Evans & Sutherland (E&S) presented Digistar 6, the latest release of their Digistar digital planetarium software at the International Planetarium Society (IPS) Conference in Warsaw. E&S introduced the digital planetarium system Digistar in the early 1980s and has been among the leading supplier of quality fulldome systems since then. When asked to describe the new system, Ben Buckwalter, E&S Software Engineering Manager said:

Digistar 6 is built upon the feedback and suggestions from our Digistar customers. Their passion for the system and their insight as users is the backbone and strength of our software. We have an incredible staff that is dedicated to providing powerful content and innovative features that are easy to learn and use. We owe the success of Digistar to our worldwide community of users.

What are new features in the system available for the fulldome community and audience? Here's the list of major innovations realized in Digistar 6.

Image Quality

Digistar 6 offers a variety of projection systems for domes of all sizes (3-30+ meters) with solutions ranging from a single projector 1K x 1K display to True8K resolution with 10 or more projectors to create the highest quality digital starfield and to exceed 1570 giant screen film resolution. Auto alignment, auto blending and frame accurate synchronization technology ensures seamless imagery and video playback at up to 120 fps for any theaters – and of course stereo 3D is supported too.

Ease of Use

In Digistar 6, the interface has been further refined and improved to put even more capabilities and information at the user's fingertips with intuitive drag and drop architecture and simple controls for interacting directly with imagery on the dome. Show Builder allows rapid creation of show sequences, and the new presentations and playlists allow users to create entire audience presentations and control these with various devices including Xbox controllers, iPads, joysticks, or other mobile devices.

Cloud Library

Digistar comes with a built-in cloud sharing capability that connects Digistar customers worldwide. The Digistar cloud makes sharing content simple, allowing users to share or find what they need with the advanced library search.

Domecasting

Digistar 6 includes the Domecasting feature that enables Digistar 6 theaters to broadcast live dome presentations to other D6 theaters in the community. Upcoming Domecasts show up in the Digistar user interface, so that other theaters can tune-in to live presentations and experience them simultaneously. Digistar can display a video of the presenter on the dome along with their live audio. All theaters have access to a chat window so audience members can ask questions during the Domecast.

Content

Digistar comes with a wide assortment of real-time, interactive scenes on a variety of topics including astronomical science and STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art, and mathematics) content. The new Digistar STEAM library contains a growing collection of content with a suite of control panel pages for interactively exploring the scenarios in detail. Digistar also has a collection of real-time models, including detailed human anatomical systems, music, video clips, and much more. All in all, E&S Digistar 6 provides powerful features wrapped in the user-friendly interface. Its robust digital theater platform offers presenters both reliability and innovative tools to inspire ever-demanding audiences.