Simthetiq was a new company to us but they had a great-looking display. As shown in the photo below, the enclosure looks like a geodesic dome but inside is a 180-degree collimated display. Collimated displays to date have been reserved for the highest quality flight simulators as they create images that appear to be focused at infinity making for very natural viewing – as long as you are in the designed eye point.
Simthetiq has developed this collimated simulator for large building projects and entertainment applications but came to I/ITSEC to see if there was interest in the technology for simulation. I suspect they got a very positive response.
The system is composed of five curved segments that are edge butted together in a semi-circle. A Barco F-70 projector powers each segment from the bottom to illuminate a screen. The mirror segments then capture the image off each screen and make it appear to be coming from infinity. This set up allows for a large semi circular work area that is desktop high with the 180º image stretching out in front of you.
Careful alignment and calibration can help to eliminate the perception of the edges of the mirror segments. The company said they have designed the system so that images appear to be much closer than in a conventional flight simulator, where objects typically are quite far away. Plus, they can offer a much wider eyebox than in a flight simulator which is designed with 1 or 2 eye boxes.
On display was some synthetic content that looked extremely good – almost three dimensional. The company said that a full 360º configuration is possible as well with entrance from the bottom.
Three products are currently offered by the company: a single person workstation with a 6’ (1.8m) radius; a three-person workstation with a 9’ (2.7m) radius (what was shown at I/ITSEC); and a 8-person version with an 11’ (3.3m) radius. – CC
