J-Dome

[Farukhan]

Hey guys,

I just stumbled over this new cool gadget here and wanted to show it to you. Could be quite interesting for surround gaming fans.

Keep in mind that it´s only a prototype and it propably will take the guy some time to sell it on the market it larger numbers.

As for me, I´m waiting for my 3 24â€

[Mesh]

Yeh, nice scam there that bit is, and I believe someone had already posted about it.

Why I think it's a scam?
- 180deg. half-sphere have been done before
- projector not included? what am I buying exactly? half your beach ball with the interior painted white?
- the sales pitch video is mostly rerunning the same game footage of the current headline puppy (crysis) without even bothering to adjust the field of view to the spherical display, gee I guess I'm buying nausea.

I put this in the same category as that alienware curved screen, lots of fluff and little content.

[BHawthorne]

Yeh, nice scam there that bit is, and I believe someone had already posted about it.

Why I think it's a scam?
- 180deg. half-sphere have been done before
- projector not included? what am I buying exactly? half your beach ball with the interior painted white?
- the sales pitch video is mostly rerunning the same game footage of the current headline puppy (crysis) without even bothering to adjust the field of view to the spherical display, gee I guess I'm buying nausea.

I put this in the same category as that alienware curved screen, lots of fluff and little content.

With an initial look at it I don't think it's unreasonable. $125-200 range for a projector screen and whatever warping software they use. I have a few projectors, so I'd be willing to try it out. The hard part is the pre-warping software, not making a half-dome screen of rear projection material. I'm not so sure what he has there could be patented though because I've seen so many variations on the half dome projection like this. Previously, I've only seen front projection onto a first surface dome mirror though. Problem with this sort of projection is that it's going to be less resolution than the projector is shooting because you're going to loose the pixels that don't fall on the half-dome screen. You'll lose less pixel with a 5:4 projector than a 16:9. IMHO, it would be pretty cool if you had a 1920x1200 HD projector sitting around. Not like those grow on trees though. :lol:

Looking around, I'm not seeing any prewarping software supplied with jDome? It's just a dome? I could build that on my own. :)

[Dem Pyros]

With an initial look at it I don't think it's unreasonable. $125-200 range for a projector screen and whatever warping software they use.

Actually the street price in the video I'm pretty sure said 6k.

[Paddy the Wak]

Games would need the HUD moved towards the centre ... how many can do that ... ?

[BHawthorne]

[quote]With an initial look at it I don't think it's unreasonable. $125-200 range for a projector screen and whatever warping software they use.

Actually the street price in the video I'm pretty sure said 6k.

His website quotes $125-200 range on production model. Yes, and $6k on the prototype....which is nuts. There is only like $75-100 in screen material and a a bit of aluminum frame in it. As a manufacturing engineer, I know $6k is nuts. I could build one of those in an afternoon if I had some rear projection screen by the yard available locally.

Seriously, if you want a much cooler example of half-dome projection check out Paul Bourke's website. He does a bunch of academic research on dome projection. Here is an example:

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/projection/domemirror/faq.html

Here is the index webpage for his multiple papers:

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/projection/index.html

I gave serious thought to building a 270 degree version of his iSphere awhile back for a simpit:

http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/projection/isphere/