MANGALURU: A 3D planetarium, first of its kind in the country, will open its doors to students and general public at Pilikula Nisargadhama by January end or first week of February.
Dubbed as a game-changer in teaching, especially the science subjects, the planetarium built at a cost of a whopping ` 36 crore is expected to hugely benefit school and college students of Mangaluru and surrounding areas.
The state-of-the art Swami Vivekananda Planetarium that boasts the most advanced digital immersive dome system, will have shows on astronomy, natural sciences, global warming, history, geography and others which is part of different syllabi.
It will have a seating capacity of 200.Science and Technology minister MR Seetharam who visited the project site on Thursday expressed confidence of the ambitious project seeing light of the day very soon.
The digistar 6 system in the facility is a custom package with Active Stereo 3D, a Megastar IIA Optical Hybrid system and 5.1 surround sound system.
It uses five Christie Mirage 4K 3D stereo projectors and a Spolitz Nanoseam projection surface.
The hybrid system enables the planetarium to present classic opto-mechanical star projection in addition to ultra-high-resolution full-dome projection of pre-rendered shows and real time image generation. Abhijit Shetye, CEO of Mumbai -based Infovision Technologies Pvt Ltd, which has installed the facility, said such a hybrid planetarium has been installed for the first time in entire Asia.
“There are 35 domes in India but this one is Nano Seam and Opto Mechanical which will be more effective in understanding the shows.”