Panoscope 360°
- July 09, 2005
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I saw this first over at Engadget. It’s called the Panoscope 360º. According to the site:
Enter the Panoscope 360° to be fully immersed in a 3D world. A 3-axis joystick placed at the center of the viewing platform will let you and your friends (up to 8) fly through the space as in dreams. This single channel immersive display uses a PC and a custom designed hemispheric projector above your head to project in real time a rendering of your entire horizon onto the hemispheric screen.
There’s a demo video of it showing a rather cheesy simulator called “Where Are You?”. It looks like it would be interesting for about 10, maybe 15 minutes, but would then get old.
I’m wondering what other applications this could be used for? Perhaps a virtual fly-over of a battle-zone so commanders can get a better idea of terrain, locations of enemy combatants, etc. Or how about a way for scientists to explore the terrain of Mars? Once we get more detailed terrain images, it would be a very interesting way to “travel” around the planet. Or perhaps a way for doctors and surgeons to “explore” the bodies of patients and get a better idea of how advanced varying diseases or injuries are before operations?
What I’m waiting for is when they get it to work with World of Warcraft. Now THAT would be putting it to good use!