A step into virtual cinematography

by | Sep 23, 2014 | 3D animation, Vicon

Artanim just added a new tool to its motion capture equipment: the Optitrack Insight VCS, a professional virtual camera system. From now on, everyone doing motion capture at Artanim will be able to step into the virtual set, preview or record real camera movement and find the best angles to view the current scene.

The Optitrack Insight VCS shoulder mounted

The motion capture data captured by our Vicon system is processed in real time in MotionBuilder and displayed on the camera monitor. The position of MotionBuilder’s virtual camera is updated by the position of the reflective markers on the camera rig. In addition, the camera operator can control several parameters such as the camera zoom, horizontal panning, etc. The rig itself is very flexible and can be modified to accommodate different shooting styles (shoulder-mounted, hand-held, etc.).

We can’t wait to use it in future motion capture sessions and show you some results. Meanwhile, you can have a look at our first tests in the above video.

Virtual cinematography

3DIM @ Montreux Jazz Festival

3DIM @ Montreux Jazz Festival

by | Jul 30, 2014 | Events, Kinect, Live performance, Real time interaction

3D In Motion (3DIM) – our experimental setup of capture, visualization and sonification of movements in real time – was presented at the Montreux Jazz Festival on the 12th of July 2014 during an one hour workshop. For this occasion, a special sound design was developed by Alain Renaud from MINTLab. A mapping of different artists’ audio tracks recorded during their visit to the festival was performed. The tracks were generously provided by the Montreux Jazz Lab of EPFL.

Moreover, several improvements in the 3DIM application were achieved. For instance, an iPad App was implemented to easily switch between the sound design scenarios, a prompter was added to provide instructions to the user and an OSC connection between the sonification and graphical applications was programmed to control visual feedback from sound events.

Again, the feedback from the public was positive. We look forward to developing a first live performance using this system.

More information about the 3DIM project here.

A demo video of the setup including the sonification part will arrive soon. Stay in touch!

Montreux Jazz Festival demo Montreux Jazz Festival demo

Best Technical Paper Award @ CAOS 2014

Best Technical Paper Award @ CAOS 2014

by | Jul 5, 2014 | Life science, Movement science

Artanim won the Best Technical Paper Award for the paper entitled “A Patient-Specific Measurement Technique to Model the Kinematics of the Shoulder in Tennis Players” at the 14th Annual Meeting of the International Society for Computer Assisted Orthopaedic Surgery (CAOS) in Milan!

More info on this research here.