Snowy Hydro's Discovery Centre Immersive Visualisation Transformation

The hero of the Immersive theatre is the The Snowy Hydro Story, an expansive, cinematic journey through the Snowy Mountains and the national building history of the Snowy Hydro Electric Scheme. Guided across the magnificent mountain ranges by one of the Discovery Centre staff, visitors take a virtual flyover of the Snowy Scheme and delve into the Snowy story, which highlights the scheme’s past, present and future.

The experience takes visitors behind the scenes to view tunnels, dams and hydro-power stations, and to look back at where the Snowy Hydro story began. The current feature experience reflects on Snowy Hydro’s proud history and their future. Visitors are treated to amazing vistas and never seen before archival imagery and film, thanks to the partnership with the National Archives of Australia.

The Snowy River Hydro scheme occupies an almost legendary place in the Australian psyche. An enormous nation-building project, it gave thousands employment, including generations of new immigrants.

Snowy Hydro has had a visitor centre since the ’60s. It was back in the days when families loaded up the station wagon for a drive and would stop off at such ‘attractions’… this is prior to actual entertainment, like, the Big Pineapple or Wet ’n’ Wild. More recently, as the 75th anniversary of the Snowy Hydro approached and as Snowy 2.0 became more than a thought bubble, there was recognition that the Discovery Centre was in dire need of a schuzz up.

Visitors would be welcomed to the Cooma Discovery Centre in a raked theatrette by a DVD on a 60-ish-inch TV. Everyone knew it was cringe-y but they also knew a reimagining would take lots of time, resources and determination.

Let It Snow

Snowy Hydro’s Managing Director, Terry Charlton, wanted something ambitious and landmark — a destination rather than a loo stop. The Discovery Centre needed it to be something that could be promoted and become an attraction. The theatre sets the tone. It welcomes visitors, provides a shared experience and is pivotal to how the centre caters to school groups and bus tours.

Gavin Winter is head of the Visualisation and Interactive Solutions for Engagement & Research team (VISER) at QUT. If anyone could claim this project as ‘their baby’, it’s Gavin.

Rather than retain the raked seating, Gavin and the QUT team strongly advised it all be ripped out and use the back wall as the main projection canvas.

“Gutting it gave us a 14m by 4m wall and the floor to play with,” noted Gavin Winter. “We took inspiration from some other visitor spaces that allow guests to be in it and experience it their way — sit, stand… lie down.”

A battery of Panasonic projectors and a beefy Bose Professional multichannel loudspeaker system comprise the main hardware pieces.

Seven Headed Beast

The design of the projection setup was intended to maximise the wall and floor real estate — four metres from floor to ceiling, and 14 metres wide, along with a large chunk of the floor that abuts the projection wall. Gavin had no hesitation in getting Panasonic involved.

“We were familiar with the Panasonic PT-RZ series projectors: they brought a good form factor and great performance. But the challenge we had was in the optics. During the design phase, Panasonic’s 020 (zero offset, ultra short throw ET-DLE020) lens was announced and it was perfect for our needs. An ultra short-throw snorkel lens wouldn’t have worked for us, so when the 020 came along we banked on it — we took a leap, really, because Panasonic hadn’t built them yet. But thanks to that lens we’re able to create a three-headed wall projection with a four-headed floor projection — seven projectors in total.”

The design uses third-party edge blending and warping software (SimVisuals from ImmersaView). Despite everyone’s best efforts to keep the projector’s anchored, the centre has to combat significant vibration from highway traffic and a roof that moves and flaps in high winds — so keeping the images lined up is a constant battle.