service design and engineering firm specializing in the development and deployment of immersive visualization environments and experiences. Creating a broad array of simple yet effective displays, we serve diverse clientele from art festivals to space agencies. In addition to a full range of Omnifocus projection systems, we offer end-to-end services including systems integration, real-time software design, immersive content research, custom fabrication, and optical engineering. For more information, visit http://www.elumenati.com.

If you are reading this online and would like to be informed of updates, please visit http://www.elumenati.com/connect/.