ERLANGEN, GERMANY - The Fraunhofer Digital Cinema Alliance (www.iis.fraunhofer.de) presented a new light-field software plug-in for Avid Media Composer at the IBC show recently. Light-field technology lets a single recording contain several different views, which can then be selected in the post process. The flexibility it allows in post helps to eliminate the need for complex and costly re-takes.
Developed by Fraunhofer IIS, the new software plug-in allows the integration of this functionality into existing post software. Creative work with light-field data can be experienced by using an intuitive user-interface to process this data. The plug-in for Avid Media Composer allows for working with this type of data and selecting and adjusting the parameters for different effects over a graphical user interface.
The experts at Fraunhofer IIS are also developing an auto-calibration method that can correct geometric distortions in the camera position (rectification) without test charts, calibration patterns, or special markers. Depth maps of high pixel density are calculated based on the scene. These depth maps can be used to generate new high-quality views for 2D, 3D, or multi-view displays.
In practice, this means that by intelligently processing different views, change in sharpness, change of perspective, 3D effects or camera movement in all spatial directions can be calculated. This allows as many additional views as necessary to be generated from the existing views. The adjustment of the effects or camera movement is carried out over a menu with timeline and slider functionality.
The big advantage for the integration in the Avid Media Composer - as a first step – is that the user does not have to switch between different software programs. Further plug-in integrations are scheduled. A licensing model for the software is available for professional users that like to work with this new technology.