[chimerax-users] dome camera mode

[James Hedberg]

Hi Tom,

Fantastic! Agreed - if you’re already making a cube map, then transforming to fisheye shouldn’t be terribly involved - that’s how our universe simulator currently does it. https://www.openspaceproject.com/

I did find your brain video some time ago when I was looking for things to show some admins in the hopes of sparking some more interests in our dome. It was great and inspired me to look more into this.

My long term goal is to be able to use the planetarium to fly (in real time) around the micro/nano-cosmos in the same we can fly around the galaxy and the universe. Possibly make some pre-rendered movies, but I enjoy the live shows better. I think Chimera(X) can possibly be part of that. More immediately, I’d like to use it to enable bio/med researchers to give science talks in the dome with full immersive visualizations. That’s the short term goal. I’m sure Chimera (regular) will be able to handle this in the mean time, but the improved capabilities and graphics of X will be nice to have in the future.

Thanks for investigating this functionality,

James


On Jan 16, 2020, at 9:45 PM, Tom Goddard <goddard at sonic.net<mailto:goddard at sonic.net>> wrote:

Hi James,

  I'm not sure what I was thinking a year ago when I said dome projection would be difficult to add to ChimeraX.

http://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/pipermail/chimerax-users/2019-April/000471.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.rbvi.ucsf.edu_pipermail_chimerax-2Dusers_2019-2DApril_000471.html&d=DwMFaQ&c=4NmamNZG3KTnUCoC6InoLJ6KV1tbVKrkZXHRwtIMGmo&r=hNAbdO04_mEP-HQ1M6SKNVeeU-8bD646SphpdO6gpzs&m=n7gJN9c6JQz3P2a-1dV7GO9gRhWq-jyV8c-lV-dVhaw&s=OtG7o0aXzZXbq3x8xXzcKNQh4oaHHXttFTr7MjXu7JQ&e=>

It actually looks pretty easy because I long ago added to ChimeraX an equirectangular projection mode for making 360 videos.  That mode is called 360 in the ChimeraX camera command.

https://www.rbvi.ucsf.edu/chimerax/docs/user/commands/camera.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.rbvi.ucsf.edu_chimerax_docs_user_commands_camera.html&d=DwMFaQ&c=4NmamNZG3KTnUCoC6InoLJ6KV1tbVKrkZXHRwtIMGmo&r=hNAbdO04_mEP-HQ1M6SKNVeeU-8bD646SphpdO6gpzs&m=n7gJN9c6JQz3P2a-1dV7GO9gRhWq-jyV8c-lV-dVhaw&s=Oz__CCjpEhHNWwoHTapjLDRtCQuBrk6o2xgulPYw5I4&e=>

Our docs need some more description, the equirectangular projection just means longitude 0-360 along x axis and lattitude -90 to 90 degrees on the y axis of the rectangle image.  This is rendered from a cube map texture so the quality is good in all directions.  To get a fish eye projection would just involve replacing a bit of code that defines how to map the cube map to a hemisphere.

  I made a few planetarium biology videos long ago, one on HIV RNA,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-__ufO9LYg&t=15s<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.youtube.com_watch-3Fv-3Di-2D-5F-5FufO9LYg-26t-3D15s&d=DwMFaQ&c=4NmamNZG3KTnUCoC6InoLJ6KV1tbVKrkZXHRwtIMGmo&r=hNAbdO04_mEP-HQ1M6SKNVeeU-8bD646SphpdO6gpzs&m=n7gJN9c6JQz3P2a-1dV7GO9gRhWq-jyV8c-lV-dVhaw&s=w0qALu8D84Oyoi4jqzzKgDtdqzYBHTg-LAnWcJoNZM0&e=>

and another zooming in on the human brain to molecular scale

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RE2XMzInX_o

Those YouTube videos don't have the full fisheye hemisphere but I have those somewhere at 4k by 4k pixels if you are interested.

Tom


On Jan 16, 2020, at 11:25 AM, Tom Goddard <goddard at sonic.net<mailto:goddard at sonic.net>> wrote:

Hi James,

  Great to hear that Chimera dome projection has been useful.  I'll look at how hard it would be to do it in ChimeraX.  I am a fan of putting these unique features in if others will make beautiful presentations with it.

Tom

On Jan 15, 2020, at 6:31 AM, James Hedberg <jhedberg at ccny.cuny.edu<mailto:jhedberg at ccny.cuny.edu>> wrote:

Hi,

I see from previous threads (3/2019) that there are no plans to add the dome projection/fisheye mode for the camera control on ChimeraX:

"It would take some days of work to add dome camera mode to ChimeraX.  We have no funding for that and very few people will use it so I'm afraid that is not likely to be implemented.”

I understand there is probably not a lot of current demand for this feature, however, in the spirit of Field of Dreams - if you build it, they will come. There is a growing interest in using planetariums/full domes for non-astro related sci-viz, yet very few tools available to do so. We’re currently using Chimera (regular) to do sci-viz in the planetarium for proteins and more. Knowing that this would be supported down the road when ChimeraX takes over (not sure when that will happen) would certainly be nice. You could make ChimeraX uniquely positioned to fill this deficit.

Anyway, just a hand raised here for an informal poll of ‘who wants dome mode’.

Thanks,

James



Dr. James Hedberg
Physics Lecturer
Director, CCNY Planetarium<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__ccnyplanetarium.org_&d=DwMFaQ&c=4NmamNZG3KTnUCoC6InoLJ6KV1tbVKrkZXHRwtIMGmo&r=hNAbdO04_mEP-HQ1M6SKNVeeU-8bD646SphpdO6gpzs&m=n7gJN9c6JQz3P2a-1dV7GO9gRhWq-jyV8c-lV-dVhaw&s=2LHYB4Xm3Q7h_wc_kb8DS4bxHyRJuVn9LeRKG5Ia2sY&e=>
City College of New York
Department of Physics




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