This repository contains two main components:
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The Dome Creator Unity package, a highly efficient realtime fulldome toolkit.
It has two modes: Dome Warp – a novel single-view rendering technique, and a traditional cubemap-based approach. The toolkit supports BiRP, URP, and HDRP render pipelines, and is provided as easy-to-use UPM package. It outputs both audio and video as realtime NDI streams ready for display on a dome. -
A Dome Viewer virtual planetarium compatible with Windows, Quest 2, 3 and more. It can receive NDI streams, Spout sources, and display local video and image files. The viewer is provided as executable for Windows as well as VR app on Meta App Lab and SideQuest, or can be modified and compiled from source.
Dome Creator and Dome Viewer are developed and maintained by prefrontal cortex.
Use Dome Creator to produce real-time, interactive fulldome content. Stream it over the network with NewTek NDI and view your content in Dome Viewer and other NDI-enabled applications.
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Add Dome Creator to your project. Add the Dome Creator package to your Unity project using the installer:
Download Dome Creator for Unity – Package Installer 📦 -
Add the "Dome Tools" prefab to your scene.
You can find the prefab underPackages > pfc Dome Tools > Runtime > Dome Tools.
Position , rotate, and scale the object to fit your scene.
See the Dome Creator section for more details on how to use this package. -
Install the NDI packages Select Dome Tools and click Fix next to "NDI Package is not installed". This will install the
KlakNDIpackage. -
Create content.
Create your scene, animate the dome rig or its parameters, create and animate postprocessing effects, place and animate audio sources, and so on. Iterate quickly by previewing your content in the Dome Viewer. -
Preview and showcase your content
By default, your content gets streamed with NDI on your local network for easy viewing. Use the Dome Viewer to display the output on a Virtual Dome either on desktop or in VR, or display the NDI stream on a physical dome directly.
Typically, you will use the Dome Creator package in your Unity project, and start the Dome Viewer app on Quest 2/3 in the same local network. Once you're ready, the same NDI stream can be received by many planetarium AV systems directly – in realtime.
Download Dome Creator for Unity – Package Installer 📦
Supported Unity versions:
- ✅ Unity 2021 LTS
- ✅ Unity 2022 LTS
- ❌ Unity 6.0 (not supported yet)
Supported Render Pipelines:
- ✅ Built-In Render Pipeline (BiRP),
- ✅ Universal Render Pipeline (URP),
- ✅ High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)
Download Dome Viewer for Windows
Download Dome Viewer for Quest 2/3/Pro from App Lab
Dome Viewer on SideQuest
The viewer supports both Desktop usage and VR usage with hands or controllers.
It has been tested on Windows (with and without VR), Quest 2/3/Pro, and Pico 4.
For VR support on Windows, use an OpenXR-compatible headset and runtime (for example, headsets supported by the Oculus App or Steam VR).
This package provides a highly efficient realtime fulldome toolkit for Unity. It allows you to create, transmit and view fulldome video and audio in real-time. Together with Dome Viewer, it's part of the Dome Tools suite by prefrontal cortex.
It has two rendering modes:
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Dome Warp ⚡ – A novel single-view dome-invariant rendering technique
- Much faster (single view)
- Can be used with postprocessing effects without visible seams
- Can be used with volumetric effects
- Excellent for real-time applications
- Best suited for spatial content (content that is around the viewer, not just on the floor plane)
- View angle is limited to 180°
- Ability to art direct the perceived depth of the scene
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Traditional Cubemap-based approach 🔮
- Much slower (has to render 5 or 6 individual views depending on angle)
- Postprocessing with local effects will lead to visible seams
- Best suited for horizon-focussed content (e.g. streets, landscapes)
- Fixed viewpoint (center of the dome)
- Flexible view angle (up to 360°)
Both result in a fulldome projection in the common "Dome Master" format (formally known as Equidistant Azimuthal Fisheye Projection). The toolkit supports BiRP, URP, and HDRP render pipelines, and is provided as UPM package.
Content can be streamed via NDI to a physical dome or viewed on a simulated dome in VR or on a desktop monitor.
The Dome Tools prefab contains several components that together form your camera and streaming setup.
Use Dome (camera rig) prefab as camera to position in your scene.
The camera is your viewer's position. It can of course be animated, for example via Timeline / Playable Director.
Canvas (Dome Master) combines the rendered image with UI elements into the final dome master image.
Canvas (Final Output) is the final output for your dome. You can use it for testing or for rendering to disk.
NDI Sender streams out the dome master texture and the audio signal to a virtual or physical dome.
Note: NDI is a high-bandwidth protocol. For best results, use a wired network connection. Audio support is currently experimental.
We recommend streaming to your physical or virtual dome via NDI in 4k or higher (depending on your media server / machine).
Depending on your needs, you can either:
a) Use Unity Recorder and record the DomeMaster render texture into a video or image sequence b) Use a hardware capture card to capture the monitor output c) Capture the NDI stream directly using NDI Tools or an external software
Under construction 🏗️
This section will contain information regarding various dome systems and how to display NDI content on them.
If you want to provide steps for your dome system, please open an issue or make a pull request.
NDI is a widely supported protocol for streaming video content. It is supported by many dome systems. Please refer to the docs of your dome system for instructions on how to receive NDI streams.
In addition to NDI Video, Pixera supports multi-channel NDI Audio.
- ✅ Pixera 1.8.x
- ✅ Pixera 2.0.x
Under construction 🏗️
More to come! Note that Dome Viewer does currently not support audio input, but it will be added in a future version.
Select an audio mode from NDI Sender in your scene. You can either use your local PCs sound card to produce surround audio (e.g. 5.1 or 7.1), or you can use our Virtual Microphones to stream an arbitrary amount of channels via NDI Audio in lockstep with the video signal. There are a number of predefined arrangements for Virtual Mics, but you can provide a custom one for your particular dome system.
If your sender system is capable of generating surround sound, you can use Unity's native AudioListener in 5.1 or 7.1 mode and stream the resulting tracks over NDI audio.
Often, the sender system is not capable of generating surround sound. In this case, you can use our Virtual Microphones to stream an arbitrary amount of channels via NDI Audio in lockstep with the video signal.
Products like the Spatial Audio Designer Processor from New Audio Technology is capable of receiving individual audio objects as separate tracks and placing them in a 3D space. This moves the spatialization to the end of the audio processing stage and cam improve acoustic quality considerably.
To send audio to the SAD Processor, you need to send the audio as separate tracks. This can be done by using the Virtual Microphones in the Dome Creator package. Currently, we send the positions of audio objects along as part of NDI Metadata. Contact us for OSC position streaming support.
The package folder contains the UPM package for Dome Tools.
To work on the package, open one of the test projects inside projects/DomeTools*, for example DomeTools-2021.3.
These projects already contain a local reference to the package, so all changes to the package will be shared between the test projects.
Before making a package release, make sure to rename the Samples folder to Samples~. This will hide the folder inside Unity, and allows users of the package to install the provided Samples from the Package Manager window. When installing a sample, Unity will copy the files to the project's Assets folder, out of the immutable package folder.
The projects/DomeViewer folder contains the Unity project for the Virtual Dome Viewer. It currently uses Unity 2021.3 LTS.
Before opening the project, make sure you have git installed since the project references a git package – learn more. To work on the viewer, open the project inside projects/DomeViewer. Required packages will be installed automatically.
Note: If you get a warning regarding the klak.ndi package not being installed, please install git first as described above.
When building for Android, make sure to provide a unique application identifier and either your own signing key or a development key. A custom Android manifest is provided that allows network access to receive NDI streams.
- contact@prefrontalcortex.de, refer to Felix Herbst
- @prefrontlcortex and @hybridherbst on Twitter