Merida, Mexico
Business Wire (October 15, 2003)
The first planetarium in Mexico to feature an E&S Digistar(R) 3 system opened last week in the city of Merida, Evans & Sutherland announced today. The single-projector Digistar 3 SP system was installed earlier this month in Merida's Centro Cultural de Merida Olimpo. Merida is located on Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, the birthplace of the Mayan civilization, near famous archaeological sites such as Chichen-Itza and Uxmal.
The Digistar 3 SP will reinforce the rich Mayan heritage of astronomical knowledge and transform it into immersive images and sounds in digital all-dome shows. Digistar 3 SP is an integrated system that combines a real-time 3D digital astronomy system with a real-time rendering engine for 3D computer graphics and adds all-dome, high-definition video playback. All of these elements can be shown on the dome from a single-lens DLP projector located at the center of the theater.
According to Jaime Barrera Aguilar, director of cultural development for the city of Merida, "Digistar 3 SP will allow the planetarium to take audiences on fantastic journeys through outer space and inner space in a way that has never been seen before in Mexico."
"This will be Evans & Sutherland's first installation in Mexico, and Mexico's first completely digital planetarium," said E&S Digital Theater Vice President and General Manager Kirk Johnson. "We're extremely pleased about the opportunity to have a system in the beautiful and historic city of Merida."
"It is fitting that Mexico's first state-of-the-art digital theater system be located at the birthplace of Mayan civilization," said Enrique Fonte Vazquez, representative for E&S in Mexico. "The Mayans were well known for their astronomical and mathematical knowledge; they built their famous monuments with significant astronomical alignments, and today, the people of the Yucatan have maintained this interest in astronomy. With Digistar 3 at the new planetarium, they will be able to experience science and astronomy in a whole new way."
In addition to the Digistar 3 SP system, the planetarium has licensed the all-dome video "Microcosm -- The Adventure Within" and "New Horizons" from Digital Theater's library of show content. "Microcosm" shrinks the audience down to the size of a grain of sand and injects them into a human patient, where they race through the body to find and destroy a deadly virus. "New Horizons" takes the audience on a tour of the solar system and to the surface of many of our planets.
About the Centro Cultural de Merida Olimpo
Constructed in several different architectural styles to commemorate Merida's rich history, the Centro Cultural de Merida Olimpo is dedicated to the exhibition of art, theater, music and cinema, and is also the host for many cultural conferences. And now, with the Digistar 3 SP all-dome digital astronomy system, the planetarium at Olimpo will be able to present all-dome, immersive shows that not only teach astronomy, but take audiences deep into space to observe nebulae, planets, stars and other astronomical objects up close.
About Digistar 3
Digistar 3 is a world-first, ground-breaking digital product, providing all-dome video playback, real-time computer graphics and a complete 3D digital astronomy package. It does away with the need for dozens of additional special effects projectors and so reduces significantly the cost of building and running a planetarium or domed theater. The Digistar SP offers all the features of the full-size Digistar 3, sized and priced for smaller theaters.
