The Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum in downtown Chicago — founded in 1930 as America’s first planetarium — recently completed a transformation of its 80-year old historic Sky Theater, newly named the Grainger Sky Theater. With its 8K x 8K projection dome, the new theater is being touted as “the highest resolution digital dome ever built.” Next month the Adler crew will unveil “Deep Space Adventure” — an immersive exhibit simulating the formation of the universe. It was created with support from NASA, IBM, the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, the University of California Santa Cruz, the Astrophysics Institute Potsdam, and others.

The production team behind “Deep Space Adventure” is using a variety of modeling software systems, including Autodesk’s Maya 3D and 3ds Max and Lightwave 3D from NewTek, while Adobe After Effects is being used for compositing. The planetarium’s render farm and storage system includes 83 computers with dual processors. The system also uses the Uniview real-time visualization platform that allows users to fly through a computer model of the universe.

The new planetarium can project images, such as those captured by the Hubble Telescope, with more than 5 times the clarity of a standard movie theater. The system uses 20 Rockwell-Collins Zorro digital projectors powered by 45 computers working simultaneously.

Immersive experience designer and integrator, Global Immersion, was contracted by the Adler in April 2010 to design and integrate a high contrast and high resolution experience. As a result, Global Immersion’s Fidelity Black 8K digital theater solution has been fully integrated into the theater. According to the Global Immersion press release: “Powered by Global Immersion’s Fidelity Play comprising forty-six Media Servers, the Grainger Sky Theater is primed for both real-time and playback media and is capable of running at both 30 and 60 frames per second (fps) at 8K resolution. The Uniview real-time data and astronomy visualization platform from SCISS will be used for astronomy presentations.”

The first of these experiences will be “Deep Space Adventure,” debuting July 8, possibly the most technologically advanced space exhibit ever designed. According to the Adler press release: “The Grainger Sky Theater will project the largest single seamless digital image in the world with an ultra high definition screen resolution of more than 8K x 8K pixels. This far surpasses the cinematic standard of 2K x 4K pixels, presenting a level of realism that can only be surpassed by actual space travel.”

“It’s going to be really exciting,” explains Paul Knappenberger, president of Adler Planetarium. “For the first time people will feel that they are flying through space. They will be on an observation deck of an imaginary starship flying through the universe and witnessing, up close and personal, the collision and the merging of two galaxies or the explosion of a star as it goes supernova or they will see the black hole in the center of our galaxy consuming a nearby star.”

Related Global Immersion press release: “Adler Planetarium Chooses Global Immersion for 8K True Black Digital Dome Theater” (5/25/11)

Related Engadget post (includes Adler press release): “Chicago’s Adler Planetarium to start projecting 8K by 8K images from this July, put cinema screens to shame” (4/26/11)

Related PCMag.com article: “3D Universe Map Shows Most Complete Detailed Image Yet” (5/26/11)

Related NTDTV.com article (with video): “Chicago To Open Out-of-This World Planetarium” (5/27/11)