Projecting Data on a Sphere

necro81 writes "The NYTimes has an article in today's Science section that describes a four-projector system that displays images on a spherical screen. The Science on a Sphere system, developed at the Goddard Space Flight Center and used in some planetariums, can display and animate vast amounts of visual data from the Earth, Moon, Sun, and the other planets. The sphere is suspended by thin wires, and animating the image data gives the illusion of a free-floating, rotating world."

Comments

whats the point

[vldragon]

Is this suppost to be some sort of major breakthrough? It seems that because it realise on physical spheres that any presentation would be rather static. Sure you could show thing moving on the sphere but the hole idea seems so limited. You can't zoom in on anything, the sphere itself doesn't move, and nothing can be between the sphere and the projectors. In other words; what a waste.