ARC Science’s globes reflect dreamer’s sense of wonder

As an 11-year-old boy, Tom Ligon got hooked on space. He would gaze into the night sky and wonder about the mysteries of the universe. As the founder and chief product developer for ARC Science Simulations Inc. of Loveland, he has been able to share his passion for the solar system with millions of museum visitors throughout the world.

Ligon is the dreamer, designer and programmer behind ARC’s family of OmniGlobes, spherical digital displays of Earth. In Colorado, they can be seen at such locations as Denver Botanical Gardens, in the Science Department at Colorado State University and in the lobby of Foothills Community College. World travelers will find them in museums from Latin America to Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Each globe, from the largest diameter (80 inches) to the smallest (32 inches) is meticulously designed and built in ARC Science’s manufacturing plant in Loveland.

Ligon, a scientist by nature and by training, called it quits on his first career at Hewlett-Packard in 1981 to pursue his desire to focus his software skills on digitally interpreting the solar system.

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“I just wasn’t having any fun,” he said. “I wanted to do something I could get excited about.”

In 1989, Ligon unveiled a software creation known as Dance of the Planets, which offered amateur astronomers and others curious about the solar system an opportunity to explore the planets through their computers. As Ligon delved further into the potential for software to recreate planetary features, he moved toward a product lineup targeting the museum marketplace.

Initially, ARC Science concentrated on flat representations of “Earth-from-space” simulations. They were popular with museums.

“It was a fairly good business,” he said. “I added layers to create more realistic views of the Earth. In the course of selling to museums, I ran into the idea that wouldn’t it be great if there was a digital globe. Around 1999, I had the inspiration of how to do that.”

Spherical display development is a lengthy process. To achieve the quality Ligon was chasing, he needed a combination of top-quality commercial projectors, and display screens that were so sensitive that each one was months in the making. Moving his vision from flat to multidimensional required long days of programming and research. Finally, in 2002, ARC produced the first “self-contained spherical digital display” to hit the marketplace.

The initial OmniGlobe was an 80-inch-diameter globe built for Indiana State Museum. Ligon said that the labor involved in creating display that size was so great that ARC scaled back the size of subsequent displays; the 60-inch OmniGlobe is now the largest produced.

Currently, ARC Science’s primary product is the OmniGlobe family of spherical displays. It produces OmniGlobes in 32-inch, 48-inch and 60-inch diameter sizes, and the content of the globes can be customized to meet the buyer’s requirements. Most of its customers are museums and universities, about half of them domestic customers. ARC shipped its 100th OmniGlobe in 2012.

ARC offers other related services for customers seeking images of Earth or other planets. For instance, it offers “astronaut views” of the Earth for designers, global data sets for space-flight simulators, and even a colorized cloud/no cloud version of Mars.

The recession may have had a positive impact on ARC. Ligon said since the downturn, orders have shifted toward the smaller globes. “Last year we saw a large slant toward 32-inch system,” he said, noting that the price differential is substantial — $45,000 for the 32-inch system, $140,000 for the 60-inch. But the recession-driven sales trend may prove beneficial for ARC over time. Ligon said as the company concentrated on 32-inch systems, visual quality improved considerably.

The smaller display comes with a Canon projector, which Ligon said is an excellent match for ARC’s display technology.

“The difference between our product and that of our competitors is that we’re the only ones that make all of our own stuff. The visual quality of ours is quite superior because of our technology,” he said. “In this business, you have to make everything. The screens are extremely challenging. It’s a very laborious, precise project, like building a custom automobile every time. So the fact that we make everything except the projector sets us apart.”

It also makes the end product an expensive one, but ARC is addressing that issue. The company recently redesigned all its products to both enhance the visual quality and make them more affordable. It added the 48-inch display, which at $85,000 is an attractive option to the smaller 32-inch and the more costly 60-inch displays, Ligon said. The Canon projectors offer the company greater flexibility in product design and quality, and Ligon said the company will continue to refine its displays going forward.

At 71, Ligon looks back with satisfaction on his second career. He’s been able to share with others that sense of wonder he experienced as a boy looking at the night sky. Looking ahead, he secretly harbors a desire to update Dance of the Planets, his first solar system software success.

“It’s a niche market we’re in,” he said. “We’re never going to be some huge technology company. We’re in the business of public edification, so our goals are a little different. But I must admit I get a wonderful kick out of how much people enjoy seeing our globes.