Our first immersive planetarium show co-produced with Evans & Sutherland in 2002, "Microcosm: The Adventure Within," was inspired by the 1960's film "Fantastic Voyage." This time a pair of doctors race through the human body in a tiny submarine in an attempt to save the female patient who is infected with a drug-resistant virus. Along the way, the audience learns about the workings of the human body. This early fulldome program was the first to use a non-astronomy storyline to show that planets and stars were not the only subject available for producers of educational fulldome content.

A fulldome program treats the audience to an immersive experience... to go with the sub's crew and its humorous AI-ROV [yes, AI back in 2002] into the human body like never before... no longer looking at a traditional rectangular screen's "framed" view, but able to look left, right, up... all around as if they were actually sitting in the environment created by the dome’s surface... imagine the excitement of riding along on the trip... the imagery projected on a 60+ foot screen complete with surround sound audio effects.

The creative challenges of creating for the format are many... traditional film-making rules do not always apply... it is necessary to address the audience's frameless “free” viewing of the scene and come up with ways to direct their view to communicate important storyline events... and the dome must not be treated like a circle shaped viewport or the potential of the 360x180 degree immersive environment is lost.

Back then, Home Run Pictures also had to develop new proprietary software tools to deal with creating in the fulldome format... off the shelf tools, even those used to create motion picture special effects were not designed to deal with the immersive views created by the projection setup. Color and contrast control in a spherical environment where the image reflects back onto itself had to be overcome. And the management of the massive amounts of rendering and finishing required, while still maintaining creative quality, prompted the development of a specialized production pipeline.