OMG's Vicon launches Cara

RNS Number : 9834J

OMG PLC

24 July 2013

 



24 July 2013

OMG plc

("OMG" or the "Group")

OMG's Vicon launches Cara - the new face of film and games production

- The latest addition to Vicon's digital motion capture suite enables flexible facial tracking for the most efficient high-performance facial animation on the market -

OMG plc, (LSE: OMG), the technology group providing image understanding products for the entertainment, defence, life science and engineering industries, announces that its  Vicon division has today launched Cara, a pioneering facial motion capture system and the latest addition to the Vicon suite of digital motion capture systems.

Cara is designed to enable film and games studios of any size to bring characters to life through advanced facial tracking and capture. It offers users improved efficiency and performance for games and film production, setting the standard for affordable, accessible and high-quality character realism.

The system is available as a standalone product or can be seamlessly integrated as part of a full Vicon motion capture workflow, opening up the performance capture market to a whole new range of potential customers. Its modular design gives users complete flexibility when dealing with the captured data. Users can take up to four high definition images and pass them either through Vicon's CaraPost software to automatically produce 3D points or their processing pipeline of choice to recreate the actor's performance on a computer generated model.

Based on 30 years' motion capture experience, Vicon has developed Cara to be reliable, future proof and to offer unrivalled quality, enabling users to focus on the creative process rather than breaking shoot momentum with failed or aesthetically unacceptable visualisation.

Ben Guthrie, motion capture supervisor, Framestore, said:'Head mounted cameras are the way forward when it comes to large scale capture stages. Through Beta testing of Cara we've seen at Framestore that Vicon is an innovator in the industry. Cara offers four synchronised high speed cameras with full wireless connectivity, and a robust dot tracking solution that integrates well into Vicon's existing motion capture products as well as being a solid standalone system.'

Vicon is also showcasing its recently launched real-time animation software, Blade 2 at SIGGRAPH. It enables the most effective production pipelines and workflow efficiency for motion capture projects, delivers the best realtime performance on the market and integrates seamlessly with Vicon's T-Series and Bonita camera ranges.

Blade 2's Quick Post feature gives users the option to automate the post processing workflow. Reconstruction, labelling, fixing and solving can all be achieved with one click, reducing the need for intensive manual clean up and back-end editing.

Commenting on the launch, OMG Chief Executive Nick Bolton, said:'The need for a modular, high-performance and accessible facial motion capture and tracking system has long been recognised within the industry. This makes the launch of Cara very exciting and instrumental to the future of facial motion capture. Vicon's long heritage and industry expertise allows us to develop practical innovations to enable our customers to push the boundaries of what is possible. Whether the user is a start-up studio or a long-standing Hollywood giant, high quality facial motion tracking is now accessible to all.'

For further information please contact:

OMG plc	[phone]
Nick Bolton, CEO
David Deacon, CFO
FTI Consulting	[phone]
Matt Dixon / Emma Appleton / Charles Palmer / Jessica Liebmann
N+1 Singer (NOMAD to OMG)	[phone]
Shaun Dobson / Jenny Wyllie

Notes to Editors

About OMG plc

OMG plc (Oxford Metrics Group. LSE: OMG) is a group of technology companies producing image understanding products and services for the entertainment, defence, life science and engineering industries.

The Group's technology is used to capture the movements of actors (for the movie industry), sportsmen (for video games or improving team performance), children with cerebral palsy, rehab patients and animals (for medical, life science and research industries.  The technology is also used for recording the condition of highways and the assets that surround them; or even for providing image intelligence and situational awareness from drone aircraft. Through this diverse offering the Group has earned its strong international reputation for precision from pixels.

Founded in 1984, the Group is headquartered in Oxford, UK, and has four offices in the US and two in the UK. It has customers in over 50 countries and is a quoted company listed on AIM, a market operated by the London Stock Exchange. The Group trades through four operating subsidiaries:  Vicon, the world's largest motion capture and movement analysis company, 2d3, a manufacturer of specialised image understanding software for defence applications, Yotta, our highways software and surveying businessand OMG Life, a new consumer subsidiary.

The Group's global clients spanning the worlds of science, medicine, sport, engineering, gaming, film and broadcast include: major hospitals and research facilities such as Guy's Hospital, Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre and Loughborough University, engineering industry leaders including: Ford Motor Company, BMW, Airbus and Toyota, and in the entertainment sector; Sony, Industrial Light and Magic, Sega, Nintendo, UbiSoft, EA and Square Enix. In highways, clients include Highways Agency, East Sussex, Lancashire, Transport for London, Cheshire East and West as well as many others.

For more information about OMG, visit www.omgplc.com.

About Cara

The Vicon Cara system consists of:

·      1 Pico logger

·      1 Pico BOB

·      4 Pico cameras - 720P, 60fps, Global shutter (monochrome)

·      4 Pico camera-to-BOB cables

·      1 Pico BOB-to-logger cable

·      2 batteries and cable

·      1 battery charger with power lead

·      Vicon Cara HeadRig

·      Cara calibration objects

·      Accessories

·      Documentation

·      Transportation and storage Case

The Cara system utilises two pieces of software:

·      CaraLive - this software has access to all Cara system functions for set up, static calibration, capture, control and recording. Exporting is possible from this software not only to CaraPost but to other external software packages via a variety of formats.

·      CaraPost - this software contains frame-by-frame calibration, tracking, editing and export functions. The output of CaraPost consists of 3D points representing markers on the face. Exporting from here to third-party animation packages.

 

END

 

 

NRANKNDQPBKDQOB