Friday, August 15, 2008

Sky-Skan builds highest-res unit for Beijing Planetarium

By Christopher Calnan

A Nashua, N.H.-based company that develops projection systems for planetariums was part of China’s plan to spruce up Beijing while it hosts the world during the Olympic Games.

Sky-Skan Inc. wrapped up a two-year project that resulted in the installation of what it calls the world’s highest-resolution digital dome theater after a $7 million to $8 million renovation of the Beijing Planetarium.

The 51-year-old theater, with a dome screen that is 75 feet in diameter and with seating for 600 people, now includes a system that displays 35 million unique pixels per frame, nearly four times the resolution of previous systems, Sky-Skan CEO Steven Savage said.

Sky-Skan, founded in Rochester, N.Y., in 1967, develops the mounting hardware, software and the content for planetarium systems. The Beijing system, which Savage said was upgraded in time for the Olympics (See related story, Page 5), uses six Sony projectors that stitch together the images.

Sky-Skan’s new system displays images 24 times larger than high definition television. By comparison, the typical iMax theater displays images that are eight times larger than standard high definition, Savage said.

About 3,000 planetariums operate globally, of which 2,000 are in the United States, said Gloria Villalobos, president of the Middle Atlantic Planetarium Society. Many of the facilities are replacing optical projectors with digital ones, which are costly but enable the facilities to produce shows with fewer workers, she said.

Planetarium equipment design competitors include Utah-based Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp., Germany-based Carl Zeiss Group, Japan-based Konica Minolta Holdings Inc. and Great Britain’s Global Immersion Ltd.

At the Charles Hayden Planetarium in Boston’s Museum of Science, director Robin Symonds said the planetarium is planning a major renovation that would include Sky-Skan technology. “Their software is, by far, the most capable and powerful in the business,” she said.

Savage started working at Sky-Skan in 1980 and bought the company from founder John Paris in 1984 for an undisclosed amount. The following year, he moved it to Nashua to be close to Route 128-area technology companies.

The 40-person Sky-Skan now operates offices in Germany and Australia and has installed 4,000 special effect projectors in nearly 300 planetariums and museums. The company has always operated profitably, Savage said, but doesn’t reveal revenue figures.

Savage, who attended the Beijing Planetarium’s re-opening earlier this month, said Europe and Asia are currently Sky-Skan’s hottest markets. But he expects that to change when the U.S. economy rebounds.