Ed Lantz is founder and CTO of Vortex Immersion Media, a new venture bringing virtual reality experiences to the themed entertainment market.

Ed is internationally recognized as a pioneer and leading authority in large-format digital cinema and immersive experiences for mass audiences, and continues to nurture the development of the "fulldome" medium which is now surpassing IMAX's installed theater base by replacing film and analog star projectors with large-format interactive computer graphics projected onto domed screens.

Ed has a background in hardware and software engineering, quantum physics, and electromagnetics. He spent seven years leading photonic signal processing R&D at Harris Corp. in Melbourne, Florida. At the Astronaut Memorial Planetarium and Observatory in Cocoa, Florida, he led the development of the first polychromatic acousto-optic modulator (PCAOM) for laser graphics, an advanced DSP-based celestial motion control system, and design of Florida's largest domed theater utilizing next-generation video graphics.

At Spitz Inc. (E&S Spitz), Ed developed new products that transformed old-style planetariums into immersive visualization environments. He also founded Harmony Channel, a television network delivering mood-elevating digital media, including MoodZones - which has been described as "MTV for the Soul" - and Visual Bandwidth Inc., an immersive cinema and fulldome video advisory group.

Ed has published and presented numerous papers on VR and entertainment technologies and is a regular contributor to ACM SIGGRAPH papers, panels, and courses. He founded the International Planetarium Society's Fulldome Video Committee and the first Fulldome Standards Summit held in Valencia, Spain, in 2004; co-organized the first Immersive Cinema Workshop in Espinho, Portugal, in 2005; and moderated the NASA Explorer Institutes focus group on fulldome video held at Chabot Space and Science Center in Oakland, California.

Ed received a BS and MS in Electrical Engineering from Tennessee Tech University (1984), serves on the boards of the Center for Visual Music and the Center for Conscious Creativity, and holds two U.S. patents on immersive video-based theater technology.