Vicon, developer of motion capture and image understanding systems, for the entertainment, life science and defence industries, has today announced that it will be showcasing a pre-release version of its eagerly awaited boujou 5 at the Siggraph conference this August.
Building on its established ease of use and automation, boujou 5 is enhanced with a unique new way of solving 3D camera positioning and motion paths from image sequences. This new approach radically accelerates the solve and allows users more manual interaction within complex shots.
The upgrade includes exciting new features that many existing boujou users will have been eagerly anticipating. Including:
• New Automatic Sequential Solver. Previous versions of boujou took the entire shot into account before delivering a solve. Now, it looks at a single frame at a time, which not only enables the user to intervene, it can make the entire process a lot faster
• A fully functional Graph Editor, which lets the user manually tweak the camera data and, if necessary, resolve. boujou 5 also provides the ability to lock valid sections of solve data or sections which are known to be correct, which animators can then use to improve other areas
• The Reference Frames feature allows users to import still images taken with any camera and use them to assist in a solve
(See full specification sheet below)
Phil Elderfield, Product Manager at Vicon said: “Customers have been asking for greater control, and that’s exactly what we’re delivering with boujou 5. The new manual tracking tools will give users the ability to step in and work directly with the data. Even the trickiest shot can be solved in boujou 5.”
Douglas Reinke, CEO and president at Vicon said: “boujou has always been the weapon of choice for top matchmovers, being used on films such as Charlotte’s Web, Tropic Thunder and Angels and Demons.
“Three years of research and development have gone into creating boujou 5 and we’re confident it stands out as a complete matchmoving package.”
NB: The release date of boujou 5 will be announced at Siggraph. To arrange a demo, please contact Hayley Roberts (hayley.roberts@omg3d.com)
Specification Sheet
Features
• New automatic sequential solver
o Previous versions of boujou used a global camera solving technique, taking the whole shot into account before delivering a result. This could be a lengthy process with certain shots
o The sequential solver solves a frame at a time so that the solve is presented to the user as it happens
o It has the ability to handle different parts of a shot in different ways
o It considers only an area of frames around those being solved so can be much faster on many shots
o The user can stop at any point and intervene to make corrections if necessary.
o It can be used to fill gaps and extend broken solves
• Fully functional graph editor
o For manual tweaking of boujou camera data
o Gives users complete control over what they export
o Brings into boujou tools to perform a task which they currently perform in third party package (e.g. Maya)
o Saves time and money since seats of animation packages can be used more efficiently (by animators)
o Allows edited data to be passed back into boujou for solve improvement
o Provides the ability to lock valid sections of solve data or sections which are known to be correct, then use this to improve areas that are not
o Has a non destructive workflow
o Has the ability to import and edit external data (e.g. motion control data)
• Reference Frames
o Allows users to import still images taken with any camera and use them to assist in solving
o The focal length of these can be read automatically from meta data (EXIFF Tags) if present
o Provides benefits when shots exhibit little or no parallax
o Can allow users to get 3D structure from nodal pans
o Reference Frames are a common customer request
• All New Target Tracker
o The pattern matching tracker in boujou has been completely re-written
o It has a faster tracking algorithm
o It provides a faster workflow
o It allows target tracking by specifying a pattern on a single frame
o It allows tracking of multiple patterns simultaneously
• New software based application management and licensing
o Provides a wider range of software management and licensing functionality for system administrators
o It allows for faster delivery of software to customer (no dongle to ship)
Key benefits
• A wider range and more difficult shots can be tracked with boujou 5
• Faster workflows and performance
Specifications
boujou 5 will run on:
• Cross platform support
o Windows
• XP SP3
• Vista SP1
o Intel Macintosh
• 10.4 Tiger
• 10.5 Leopard
o Linux
• Red Hat Enterprise 4.X +
• Centos 4.X +
• Fedora Core 5, 8 & 11
• All platforms 32 bit.
NOTE: Linux and OS X versions of boujou 5 will be available some weeks after the Windows release.
About boujou
Vicon’s match moving software, boujou (boo-zhoo), was the first fully automated camera calibration and tracking system. Using advanced adaptive algorithms developed from vision science research, the application removes previous limitations on what is achievable in visual effects production by enabling 3D professionals to derive complex camera tracks and calibration data from film and video material.
boujou has made a major contribution to high-profile television and film productions, music videos and commercials by facilitating the creation of visual effects that seamlessly combine live action and 3D. In 2002, boujou was awarded a Primetime Emmy Engineering Award.
About Vicon
Academy Award®-winning Vicon is the world’s largest supplier of precision motion tracking systems, and match moving software. It serves customers in the CG animation industry, film, visual effects, computer games, and broadcast television, as well as engineering and life science industries. Vicon operates in four offices worldwide, including its Los Angeles-based Entertainment headquarters: a 26,000 square-foot facility equipped with three performance capture stages for Vicon’s service company House of Moves as well as over 250 Vicon T-160 and F40 cameras.
Vicon is a subsidiary of OMG (Oxford Metrics Group – LSE: OMG), plc., a group of technology companies that produces image understanding solutions for the entertainment, defence, life science and engineering markets. Other holdings include 2d3, a manufacturer of specialised image understanding software for defence applications, Yotta DCL our highways surveying business in the UK and Yotta MVS a leading US provider of data collection services for the assessment of property taxation.
Vicon’s and OMG’s global clients include: life science leaders University of Pennsylvania, the VA Hospitals, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Titleist Golf, The Andrews Institute; engineering industry leaders Ford, BMW, Airbus, Lockheed, Pratt-Whitney, NASA, Caterpillar, International Truck, and Toyota; and entertainment companies Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Computer Entertainment, Industrial Light and Magic, Sega, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Vivendi, Electronic Arts, Square Enix and many others.
For more information about OMG, visit www.omg3d.com, www.vicon.com, www.vicon.com/boujou, www.2d3.com, www.yotta.tv, or www.yottmvs.com.
