The prototype of the hemisphere display was shown to a small group of friends to evaluate the kind of material holding the prints. Different versions were made with a  metal hemispherical bowl (28 cm diameter), a wooden embroidery frame (25 cm diameter), a metal wire circle used for lampshades (30 and 40 cm diameter).

The bigger size gives more immersion than the smaller one but the frame could not fit the luggage. All people I asked to, agreed that 30 cm diameter hemisphere offered the optimal balance between the approximation of the spherical geometry of the gores, the details of the sketches and the level of immersion. I also tried many ways to assemble the hemispheres. After various attempts I opted for an origami system that allows me to assemble them without glue, in a very easy and fast way.

The more elegant and clean solution to hold the prints was the wooden embroidery frame: it allows firmly holding the paper without glue and it is lightweight enough to be hanged on the ceiling. The frames come also in other sizes: 30 and 36 cm diameter, giving further flexibility in terms of installation space.

The prototype of the interactive version was shown to the same group of friends to assess the effectiveness of the blending. They suggested to keep clean the matching parts of the view of Venice and the other Venice and set the blending between the images in another part of the 360º space. I adjusted the parameters of the code.

The following images show the 360º sketches of Venice – Via Garibaldi and Aveiro (Venice of Portugal) – Mercado do Peixe in equirectangular projection. The matching part are marked in red.

They are going to be fully visible when reprojecting the images in the interactive digital space. The blending between the couple of images is happening on the other side of the 360º space.