Digital Visualization Theater

The Notre Dame QuarkNet Digital Visualization Theater (DVT) Project is a set of digital assets designed for planetarium style theaters, including videos and computer models, that support presentations highlighting Notre Dame’s contribution to research at the CMS detector. Unlike a film or static presentation, the assets are rendered in real time so the presenter can customize the presentation for the age and educational level of the audience. Assets include a detailed model of the CMS detector, data collected by CMS, and a representation of the size and scale of the LHC ring. For example, these assets have been used as part of a public lecture series that included audiences of pre-school age, and during graduate courses taught by Notre Dame Faculty. The project itself has been an act of education and public outreach. Since the project’s conception in 2008, 2 local high school teachers, 25 local high school students, 3 Notre Dame undergraduates, 2 faculty and 2 staff members have contributed to the project. The teachers and students work through the summer and become immersed in particle physics and presentation skills by working with Notre Dame physicists and research staff.

The DVT is a 136-seat, 50-foot hemispherical domed planetarium and theater with a Sky-Skan Definiti projection system at a resolution of 4096 x 4096. Designed for live presentations, the software allows for virtual computer models to be placed within a three dimensional environment. These models can be piloted in real time, and moving objects such as astronomical objects or the particles of a high-energy collision can be made to follow a prescribed path as the audience is flown around them. The DVT is located in the Jordan Hall of Science on campus.