DomeLab is Australia’s first ultra-high resolution (4K) experimental fulldome – a unique, low-cost display system integrating technical innovation in computing power and graphics capabilities with aesthetic innovation in content delivery. It is an immersive, dome-based video projection environment 6m wide, horizontally suspended over users and filled with interactive real-time or pre-rendered content. It has a projected resolution of 4K (4096 × 4096 pixels). Eight projectors and four+one high-end workstations with dual graphics processing units drive the projectors in concert with a surround audio system using 5.1. The hardware configuration allows seamless edge blending and geometry correction of the eight projected images across the dome.

Domelab has been used to explore three themes: Interactive Media, Future Museology and Experimental Humanities, through nine projects. It responds to a growing demand across these disciplines and sectors, with its flexible hardware matrix and software data-flow framework offering researchers pathways to much needed, higher-level visualisation outcomes. DomeLab’s framework for enhanced experience and deeper understanding extends conventional models to facilitate engagement in more complex information spaces. This system will advance new frontiers in immersive visualisation, intelligent interaction and networked experiences for interactive media, museology and digital humanities research.

This project has been a collaboration between 15 investigators from 11 organisations whose pioneering research is at the forefront of new media art, new museology and digital humanities. As a mobile system, Domelab has been located in three cities and at seven institutions in between 2015 to 2017. It has networked research alliances through the national research services AARNet and Intersect’s Research Data Storage Infrastructure, extending pioneering research in aesthetic frameworks and frontier technologies to benefit artistic, cultural, museological and humanities researchers.Until 2020, DomeLab will run workshops, festivals and tour to partner venues in Australia, open to a wide range of GLAM sector and academic/student groups. Details will be advertised through UNSW’s NIEA website.

Domelab was funded under the Australian Research Council’s Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities scheme.

ARC Investigators: Sarah Kenderdine, Michael Thielscher, Martin Nakata, Dennis Del Favero, Shawn Ross, Paul Arthur, Ross Gibson, Stefan Greuter, Paul Bourke, Christopher Lueg, Jeffrey Shaw, Drew Berry, Timothy Hart, Margo Neale, Lynda Kelly
Project Funding: ARC LE150100081
2015-2017

  • Songlines: Tracking the Seven Sisters, National Museum of Australia, Canberra, 2017
  • Look up Mumbai, Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya (CSMVS), Mumbai, 2016
  • Design & Play, RMIT Design Hub Gallery, Melbourne, 2016
  • Michael Crouch Innovation Centre, Sydney, 2015