These are a few photos from my Ph.D. dissertation defense, which took place on 23 October 2008. I presented my work “Planetary-scale Terrain Composition” in the Definiti Space Theater, a 55 foot full dome at the Adler Planetarium and Astronomy Museum.
The implementation of my technique is a real-time planet renderer. I adapted it to display correctly on the curved surface of the dome using six edge-blended HD projectors. I included a number of text slides, which were shown floating in space near the Earth. Here's a view of the venue, with the dome illuminated from behind and my starfield renderer running.
Click to enlarge these photos.
Here I am at the front of the theater. I am holding a Nintendo Wiimote and nunchuk, which I used to navigate the planet model and control the presentation. My presentation included 115GB of height and surface map data representing the Earth and the Moon.
I spoke standing at the center of the dome.
After my 45 minute presentation there were 15 minutes of question and answer. There were about 30 people in attendance, including the 5-member dissertation committee.
Thanks to Luc Renambot for taking these photos.