Dome-OS

The consequences of various world plans could be computed and projected, using the accumulated history-long inventory of economic, demographic, and sociological data. All the world would be dynamically viewable and picturable and radioable to all the world, so that common consideration in a most educated manner of all world problems by all world people would become a practical event.

i-DAT is developing a range of ‘Operating Systems’ to dynamically manifest ‘data’ as experience in order to enhance perspectives on a complex world. The Operating Systems project explores data as an abstract and invisible material that generates a dynamic mirror image of our biological, ecological and social activities.

At the core of these developments is the Immersive Vision Theatre, a transdisciplinary instrument for the manifestation of material, immaterial and imaginary worlds. The ‘Full Dome’ architecture houses two powerful high-resolution (fish-eye) projectors and a spatialised audio system.

A number of initiatives are being investigated to enable the rendering of real-world data into forms suitable for projection into immersive domed environments. Dome-OS preoccupation is with real-time, real-world data feeds and visualise these in a suitable manner for projection in a dome. Even as new game engine technologies open up opportunities for dome environments, the problem presents a series of complex challenges across multiple domains.

(Buckminster Fuller, Education Automation (1962))