Dome Led Screen

The tangle

For a new simulation attraction in an amusement park in Dubai, a dome had to be covered on the inside with more than 800m2 LED screen. Projecting the film proved impossible due to the giant spinning simulator in the dome. Only at that time there was not yet any LED screen that you can make into a spherical shape with the screen on the inside, and easy to maintain from the back.

The disentangler

I was asked by the attraction supplier in Austria if I can come up with a solution to their visual problem. Maybe I knew a supplier, or else a technical solution. I first described the problems in a project manual, and decided in consultation that I would solve two of them: the spherical LED screen, and a solution for seamlessly making a spherical animation film.

The disentangling

Together with one of the largest LED companies in Shenzhen, I have developed a new type of LED screen in their factory, in a triangle shape that you can click together and attach to a framework with magnets. This means that the entire dome can be fitted with LEDs on the inside and maintained on the outside. We assembled a first triangle ourselves in their tech lab, after which the other 95 of the test screen were also manually assembled by great craftsmen. With a test screen of about 1.5m by 1.5m in a large trunk, I flew to the facility in Austria, where I reassembled the 96 triangle panels into the functioning screen again. Adjustments also had to be made in the software of the screens, because you have to tell each screen separately where it is located, and how, in the complete screen so that you get a completely correct picture.

After that I also helped develop a program with which you can divide the movie to be shown into squares and octagons, and animate each piece separately and link it back together into 1 seamlessly linked image in the dome.