Immersive dome-based video that fills the entire hemispherical surface — the format that turns planetariums into portals.
Fulldome is an immersive video format designed for projection onto the interior of a dome. Unlike flat-screen cinema, fulldome imagery surrounds the viewer in a hemisphere — 180° from horizon to horizon and 360° around — creating a sense of being inside the content rather than watching it from outside.
The term covers both the projection environment (a dome with projectors or LED panels) and the content format (video mastered in fisheye or equirectangular projection for hemispherical display).
The roots of fulldome trace back to the planetarium — the first immersive theater, born in 1923 at the Deutsches Museum in Munich with the Zeiss Model I star projector. For decades, planetariums showed only point-source stars and planets via optical-mechanical projectors.
The digital revolution began in the early 1980s when Evans & Sutherland introduced Digistar, a vector-graphics system that could project computer-generated imagery onto the dome. By the 2000s, raster-based multi-projector systems (from companies like Sky-Skan, RSA Cosmos, and E&S) could fill the entire dome with full-colour video.
Today, fulldome encompasses everything from pre-rendered cinematic shows to real-time interactive experiences using tools like TouchDesigner and Unreal Engine.
A fulldome system typically consists of:
There are an estimated 2,000+ fulldome venues worldwide, ranging from 4 m portable domes to the 26.6 m Cosm entertainment venues. The community gathers at festivals like FullDome Festival Jena, Dome Fest West, and SAT Fest Montréal, and within professional organisations like IPS (International Planetarium Society) and GSCA (Giant Screen Cinema Association).
The rise of LED domes (Cosm, MSG Sphere) is transforming the field — eliminating cross-reflectance, delivering cinema-grade contrast, and attracting entertainment and sports programming alongside traditional astronomy education.
See also: Domemaster Format → · Planetarium → · Equirectangular →
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