Automated PowerPoint™ Presentation

Sky-Skan, Inc. has been dedicated to theater automation control technologies for over 35 years. The planetarium community has sought a means to display and control PowerPoint presentations in the dome and Sky-Skan has met this need by developing the PowerPoint Presenter utility, which works in conjunction with the SPICE Automation System. This software runs on a separate multimedia computer from the SPICE Automation software and is connected via a TARRAGON serial controller by means of a computer communication port.

By using Microsoft’s PowerPoint™ or the PowerPoint Viewer™ utility, PowerPoint Presenter runs a PowerPoint™ presentation as a video source with basic appropriate commands accessed via SPICE Automation cues. By utilizing the native PowerPoint™ software, pre-timed and prepared presentations may be run in the manner in which they were scripted. The PowerPoint Viewer™ program can be used for simple slideshows and view-only applications.

To run PowerPoint™ presentations via SPICE, nothing new needs to be learned. Seven common SPICE cues control PowerPoint Presenter seamlessly. These are sent to the video source bank designated to PowerPoint Presenter:

DisplayOn
DisplayOff
SelectDisc
SEarch Ch
ChapterNext
ChapterPrevious
Park

Manual Control

Manual control is possible from the multimedia computer’s keyboard or other manual interfaces when SPICE is not running. If the presentation is under timing control (in PowerPoint), the presentation will run accordingly. If not, the slides can be stepped forward and backward using the appropriate arrow or page keys.

High Performance

Due to its design, PowerPoint Presenter is able to smoothly present any audio, video and graphics files that Microsoft PowerPoint™ is capable of on its host computer. In other words, the only limitations are PowerPoint™ and the processing power of the host computer itself.

Use PowerPoint Presenter as a easy-to-implement and low-cost audio and video server and "spice up" your presentations with the latest digital technologies, all under automation control, of course!