according to andrew hofman, visual effects supervisor, "centered in the universe" presented unique challenges. "some long-established practices in conventional film making are simply not available in the dome venue." for instance, changing lenses is not an option in a dome show; there is only one lens: the 180-degree fisheye, which makes near objects appear distorted while objects only a few feet from the virtual camera appear very tiny. developing a visual style to work within this limitation was integral to the success of the show. the sheer size of the image files was also daunting. each frame was composed of 17 million pixels, as opposed to the mere 3 million required for conventional cinema. "software behaved erratically, machines ran out of ram; hard drives filled up and networks, even air conditioning, were overtaxed."