Installation - Earth Theater

The Earth Theater is a panoramic display at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA. It seats sixty people, mostly within the 210-degree arc of its curved screen. The theater accommodates CaveUT/VRGL applications, currently the Virtual Egyptian Temple, the OviRapTour (a dinosaur bone exhibit), and the Virtual Seneca Village. These tours are not movies, but guided tours through a virtual space, where the student or guide can move the display's viewpoint at will. In the image above, for example, an observer watches the view move quickly into the virtual Egyptian Temple.

The first tour at the Earth Theater which uses this technology, was also a public VR project, the virtual Egyptian Temple. It is now a part of the Museum's regular offerings, such as a tour of the Egypt collection and childrens's overnight "Egypt Camp". Dr. Lynn Holden, our Egyptologist for the project, was also one of the original experts who helped construct the Carnegie Museum's Walton Hall of Egyptology.

An exciting phase of the project was when PublicVR and the Carnegie Museium of Natural History collaborated with the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, a local college. Students in some of their computer artwork courses made artifacts for the virtual Temple, many of them duplicates from the physical collection. They received college credit, and nice portfolio pieces they can point to in the theater.

Recently, the Carnegie Museums commissioned a local artist to build a virtual extension of it's Dinosaur Hall exhibits. The result is a successful show depicting the evolutionary link between birds and certain dinosaurs. The OviRapTour is a regular show for the public at the Earth Theater.

The Virtual Seneca Village was built by students at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, under the supervision of the Museum curator responsible for the American Indian exhibits. Like the Egyptian Temple, the Seneca village is used in children's events and special tours.