The GeoDome Portal will showcase applications for geospatial data visualization at an open house at the Renaissance Computing Institute at UNC Asheville, on June 4 from 3-5pm. RENCI Asheville focuses on disaster research, mitigation, and preparedness, taking advantage of western North Carolina’s expertise in weather and climate modeling, visualization, and public outreach. Working in partnership with RENCI Asheville, The Elumenati created Water in Western North Carolina, a series of animated films illustrating issues critical to the region’s watershed. We are also partnering on projects for community planning and decision support, using the Unity 3D game engine to create interactive programming based on GIS data, climate and terrain modeling, and more.

We’ll be showcasing the GeoDome Portal this week at the Canadian Association of Science Centers Conference in Montreal. We’re co-exhibiting with Zeiss and hosting live Uniview presentations to explore the Universe and our place in it, from the galaxy clusters to the oil spill in the gulf. We’ll also demonstrate new interactive applications we’ve developed using a game engine for data-based geospatial exploration in the Portal. The exhibit floor is open Thursday, May 6, from 8:30am to 5pm. Come and see us if you’re north of the border!

Read about 350.org and the GeoDome here.
The Elumenati’s GeoDome Theater will help two organizations tell their stories at this month’s global climate summit in Copenhagen: Sweden’s Norrkoping Visualisation Centre will bring their GeoDome to the Arctic Venue, December 12-14, for interactive presentations of global climate data designed to support decision-making and public dialogue. The global climate activist organization 350.org will be at KlimaForum, December 15-18, using the GeoDome to explore human interaction with the environment and facilitate dialogue on solutions for a sustainable future. The events are part of COP15, which will set the terms and targets for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere over the next several years. At least 15,000 people are expected to attend the conference.

“We’re excited and honored that the GeoDome enables our partners to communicate the big-picture context of these important issues,” said David McConville, co-founder of The Elumenati. “By illustrating the relationships between climate change and other interconnected global issues, both Norrkoping Visualization Centre and 350.org show the pressing need for visionary solutions that are comprehensive, systems-oriented, and interdisciplinary.” The full press release is here.

The Minnesota GeoDome pilot program’s success in advancing science curriculum through innovative planetarium programs has been recognized by the MN School Boards Association. The GeoDome Evolver systems at Mayo High School, Mankato East High School, and St Paul Public Schools’ Como Planetarium all use The Elumenati’s OmniFocus projectors and Uniview data visualization software. All three planetariums complement the digital systems’ capabilities for interactive data exploration with opto-mechanical projectors for traditional night-sky astronomy education. “For teaching science, this is very impressive, awe-inspiring, and jaw-dropping,” said David Burgess, planetarium director at Mankato. “People are amazed by the whole system.” The planetariums use Uniview’s networking feature to collaborate with one another and with the Minnesota Planetarium Society’s outreach program, which brings a GeoDome Theater to over 30,000 students around the state each year. Read the article in the MSBA Journal here.

The Elumenati are showcasing NASA JPL’s “Eyes on the Earth,” a 3D interactive realtime application for Earth science data visualization, in the GeoDome Portal at the Association of Science-Technology Centers conference in Fort Worth, Oct. 31 – Nov. 2. Used primarily for public outreach, “Eyes on the Earth” is a cross-platform, browser-based application that brings NASA satellite data to life with a game engine. In the NASA JPL booth at ASTC, we’re highlighting the way that immersive environments like the GeoDome are uniquely impactful in communicating about climate change and other complex concepts using interactive applications like “Eyes on the Earth.” If you’re at ASTC, come and see us in Booth 200!

The GeoDome is featured in Andrew Revkin’s Dot Earth blog at the New York Times, used as an example of ways we can “translate the astonishing and growing power to monitor, visualize and share information about human activities and their impacts in ways that foster social and environmental progress.” Revkin references a conversation he had with David McConville in a GeoDome earlier this year, where he found the presentation of geospatial data in the immersive environment uniquely compelling. As they discussed the challenges of applying these new technologies in truly impactful ways, David emphasized the importance of “understanding how these geo-visualization tools can be used to facilitate dialogue — to really use it in a social way.” His experience in the GeoDome showed Revkin how meaningful visualizations allow us to “to question, as a community, what does all this data really mean,” a challenge which he poses for Google Earth and other Web-based tools.

Our friends at Obscura Digital in San Francisco hosted the GeoDome Theater for an evening of presentations for Bay Area friends and family on October 4. David McConville presented The Transcalar Imaginary: Visualizing World Views, an exploration of humanity’s perceptions of the world. Crafted using Uniview’s interactive data visualization platform, The Transcalar Imaginary illuminates various points of view by contextualizing historical and contemporary scientific datasets within stunning simulations of Earth and space science observations.

Read about it in The Washington Post and in The New York Times
See the White House video

On Wednesday, October 7th, the GeoDome Theater was featured at the White House ‘Star Party,’ an event hosted by President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama.  NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and Dr. D’nardo Colucci of The Elumenati  set up the GeoDome Theater on the White House lawn, and gave interactive dome presentations to visiting middle-school students. A statement from the White House about the event highlights the importance of astronomy “for its capacity to promote a greater awareness of our place in the universe, expand human knowledge, and inspire the next generation.” An address from the President kicked off the event. Details on our take on the event are here.

Additional information from the International Year of Astronomy: U.S. President Obama to host star party at the White House

The GeoDome Theater has just returned from its first appearance in the Southern hemisphere, where it toured Australia showcasing educational technology with AARNET (Australian Academic Research Network). Events included:

- July 7-10: QUESTNet, a conference celebrating the use of networking and technology in education
- July 18: At Questacon Canberra, series of domecasts celebrating the 40th anniversary of the first manned moon landing streamed directly into the GeoDome from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, TX
- July 22: At Questacon Canberra, a domecast celebrating the century’s longest total solar eclipse
- August 27-28: At the University of Southern Queensland, presentations for over 300 educators, school children and residents of Toowoomba
- September 2-4: At Scots College in Sydney, presentations for science students at one of Australia’s oldest and most respected independent boys schools.

We look forward to future collaborations with our mates at AARNet!

At an independently organized TEDx event in Asheville, NC, August 30, David McConville used the GeoDome Portal to illustrate the concepts behind his talk, Perceiving Home. His “idea worth spreading” was that we can transform our understanding of home by expanding our perceptions. Guiding the audience through visualizations of global and cosmic datasets within the GeoDome, he demonstrated how contemporary sciences have discovered that everything is composed of complex, dynamic, and interconnected systems. Since most of these occur far beyond our everyday perceptions, he proposed that visualization tools can help communicate what contemporary observations are telling us about humanity’s place in the Universe. He pointed out that modern discoveries are confirming deep levels of interconnection that many indigenous traditions have recognized for millennia, and that it is essential for humanity to integrate the principles of ecology in our interpretation and design of the world. Other speakers on the concept of home included Sustainability Institute climate modeler Drew Jones and UNCA Environmental Studies professor Dee Eggers.