31–40 of 54 posts
I spent a great deal of time at Reuben H. Fleet as a kid growing up in San Diego, playing in the science museum and watching whatever Omnimax movie was on. Didn't matter what it was, they were almost always great eye candy. Even saw, later, a Pink Floyd-themed laser light show projected on the dome. Never failed to impress.
It might seem a little bit deceptive that an attraction called the Sphere does not quite pull off even a hemisphere of "payload," but the same compromise has been reached by most dome theaters. This paragraph is bizarre to me, framed from a presumably extremely niche "Sphere-as-dome-theater" perspective. I would think that, for most people, the Sphere is the exterior part and it delivers and is every bit as innovativ…
A lot of people I know assumed that the Las Vegas Sphere interior screen was on the "other side" of the exterior dome. They were surprised when I showed them this image: https://i0.wp.com/alia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/sph...
But still, it feels weird to express a sentiment of "well it didn't really live up to the sphere thing" while dismissing the massive obvious spherical component that was the innovative work of engineering/tech/art/whatever.
I got confused about the name of the company and even Wikipedia seems to be very inconsistent about it [1].
What exactly was it called in 1960s and 70s, "Multiscreen Corporation" or "IMAX Corporation"?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IMAX_Corporation:
It says:
> IMAX is a Canadian corporation that is based in Mississauga, Ontario. The company was founded in 1967 when three filmmakers—Graeme Ferguson, Roman Kroitor and Robert Kerr—incorporated IMAX Corporation
No mention of "Multiscreen Corporation" other than in the infobox.
I'm not sure if any later similar rides used a similar system, (for example Disney's Soarin') or if they are new enough to be digital from the start.
I saw "To Fly!" for the first time at the Smithsonian Air and Space Dulles location (Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center) on their IMAX screen two years ago. Definitely a film of its moment, and I can see how that influenced future science film documentaries.
My dad worked for Spitz doing Omnimax installations and planetariums, but I don't know any of the details. I would assume this was probably the late 70s or early 80s.
We had an Omnimax theatre in Vancouver, BC, and I always loved going to it as a kid. The little introduction before any feature was a highlight where they showed off the capabilities and turned on the lights behind the screen at each speaker so the audience could actually see where the sound was coming from.
"Back to the Future: The Ride" was also an Omnimax dome system, but with moving platforms instead of seats. It was installed in 3 locations, with 2 screens at each, so a total of 6 screens. I'm not sure if any later similar rides used a similar system, (for example Disney's Soarin') or if they are new enough to be digital from the start.
There is something I've wondered about though:
> While far from inexpensive, digital projection systems are now able to match the quality of Omnimax projection.
Are they really? The St Louis Science Center Omnimax was switched from the 70mm film system to "laser 4k" digital projection in 2019. I've only been to one show but it didn't seem particularly sharp, with large clearly visible pixels. It was very bright, with high contrast, though.
4k seems like a pretty low resolution for such a large screen?