Integration of Z-Depth in Compositing

It is important for video compositors to be able to complete their jobs quickly and efficiently. One of the tasks they might encounter is to insert assets such as characters into a 3D rendered environment that has depth information embedded into the image sequence. Currently, a plug-in that facilitates this task (Depth Matte®) functions by looking at the depth information of the layer it\u27s applied to and showing or hiding pixels of that layer. In this plug-in, the Z-Depth used is locked to the layer the plug-in is applied. This research focuses on comparing Depth Matte® to a custom-made plug-in that looks at depth information of a layer other than the one it is applied to, yet showing or hiding the pixels of the layer that it is associated with. Nine subjects tested both Depth Matte® and the custom plug-in ZeDI to gather time and mouse-click data. Time was gathered to test speed and mouse-click data was gathered to test efficiency. ZeDI was shown to be significantly quicker and more efficient, and was also overwhelmingly preferred by the users. In conclusion a technique where pixels are shown dependent on depth information that does not necessarily come from the same layer it\u27s applied to, is quicker and more efficient than one where the depth information is locked to the layer that the plug-in is applied

Integration of Z-Depth in Compositing

It is important for video compositors to be able to complete their jobs quickly and efficiently. One of the tasks they might encounter is to insert assets such as characters into a 3D rendered environment that has depth information embedded into the image sequence. Currently, a plug-in that facilitates this task (Depth Matte®) functions by looking at the depth information of the layer it\u27s applied to and showing or hiding pixels of that layer. In this plug-in, the Z-Depth used is locked to the layer the plug-in is applied. This research focuses on comparing Depth Matte® to a custom-made plug-in that looks at depth information of a layer other than the one it is applied to, yet showing or hiding the pixels of the layer that it is associated with. Nine subjects tested both Depth Matte® and the custom plug-in ZeDI to gather time and mouse-click data. Time was gathered to test speed and mouse-click data was gathered to test efficiency. ZeDI was shown to be significantly quicker and more efficient, and was also overwhelmingly preferred by the users. In conclusion a technique where pixels are shown dependent on depth information that does not necessarily come from the same layer it\u27s applied to, is quicker and more efficient than one where the depth information is locked to the layer that the plug-in is applied

The Animator: The 26th Society for Animation Studies Annual Conference Toronto June 16 to 19, 2014

The 2014 Society for Animation Studies conference hosted by Sheridan College was from June 16 - 19, 2014. As Animation Studies continues to develop as a discipline, the dialogue that has opened up between more traditional academic research into the field and what we might call ‘industry-facing’ or applied research has become more important. The critical study of animation from within higher education institutions like Sheridan represents one of the many areas in which the industry can grow. Every SAS conference has its own distinct tone and flavour because we are truly international in our membership and we devolve conference organization annually to the host institution. This means that this year’s conference is strongly allied to Sheridan’s industry focus – not least with Corus warmly welcoming conference goers to their HQ for parts of the conference. SAS provides such a welcoming environment for new members, and a terrific forum to discuss animation from a multitude of perspectives. It is within this fertile and nurturing atmosphere that we decided to focus our conference on the animation artist. As a tribute to all artists whose efforts fuel our work, and in the spirit of the centenary of celebrated National Film Board of Canada animator, Norman McLaren, the 2014 SAS Conference is named “The Animator”. Keynote speakers included Scott Dyer, Executive Vice President, Strategic Planning and Chief Technology Officer, Corus Entertainment Charile Bonifacio, Animator, Arc Productions Ltd, Canada Professor Paul Wells, Director of the Animation Academy Loughborough University, UK Michael Fukushima, Executive Producer of NFB’s English Animation Studio National Film Board of Canada Panel Discussions McLaren Legacy Panel: The Centenary Year - Nichola Dobson, Terence Dobson, Kaj Pindal Stop Motion, From Local Community Members - Chris Walsh, Bret Long, Nora Keely, Mark Mayerson Conference Twitter account: @AnimatorSAS2014https://source.sheridancollege.ca/conferences_anim/1000/thumbnail.jp

Efficient data structures for piecewise-smooth video processing

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, 2011.Cataloged from PDF version of thesis.Includes bibliographical references (p. 95-102).A number of useful image and video processing techniques, ranging from low level operations such as denoising and detail enhancement to higher level methods such as object manipulation and special effects, rely on piecewise-smooth functions computed from the input data. In this thesis, we present two computationally efficient data structures for representing piecewise-smooth visual information and demonstrate how they can dramatically simplify and accelerate a variety of video processing algorithms. We start by introducing the bilateral grid, an image representation that explicitly accounts for intensity edges. By interpreting brightness values as Euclidean coordinates, the bilateral grid enables simple expressions for edge-aware filters. Smooth functions defined on the bilateral grid are piecewise-smooth in image space. Within this framework, we derive efficient reinterpretations of a number of edge-aware filters commonly used in computational photography as operations on the bilateral grid, including the bilateral filter, edgeaware scattered data interpolation, and local histogram equalization. We also show how these techniques can be easily parallelized onto modern graphics hardware for real-time processing of high definition video. The second data structure we introduce is the video mesh, designed as a flexible central data structure for general-purpose video editing. It represents objects in a video sequence as 2.5D "paper cutouts" and allows interactive editing of moving objects and modeling of depth, which enables 3D effects and post-exposure camera control. In our representation, we assume that motion and depth are piecewise-smooth, and encode them sparsely as a set of points tracked over time. The video mesh is a triangulation over this point set and per-pixel information is obtained by interpolation. To handle occlusions and detailed object boundaries, we rely on the user to rotoscope the scene at a sparse set of frames using spline curves. We introduce an algorithm to robustly and automatically cut the mesh into local layers with proper occlusion topology, and propagate the splines to the remaining frames. Object boundaries are refined with per-pixel alpha mattes. At its core, the video mesh is a collection of texture-mapped triangles, which we can edit and render interactively using graphics hardware. We demonstrate the effectiveness of our representation with special effects such as 3D viewpoint changes, object insertion, depthof- field manipulation, and 2D to 3D video conversion.by Jiawen Chen.Ph.D

Adventures in Stereo: Stereoscopic Cinema in the Age of a Digital Observer

This paper represents an historical and cultural context for the research and studio work achieved during the 2 year MAA in Media Arts at ECUAD. The studio component is an exploratory engagement within emerging processes of digital stereoscopic production and alternative uses of new and available tools. The ultimate goal of the research is focused on a process discovering how to work within the stereo space, developing tools for cinematic applications and collecting this knowledge into an arsenal of stereo communication techniques outside of the methods dictated by a dominantly orthostereoscopic understanding of 3D imagery. In order to position the tools, possibilities and subsequent impact of stereoscopic media within current Western culture, the paper reflects upon Jonathan Crary’s concept of the observer and Giorgio Agamben’s apparatus. The apparatus and the observer are concepts that aid in understanding stereo media’s place in history and its re-emergence in the digital present. The studio research project manifests in a stereo film/installation hybrid, which exemplifies the ideas and links between the apparatus and observer. Included in the thesis are descriptions of key influential artists and filmmakers, such as Phillippe Baylaucq, Michael Snow, Wim Wenders, Janet Cardiff and James Turrell. These descriptions are paired with insight into the production and aesthetic qualities of the thesis project to help the reader better understand the scope of applied knowledge gained through the research project, as well as the creative impetus behind it. Alongside the contemporary examples and influences is an historical account of the Spottiswoode Brothers and the pivotal Telecinema festival. The historical account demonstrates how this thesis project and current stereo practitioners are still working to create a stereo language for dimensional films

Computer-Assisted Interactive Documentary and Performance Arts in Illimitable Space

This major component of the research described in this thesis is 3D computer graphics, specifically the realistic physics-based softbody simulation and haptic responsive environments. Minor components include advanced human-computer interaction environments, non-linear documentary storytelling, and theatre performance. The journey of this research has been unusual because it requires a researcher with solid knowledge and background in multiple disciplines; who also has to be creative and sensitive in order to combine the possible areas into a new research direction. [...] It focuses on the advanced computer graphics and emerges from experimental cinematic works and theatrical artistic practices. Some development content and installations are completed to prove and evaluate the described concepts and to be convincing. [...] To summarize, the resulting work involves not only artistic creativity, but solving or combining technological hurdles in motion tracking, pattern recognition, force feedback control, etc., with the available documentary footage on film, video, or images, and text via a variety of devices [....] and programming, and installing all the needed interfaces such that it all works in real-time. Thus, the contribution to the knowledge advancement is in solving these interfacing problems and the real-time aspects of the interaction that have uses in film industry, fashion industry, new age interactive theatre, computer games, and web-based technologies and services for entertainment and education. It also includes building up on this experience to integrate Kinect- and haptic-based interaction, artistic scenery rendering, and other forms of control. This research work connects all the research disciplines, seemingly disjoint fields of research, such as computer graphics, documentary film, interactive media, and theatre performance together.Comment: PhD thesis copy; 272 pages, 83 figures, 6 algorithm

Dancing Media: The Contagious Movement of Posthuman Bodies (or Towards A Posthuman Theory of Dance)

My dissertation seeks to define a posthuman theory of dance through a historical study of the dancer as an instrument or technology for exploring emergent visual media, and by positioning screendance as an experimental technique for animating posthuman relation and thought. Commonly understood as ephemeral, dance is produced by assemblages that include bodies but are not limited to them. In this way, dance exceeds the human body. There is a central tension in the practice of dance, between the persistent presumption of the dancing body as a channel for human expression, and dance as a technicity of the body—a discipline and a practice of repeated gesture—that calls into question categories of the human. A posthuman theory of dance invites examination of such tensions and interrogates traditional notions of authenticity, ownership and commodification, as well as the bounded, individual subject who can assess the surrounding world with precise clarity, certain of where the human begins and ends. The guiding historical question for my dissertation is: if it is possible to describe both a modern form of posthuman dance (turn of the 19th-20th century), and a more recent form of posthuman dance (turn of the 20th-21st century), are they part of the same assemblage or are they constituted differently, and if so, how? Throughout my four chapters, I explore an array of case studies from early modernism to advanced capitalism, including Loie Fuller’s otherworldly stage dances; the scientific motion studies of Muybridge and Marey; Fritz Lang’s dancing maschinenmensch (or the first on-screen dancing machine) in the 1927 film Metropolis; the performances of singer-dancer hologram pop star, Hatsune Miku; and American engineering firm Boston Dynamics’ dancing military robots. The figure of the “dancing machine” (McCarren) is central to my project, especially given that dance has historically been used as a means of testing machines—from automata to robots to CGI images animated with MoCap—in their capacity to be lively or human-like. In each case, I am interested in how dance continues to be productive of some kind of subjectivity (or interiority, or “soul”), even in the absence of the human body, and how technique and gesture passes between bodies, both virtual and organic, dispersing agency often attributed to the human alone. I propose that a posthuman theory of dance is a necessary intervention to the broad and contradictory field of posthumanism because dance returns us to questions about bodies that are often suspiciously ignored in theories of posthumanism, especially regarding race (and historically racist categories of non/inhumanity), thereby exposing many of posthumanism’s biases, appropriations, dispossessions and erasures. Throughout my dissertation, I look to dance as both a concrete example and as a method of thinking through the potentials and limitations of posthumanism