Dana Barry's Skyworks Digital asked Home Run Pictures to handle translation of Sloan Digital Sky Survey III data into several visualizations in order to include the data into a video presentation at an astronomy conference. The data was in a raw numerical format with position, magnitude, and other specification parameters. Scripts were written to import the data into Autodesk Maya as locator positions and then converted into particles or sprites to allow animators to use the actual data to choreograph camera moves through the survey.

The data sets included hundred's of thousands, and in some cases, millions of data points... all data collected over the years by the Sloan telescope scanning of the sky. Data sets included those of stars, galaxies and quasars. Above is a visualization of the star data superimposed in position over a new visualization of our Milky Way galaxy. Creating the galaxy model itself was a huge production task and a detailed "Inside the Production" case history can be seen at the Fulldome@HomeRunPictures SITE.

The data sets are available for use by astronomy researchers to further the study of the structure of the universe as the Sloan telescope looks deeper and deeper into the sky.

Soundtrack courtesy of Quincas Moreira