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www.postmagazine.com 34 POST OCTOBER 2018 AR/VR SMALL CAMERAS FROM IO INDUSTRIES BRING VOLUMETRIC CAPTURE TO LIFE Just like a normal production set, the director shouts "action" and the actors begin their perfor- mance. But on this stage, there's no primary camera framing the shot. Instead, there are over 100 cameras, pointing at the actors from all angles, capturing footage that will soon be rendered into an ultra-realistic, three-dimension- al representation of the scene. This is the new method of content production at a volumetric capture studio, several of which have recently opened their doors in response to the growing demand for high-quality content for immersive virtual reality environments. IO Industries Inc. manufactures compact video cameras for industrial, aerospace and specialty live broadcast use, and has been providing solutions for 360° video recording for almost 10 years. Initially, IO Industries' cus- tomers were computer vision researchers and algorithm developers at the university level, who found ways to process several camera angles of the same subject into three-dimen- sional representations. Fast-forward to today, IO Industries' camera systems have become the recommended platform for Microsoft's Mixed Reality Capture Studios, which are bringing volumetric capture and processing technology together with professional production work- flows. The small size of these cameras is ideal for multi-camera configurations, especially at this scale. In a studio configuration, they're fully shutter-synchronized with microsecond-lev- el accuracy, and stream RAW video into IO Industries' multi-channel video recorders. Over 10 gigabytes per second of video from 106 cameras is captured for each take, and then IO Industries' software merges the frames into files that can be fed into Microsoft's processing en- gine. Their volumetric video reconstruction al- gorithms need the data fidelity and time-accu- racy the IO Industries camera systems provide in order to produce what's commonly referred to as a "hologram." Volumetric capture studios are at the fore- front of producing the most lifelike immersive content, by fully recording the motion and 3D shape of a human (or animal) actor. Earlier technologies such as motion capture have existed for years in the computer-generated effects world. Motion capture tracks markers on an actor wearing a special bodysuit, resulting in a skeleton-like frame which must be layered with computer-generated tissues and textures. While this technique has evolved to create life-like robots or fantasy creatures, there has always been a large reality void when depicting actual human beings. Volumetric capture, while computationally more complex, allows a new level of realism that approaches being indistin- guishable from the real world. The applications that this new medium will unlock have only be- gun to be explored, including everything from games and movies, to instructional simulations and training tools for doctors. With rising interest from the market to push the boundaries of this capability, technologies such as IO Industries' multi-camera systems and Microsoft's rendering software will help this new medium truly come to life. want more CPU/GPU power; the software could use it to its full advantage." What do you see as "next" in VR filmmaking? "VR and AR are still maturing and evolving, and the future holds a lot of potential in bringing over technologies and approaches from different me- diums, like filmmaking, animation, game dev, 3D scanning and more. As a filmmaker, I am excited just as I am sure those before me all saw their respective creative mediums expand to express what was in their heads and hearts. It is just going to take some people coming together with a crazy set of ideas and saying, 'Hey, this has never been done before, but let's try it or experiment and see what is possible.' I am excited for that potential for artists as well as others, no matter their back- ground, to jump into the Oculus Medium and try sketching in VR 3D, or for a doctor to film or use VR for treatments and training, which has been happening already. The exploration of these medi- ums allows us to invent new worlds and realities, and that is very exciting." Karen Moltenbrey is chief editor at Post's sister publication Computer Graphics World (CGW). Spherical shot from South African mountains. SPONSORED CONTENT