Contract gain

RNS Number : 0676P

Seeing Machines Limited

09 July 2010

 

9 July 2010

Seeing Machines Limited

("Seeing Machines" or the "Company")

NEW COMMERCIAL API LICENSE in 3D visualization

Seeing Machines, a leading developer of advanced vision based industrial systems, announces a new production license ("license") for the Company's faceAPI software suite has been acquired by Di-O-Matic Inc. ("Dio-O-Matic"), of Montreal, Canada.  This is the first faceAPI production license Seeing Machines has sold into the computer graphics (CG) animation sector.

faceAPI allows Seeing Machines' world-class face tracking algorithms (for finding and tracking the movement of faces and facial features) to be fully utilized within third party product developments, enabling the creation of compelling and dynamic man-machine interfaces. 

faceAPI has been licensed by Di-O-Matic to empower Maskarad, a new family of CG animation tools scheduled to be released by Di-O-Matic later this year.  A previously acquired Development-Kit license for the faceAPI was used by Di-O-Matic during the development of Maskarad, and this new production license is a revenue sharing royalty based agreement covering the commercial Maskarad product family.

Di-O-Matic develops high-end character animation software and plug-in applications for professional 3D animation artists and production studios all over the world. Customers include Disney, RockStar Games, SEGA, and the software has been used to enhance and animate CG characters such as Batman, Garfield, Spider-Man, and SpongeBob SquarePants. 

Laurent M. Abecassis, Emmy award winner and President of Di-O-Matic commented: "At Di-O-Matic, we focus on creating state of the art character animation solutions for the entertainment industry, from video games to CG animated films; the most well known CG characters rely on solutions we developed over the years. We are thrilled to have licensed faceAPI from Seeing Machines, as this amazing technology will allow us to offer our customers a new unique solution for animating CG characters like never before." 

Nick Cerneaz, CEO of Seeing Machines said: "faceAPI's advanced features and capabilities offer developers like Di-O-Matic a suite of tools to rapidly build unique and game-changing products - products that push the boundaries of traditional expectations in both consumer and professional applications. We are very excited to be working with such a respected name in this industry and we look forward to further building faceAPI's reputation through this relationship with Di-O-Matic."

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Enquiries:

Seeing Machines Limited	Nick Cerneaz, CEO      [phone]
Daniel Stewart & Company plc	Oliver Rigby                [phone]
Walbrook PR Ltd [phone]	Ben Knowles:             [phone]                         [e-mail]

--- Information for Editors ---

About Di-O-Matic, Inc.

More information about Di-O-Matic is available from their web site at: www.di-o-matic.com, and the introduction to Maskarad at: www.di-o-matic.com/products/Software/Maskarad.

About Seeing Machines Limited

Seeing Machines is a leading developer of advanced vision based industrial systems, specializing in automotive, medical, entertainment and research applications.  More information is available from our web site: www.seeingmachines.com.  

About faceAPI

Seeing Machines develops world-class face tracking algorithms for finding and tracking the movement of faces in video streams. faceAPI allows the seamless deployment of that technology within third party products and services. In addition to a non-commercial license (see further details below), Seeing Machines offers two tiers of commercial license for access to the faceAPI:

·    Developer's Kit (DevKit) licenses, and

·    Production licenses.

DevKit licenses are sold on a per seat basis with recurring maintenance and support fees, and allow third parties to develop products incorporating the faceAPI technology.  In order to distribute a product incorporating the faceAPI (which necessarily requires redistributing the faceAPI itself), a third party must acquire a Production License to the faceAPI, which is negotiated in each case with the third party developer on a revenue sharing / royalty basis.

faceAPI's advanced capabilities allow developers to rapidly build new and exciting products with very rich and interactive man-machine interfaces. We are surrounded by machines and computers and we use them in many ways every day, yet they are extremely poor at understanding us. Whereas human beings have evolved significant capacity to observe and process interactions with other people, using body language and facial expression recognition with ease, traditional computer based systems are completely detached and operate without any real awareness of the "human" elements of our relationship with them.   

For a machine or piece of software, understanding a human face is a difficult technical challenge. Seeing Machines has solved many of the traditional problems associated with fast, accurate tracking of faces and facial features (such as lips, eyebrows, nostrils and eye corners), and these form some of the very building blocks of advanced computer based systems that are capable of interacting with humans in a more human way. faceAPI is a turn-key solution that offers these capabilities to developers today.

faceAPI's unique approach to face tracking delivers 3D data on faces in real-time, even with a standard webcam.  faceAPI has a standard software interface for ease of integration into third party developments and is provided with full technical support and documentation for all commercial licenses.  

faceAPI has been licensed to customers all over the world in industries spanning security, training and education, entertainment, sports, general computing, industrial systems and robotics, gaming, aerospace, transportation and 3D visualization. The range of applications is limited only by a developer's imagination.

Note:  In addition to the two commercial license tiers (the DevKit and Production licenses) Seeing Machines also offer a free non-commercial license for the faceAPI.  This version, whilst feature limited and extensively labelled with Seeing Machines corporate branding, provides an easy mechanism for third parties with a potential interest in using faceAPI commercially to initially explore the solution risk-free.  This version also greatly increases the market awareness of faceAPI and helps to promote many sales of the DevKit, and then onwards to Production licenses.  The non-commercial faceAPI product can be accessed from the faceAPI website:

www.seeingmachines.com/product/faceapi/downloads/.

 

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