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Other Topics => Off Topic Discussion => Topic started by: Archivist on February 19, 2015, 04:44:52 AM



Title: 'Spherical projection' ride in the 80's on a roller coaster?
Post by: Archivist on February 19, 2015, 04:44:52 AM
Hi folks, I'm hoping someone will know what the heck I'm talking about.  In 1988, my family went to America for a holiday and we did the usual theme park tours, including Universal Studios and Disneyland.  We were talking about it today, and we remembered the following:

- Disneyland Star Tours, which was a real blast
- Universal Studios Conan the Barbarian (which would have featured a very young Mark Dacascos and Karen Shepherd at the time!)
- Universal Studios Miami Vice
- Universal Studios 'special effects' tour, which included audience members playing cards in an inverted room, and getting into spacesuits in front of a green screen and reenacting a scene from 2001

But my brother mentioned another ride that I can only vaguely remember.  It involved sitting in a theatre with a spherical ceiling like a planetarium, and we watched a movie which included first-person footage of going down a roller coaster and driving rapidly through streets.  River riding might also have been involved.

Does anyone have ideas about what this ride/attraction was, and where we might have experienced it?  I'm thinking that it might have been the Disney Tomorrowland Circle-Vision which had nine screens all around you, but I'm not sure.  Anyone else?


Title: Re: 'Spherical projection' ride in the 80's on a roller coaster?
Post by: The Burgomaster on February 19, 2015, 12:11:06 PM
That theater experience sounds vaguely familiar.  Although, the last time I did the Disney/Universal/MGM tour (in Florida) was around 17 or 18 years ago, so I can't remember it well.


Title: Re: 'Spherical projection' ride in the 80's on a roller coaster?
Post by: BoyScoutKevin on February 26, 2015, 06:06:50 PM



But my brother mentioned another ride that I can only vaguely remember.  It involved sitting in a theatre with a spherical ceiling like a planetarium, and we watched a movie which included first-person footage of going down a roller coaster and driving rapidly through streets.  River riding might also have been involved.

Does anyone have ideas about what this ride/attraction was, and where we might have experienced it?  I'm thinking that it might have been the Disney Tomorrowland Circle-Vision which had nine screens all around you, but I'm not sure.  Anyone else?

By Jove! I think he's got it. Though, I think "the driving" part was more like "the riding" part, as they mounted the cameras on a fire truck and then took the audience through the streets of San Francisco. The roller coast bit, I'm not so sure of, but I seem to remember the film did include some river riding.

Aren't the old memories, the best memories?


Title: Re: 'Spherical projection' ride in the 80's on a roller coaster?
Post by: Archivist on June 22, 2016, 01:02:27 AM
Yes, old memories are the best memories!

I have found that the ride in question was Circle-Vision 360" at Disneyland, and the film that we saw was most likely 'American Journeys'.  The technique was fascinating and predated Google Streetview by decades.  Nine cameras were mounted on a car or wagon, all filming simultaneously, then projected on nine screens arranged in a circle.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle-Vision_360%C2%B0 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circle-Vision_360%C2%B0)

! No longer available (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtpshLDZhBo#)