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ARLINGTON, Va.--A motion-tracking software called Fastrack
has helped a Hollywood special effects house rapidly stitch
computer graphics into several of this year's biggest movie
hits.
Developed by researchers at the National Science
Foundation's (NSF) Integrated
Media Systems Center (IMSC), the Fastrack technology has
helped specialists at Academy Award-winning special effects
studio Rhythm & Hues
drastically reduce production time for such films as X-Men
2, Daredevil, and the upcoming Dr. Seuss'
'The Cat in the Hat.'
"Fastrack is capable of tracking hundreds of features from
one frame to another with sub-pixel accuracy in only a few
seconds on a standard personal computer," said Eugene
Vendrovsky, principal graphics scientist at Rhythm & Hues
in Los Angeles, Calif. With the software, effects artists can
process roughly 40 percent of movie shots without having to
provide extensive input to the computer.
"This is a huge productivity leap for us," said Vendrovsky.
"We are almost twice as productive thanks to Fastrack."
The software tracks motion between each frame of film to
carefully wed "real" objects, such as an actor, with
computer-generated special effects, such as a supersonic jet,
a flying car or a raging river.
"At a broader level, special effects involve superimposing
something synthetic onto something real," said Fastrack
co-developer Ulrich Neumann, associate professor of computer
science and Director of IMSC, an NSF Engineering
Research Center at the University of Southern
California. "The difficult part is to get the motion exact
so the objects move correctly relative to each other," he
added.
IMSC develops new multimedia technologies for
entertainment, security, communications, and education
applications-from advanced 10.2
channel sound systems for movie theaters to three-dimensional
surveillance technology for airport security.
"The research at IMSC brings engineering, art, mathematics,
psychology, and computer science together," said Mary Harper,
the NSF program officer who oversees support of the center and
its research, education and industrial collaboration programs.
"The breakthroughs coming out of IMSC affect everyday life,"
she added, "engineering that directly impacts education,
business and, of course, entertainment."
Neumann and IMSC assistant professor Suya You developed
their tracking technology with cinema and training video
applications in mind. The researchers used a set of
mathematical algorithms to determine which features in a scene
provide the best frame of reference for a computer to
track.
Reference points, such as corners on a doorframe or a stop
sign on street, can be inherent in a scene or they can be
fiducials, objects such as large plastic balls, that
substitute for a soon-to-be-animated character during filming.
The software tracks the reference points, helping the computer
glue every digital component-such as an animated character-to
each frame of film. Neumann and You originally described their
breakthrough approach in the March 1999 issue of IEEE
Transactions on Multimedia.
"You create a lot of image layers and superimpose them
later," said Neumann. "The layers can be real people and
objects in a studio or synthetic, digital graphics, but they
are all interleaved in the final image."
Rhythm & Hues bought the right to use the technology
from IMSC in 2002, named the software Fastrack, and
continually modifies it for use in films requiring complex
special effects.
Until the advent of computer graphics technology in the
1980s, a team of animators had to draw many effects onto the
film one frame at a time-much like cartoonists-or shoot
miniature models frame by frame.
Computers have enabled machines to take over many of the
hand-drawn tasks, although effects artists can spend many
hours or days smoothly matching a computer graphic to
background film.
If the frame of reference moves, even digital processes can
be difficult and time-consuming. For example, in X-Men
2, a camera pans around aircraft flying through numerous
tornadoes, all in front of the backdrop of a sunset. The
camera view of the digital tornadoes has to match exactly with
the imagery of the aircraft and the pilot's motions in the
filmed world.
Fastrack can do the initial, difficult matching, processing
each frame in just seconds. A person then performs final edits
and adjustments to tweak the film into a finished product.
For a given scene, the first step is to film the live set
and any objects, such as a street with people. Then, Fastrack
software analyzes the film and tracks camera motion and
staging, saving production time early in the filming
process.
Effects artists next create necessary digital elements-for
example, swirling tornadoes-animate them, and add any other
effects, such as explosions. In the final step, computer tools
combine the film and computer elements and transfer the scene
from digital data onto film.
"Someone starts the software, looks over the results, and
cleans up the shot," said Vendrovsky, "in a process that now
takes a couple of hours instead of couple of days."
In the future, Rhythm & Hues hopes to further modify
Fastrack for "flexible body tracking," where effects artists
superimpose a digital character over an actor in a special
body suit.
"Multidisciplinary projects tend to attract more diverse
interest and help draw students into engineering, a discipline
that has seen enrollment fall over the past decade," said
NSF's Harper. "Kids don't know what's possible as a career,
and they don't realize you can actually do cool things that
will impact the way you live," she added. "IMSC makes
engineering important to everyone."
Media Contacts:
IMSC Researcher: Ulrich
Neumann, (213) 740-0877, uneumann@graphics.usc.edu
IMSC
Media Contact: Rick Keir, (213) 740-4878, rkeir@imsc.usc.edu
Rhythm
& Hues Media Contact: Scot Byrd, (310) 448-7477, scotb@rhythm.com
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Download video:
http://nsfvideo.nomex.net/virt_mike/x2.qt
View
streaming video:
pr0380_video2.htm
Scenes
from the films "X-Men 2" and "Daredevil", both of which
incorporate Fastrack technology. "X-Men 2" and "Daredevil" are
Trademark and © 2003, Twentieth Century Fox, All Rights
Reserved. "X-Men 2" and "Daredevil" Character likenesses
Trademark and © 2003, Marvel Characters, Inc., All Rights
Reserved.
Credit: Images courtesy Rhythm &
Hues.
Download video:
http://nsfvideo.nomex.net/virt_mike/scene3-f.mpg
View
streaming video:
pr0380_video3.htm
Download video:
http://nsfvideo.nomex.net/virt_mike/scene4-f.mpg
View
streaming video:
pr0380_video4.htm
These films depict outdoor scenes shot from a
handheld camcorder that were processed using the IMSC feature
tracking technology. Even though there is motion and shake,
the dots show where the tracking algorithm found good features
to track. The dot stability and consistency are indications of
how reliably the software tracks the features. Note that the
system finds these points automatically as the "best suited"
scene points for tracking.
Photo Credit: Ulrich
Neumann, IMSC
Download video:
http://nsfvideo.nomex.net/virt_mike/virt_mike.mov
View
streaming video (captioned):
pr0380_video.htm
Film
depicting the virtual microphone and immersive audio
technologies developed by IMSC's Immersive Audio
Lab.
Credit: Victor LaCour, IMSC,
imsc.usc.edu
View video:
http://imsc.usc.edu/research/project/immersive_audio.html
Film
describing the immersive audio technology and its potential
uses.
Credit: Victor LaCour, IMSC,
imsc.usc.edu
View video:
http://imsc.usc.edu/research/project/virt_camp.html
One of the latest technologies under development at
IMSC is the Augmented Virtual Environment (AVE). The film
describes how AVE technology works, highlighting its potential
role as a tool to enhance surveillance capabilities for
airport, military, and civilian security applications.
Credit: Victor LaCour, IMSC, imsc.usc.edu
Still Images
Illustration
of the 10.2 channel sound system developed by IMSC's Immersive
Audio Lab.
Credit: Victor LaCour, IMSC,
imsc.usc.edu
Select image for larger version
(Size:
1.2MB)
A
still image of the University of Southern California created
from airborne, three-dimensional scans that were modified and
enhanced by IMSC researchers. In order to convert the imagery
into an Augmented Virtual Environment, the researchers wed the
scans to ground-based, global positioning system
(GPS)-correlated video of the same structures.
Credit:
Victor LaCour, IMSC, imsc.usc.edu
Select image for
larger version
(Size:
504KB)
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