jDome surrounds you with 180-degrees of gaming and public shame

It's a pretty obvious concept, really: take a semi-transparent dome and project an image on it. Then, stand in the middle and surround yourself with 180-degrees of gaming action. John Nilsson went and patented the concept and is now developing the jDome with an estimated cost of around $125-200. We have some serious reservations about this system, though. That $125-200 pre-order price tag doesn't come with a projector and you'll have to tweak your games' field of view setting to work with the round shape of the dome. What's more, the product assumes you're going to spend your game time standing in front of a dome. Criticisms aside, you can buy a prototype for a bit more -- $6,000 to be exact. Video of the jDome in action after the break.

[Pochi @ May 12th 2008 11:55AM]

This idea, only more professionally implemented and 100x less shitty, could be really cool.

[stefan @ May 12th 2008 12:10PM]

Like.... ceiling mounted over my bed? totally!

[karts41 @ May 12th 2008 4:02PM]

Got to give them the thumbs up for using google sketchup tho

[Lars @ May 12th 2008 5:41PM]

I agree. This is essentially where we're heading. Monitors/TVs are getting bigger and bigger, we moved to widescreen to get a more panoramic viewport, there's now even curved LCDs made for more immersive gaming. Eventually we'll just hop into a half-sphere (or maybe full-sphere), like Disneyland's panorama theater (or whatever the heck that thing was called).

[maveric101 @ May 12th 2008 7:38PM]

the "pixels" toward the edges would be all stretched because of the curvature of the hemisphere. i fail to see how this is any better than a bigger monitor.

[Paul Bourke @ Jun 1st 2008 11:08PM]

Like this perhaps.

The "iDome" provides a full, correct 180 field of view, no stretching.
http://local.wasp.uwa.edu.au/~pbourke/projection/UnityiDome/
The downside is that a game needs to be modified to create the fisheye projections

[Chaj @ May 12th 2008 11:57AM]

A good thing to buy if you want to ensure never getting a girlfriend....

[StreetStealth @ May 12th 2008 12:43PM]

http://www.engadget.com/2006/10/16/caption-contest-hmd-of-the-future/

You could probably still get a date with her!

[LarryLarryLarry @ May 13th 2008 1:40AM]

Maybe you didn't pay attention to the inventor, but he was never in any danger of having a girlfriend.

That guy is genuinely creepy. I don't like looking at him.

[brian @ May 13th 2008 2:25PM]

I disagree I think the gaydome will prove your manliness to women!

[bobbywigs @ May 12th 2008 11:57AM]

a dorky logo and tag line arent helping matters either

[waffles @ May 12th 2008 1:33PM]

all the i-______ products been invented. we've moved onto j-_____ now...

[Alex @ May 12th 2008 3:00PM]

And words like what he said at 3:02 will further ensure it's demise.

"You are taking your first stepsss, into a larger world... Don't stand still..."

(There was extra stressss on nthe esses at the end of "stepsssss".)

[fabian @ May 12th 2008 11:58AM]

at 1:01 it sounds like he is saying gay-dome. lol

[TheCow5 @ May 12th 2008 12:19PM]

I heard the same.

it seems like a good idea for Internet gaming cafe but the cost and having to stand and the room needed and the quality of the video and having to change the setting for every game....

ok its no longer a good idea, its simply an idea.

[MadCon @ May 12th 2008 12:03PM]

J-dome? I thought this had something to do with getting in on with a jewish girl. Man was I disappointed to see guy...

[prime @ May 12th 2008 12:03PM]

hahahaha another power glove.....just useless

[Mile @ May 12th 2008 12:55PM]

I'd totally forgotten about the Power Glove! Surely the technology is here today to make a new one more awesome than ever before?

[Tito @ May 12th 2008 3:00PM]

This is CRAP-tastic, I don't see how it would work very well unless games are programmed as such, the views become horribly distorted once you start leaving the center of the screen.

[Isaac @ May 12th 2008 12:13PM]

What game is that? It looks like half life 2.

[Rainier @ May 12th 2008 12:20PM]

Crysis. Ugh, this "dome", really skewed the edges of the screen.

[Phoenix @ May 12th 2008 12:46PM]

Part of it is Half-Life 2, when he's talking about the peripheral vision and you see the image of the crane, that's half-life 2

[Esat Dedezade @ May 12th 2008 12:19PM]

Props to the guy for thinking this up and spending time meoney and effort on his dream and creation.

Having said that I think he's going for the wrong target market. The average consumer, even the hardcore simply will not buy this, for obvious reasons really i.e. size, cost (projector) e.t.c.

However there is a potential for him to sell it to places such as game conferences for booths and tournaments big LANs e.t.c.

[Esat Dedezade @ May 12th 2008 12:19PM]

I forgot to mention that as well as spending meony, he must have also spent a lot of money on it as well.

apologies.

[Gfxlonghorn @ May 12th 2008 12:20PM]

Its crysis

[RWD fan @ May 12th 2008 12:20PM]

Done well, this is pretty cool. Kinda like the hang glider ride in the California Adventure theme park at Disneyland. I don't know it this one could include the smell of oranges, though...

[MH @ May 12th 2008 12:27PM]

I'm going to sue this guy. I went to "gay dome dot com", like he said, and what I saw there was... well, lets just say that I'm now scarred for life. I have no idea what the contents of the site had to do with computer games...

[Technex @ May 12th 2008 1:11PM]

I can't believe that you actually typed a URL with "gay" in and visited it.

[Technex @ May 12th 2008 3:59PM]

What are Engadget readers all gay or something? Perhaps I should go somewhere else then.

[Patrick @ May 12th 2008 12:27PM]

jDome.... is that brought to you by the same people who do jDate?

[Jimmie @ May 12th 2008 12:29PM]

Where the hell would you put that ugly ass thing? Re-tar-ded.

[Sean @ May 12th 2008 12:33PM]

Um, yeah, you can stand "surround yourself" with action but it doesn't give you any more field of vision. You're seeing the same thing that you would on a flat screen... but I don't know anything about anything.

[Paul @ May 12th 2008 12:42PM]

That's why you increase the fov setting in games.

[prime @ May 12th 2008 12:37PM]

good for pron now that i see it, surround yourself with 180 degrees of pron LMAO

[Matt @ May 12th 2008 12:42PM]

Not sure what pron is but im sure I don't want to be surrounded by it!!!!!!!!!!!

[Kizorblade @ May 12th 2008 12:44PM]

LMAO PRON!!!11!!11!ONEONE.

Seriously, what's wrong with saying porn?

[Juaquin @ May 12th 2008 12:44PM]

Epic fail presented by: Matt.

[prime @ May 12th 2008 12:48PM]

its funny when you say pron
porn is old now


porn = pron lol for the ones that are old school

[Matt @ May 12th 2008 12:51PM]

So I epic fail because I can spell?

[Mile @ May 12th 2008 12:56PM]

He meant 'pr0n'.

[rv @ May 12th 2008 5:31PM]

the prospect of said idea is quite risibile, indeed

[Bill @ May 12th 2008 12:41PM]

This is a great idea. However, I suspect the cost of projectors will have to come down first in order to make this system more marketable to the average gamer. Perhaps an inexpensive Laser Video Projector would do the trick.

[Paul @ May 12th 2008 12:41PM]

Not a bad idea but agree, needs refinement.

[thebobman @ May 19th 2008 7:45AM]

I'm pretty sure my university had a setup similar to this that used a old-skool-satellite-tv- dish sized dome and a DLP projector with a fish eye lens. Oh yeah, and that was back in 2003. With the image refreshing at 60hz the flickr was visible in your periphery vision which gave you one hell of a headache.

[scott @ May 12th 2008 12:42PM]

it looks like it makes the whole game into tunnel vision

[Juaquin @ May 12th 2008 12:43PM]

So they finally stopped using the i-prefix, only to move onto j?

[hendrix @ May 12th 2008 12:52PM]

This is really easy to make. Just make a dome shaped wire frame and attach diffuser material or even cotton sheets to it. Im sure some places you could already buy cotton sheets in a dome shape so it would be seamless. And who said you have to remain standing? You can easily sit.

I think that if you combined this with binaural sound through headphones it would be very immersive. Like the mentioned ride at Disney World, called Soarin'.

[toblux @ May 12th 2008 12:50PM]

We projected Space Invaders 360 on a hemispherical display at the ZKM Visitors’ Day in 2007 and the game is actually designed to run on it: http://www.toblux.de/blog/2007/10/25/space-invaders-360/

[Matt @ May 12th 2008 12:53PM]

@ Prime,

Thank you for clarifying. I was outta the loop on that one!

[hhhenryhhh @ May 12th 2008 12:59PM]

Isn't it better if the dome was over the head? cockpit style total immersion