DEFINITION May 2018

FEATURE NEW CAPTURE

texture sequence is then rendered and subsequently compressed so that 10Gb/s capture can be presented in Mb/s speeds. That gives you the ability to stream and be embedded in an app to play on native devices for instance.” When you’re capturing at such extreme data rates then you can select your destination from movie VFX and commercials down to VR headsets with their much lower data handling abilities. “For VFX, TV and film we would hand off .obj sequences and texture sequences, the .pngs. For VR, for example, we would expect a 20k to 40k polymesh sequence with a 2k texture sequence. It’s important to remember that the output file is encoded as a .mp4. Mobile resolution would work from a 5k to 10k polymesh sequence with a 1k texture sequence as a .png.” NEW CUSTOMERS If you look at the Dimension website you can see the early adopters of volumetrics are advertising agencies, performance related companies and some broadcasters. “With 106 camera views you can be incredibly creative where your camera goes,” says Yush. “A couple of music artists have shot their content for their music video in the rig; that’s their performance in the rig. They’re exporting that and putting it into a separately created

and one in South London. Intel Studios has just opened in Los Angeles and features a 10,000 sq ft volumetric-capture dome producing immersive media with brands, sports teams and filmmakers. Yush Kalia from Dimension, which has licensed the Microsoft technology, is already servicing a very wide range of clients who are keen to bring holographic content into their programming. “Our partner companies were striving to create virtual humans in virtual worlds and the tie-up with Microsoft has made that happen,” she explains. “We were the first licensees of this technology outside of Microsoft’s head office and the industries interested in using it are numerous including healthcare, theatre, education, sports and the ones you would expect to be early adopters like gaming, advertising and marketing. “We’ve put this technology out there and are inviting people to come and have a look. We’re definitely not saying we know who all the customers types are and where they are from.” CAPTURE CREDENTIALS So, what do you need to be able to capture video in this way? Yush gives us a tech rundown: “In the studio we have 106 cameras, 53 of which are RGB and the other 53 are

infrared for the depth; 106 cameras need 106 matched prime lenses from Kowa. We can record at 30fps, 60fps and we’re doing tests up to 90fps. We light the room with Cineo lighting so that we can eliminate as many shadows as possible so it’s completely flat lit and this allows us to be creative with the lighting afterwards. “We do record the audio with eight directional audio channels from eight shotgun microphones. With the audio we don’t do anything fancy except capture as a .wav file. Our sound engineers can make spatial mixes from those uncompressed files if needed. “We capture at 10Gb/s of Raw footage, so a 10Gb per 30sec mesh sequence which is an .obj (a file format that supports both polygonal objects and free-form objects) and IF YOU HAVE A BASKETBALL PLAYER JUMPING IN THE AIR, YOU CAN STOP THAT, MOVE AROUND, AND THEN WATCH HIM FINISH

ABOVE Offering flexible camera and lighting positioning, this is Intel’s volumetric capture dome – reportedly the biggest in the world. LEFT Part of Intel’s 10,000 sq ft volumetric studio newly opened in Los Angeles.

RIGHT NCAM’s original camera rig for capturing depth information for mixed reality.

DEFINITION MAY 2018

DEFINITIONMAGAZINE.COM