The Overview Experience
The Overview Experience, a concept by special effects legend Douglas Trumbull, provides a visceral simulation of the thrilling spaceship ride into space and the perspective-altering view of the Earth as a planet hanging in a universe of stars.
Looking back at the planet, the virtual travelers see the roundness of the planet, the thinness of the atmosphere, the interaction of weather and ocean movements and the rich and wildly varied colors and topography of our world. This experience, according to all the astronauts, imparts a highly emotional sense of the touching fragility and beauty of the Earth, a striking sense of planetary citizenship and a renewed appreciation for and desire to protect our one home planet.
This virtual trip into space is made possible with groundbreaking new video technology invented by Douglas Trumbull that produces visual effects never before experienced in our world.
A great deal of perceptual/media research has demonstrated the relationship between the levels of resolution in media images and the sense of presence, reality and immersion in media presentations. Research has also shown that attention and retention are increased by the use of higher resolution. Other elements that also affect these qualities are 3D (vs. 2D representations), and increased field of view (size of screen and degree of visual field coverage). Lesser known and more difficult to adjust is higher frame-rate of digital projections, including its use with 3D and immersive screens.
Standard Film projection, even IMAX, runs at 24 frames per second. Research by Douglas Trumbull and others has demonstrated that a significant increase in frame rate substantially increases sense of presence and immersion. Trumbull’s revolutionary 60 f/s film system, in use in long-running location-based entertainment and educational sites from the Grand Canyon to the Luxor Pyramid in Las Vegas is the highest sense-of-reality commercial film system in the world.
Now Trumbull has developed a 144 f/s digital video system that creates a compelling new level of realism in projection systems. StarPort Café makes the Trumbull-created Overview Experience the centerpiece of its multi-media space simulation center. And this new video system is what makes this experience possible.
The Overview Experience is designed to be a dynamically powerful 4D attraction complete with 144 fps DIGITAL 4K 3D projection coupled with dynamic surround sound and subsonics. This will create a visceral sense of space travel. The incredibly lifelike sound and light projection is coupled with artful stage illusion techniques and a lifelike 3D tour guide which combine to take you aboard the spaceship for a truly memorable virtual trip into space.
Moving far beyond the success of Back To The Future – The Ride, we intend to produce The Overview Experience using a combination of technologies that will deliver an experience far more powerful than previously possible.
In 3D, our video system will deliver each eye 72 frames alternately, thus delivering to the human nervous system an unprecedented and perfect temporal continuity of 3D that is far more powerful than in Avatar. This will result in an image quality that may be almost indistinguishable from reality. Using a spherically curved hard screen similar to those Trumbull developed for IMAX RIDEFILM, although substantially larger, we will focus the projected hemispherical image back to the audience with unsurpassed realism and clarity.
Our objective is to put the audience in the movie, not just looking at a movie. And it will not seem to be a movie, but a real experience of 3D imagery and supporting effects that overpower the senses. By creating the Overview Experience as a digitally produced media immersion, the impact will be far greater than any known theme park attraction to date.