3D filming: rugby as you've never seen it before !

3D filming

For more than 10 years, the French company Binocle has been developing innovative 3D tools. These tools allow users to shoot films and carry out post-production in 3D. It has now been six years since Binocle began collaborating with the Inria project-team PRIMA. Together, they are working on improving the visual comfort of 3D and controlling 3D production.

We conducted a joint interview with Sergi Pujades and Frédéric Devernay, respectively director of the Research & Development department at Binocle and member of the PRIMA project-team.

What have your most important advances in 3D been since the beginning of the Inria/Binocle collaboration?

Sergi Pujades : We've been working with Inria since 2004. After the first collaboration at the end of 2007, we created Binocle's Research & Development department. Today, six permanent members of staff work in this department, three of whom are former Inria researchers. This cooperation resulted in the submission of a project financed by the National Research Agency: Stéréocam. This project involves 3D video images. After this first project, we submitted a second joint project: 3DLive. This was more ambitious and dealt with the complete video chain, i.e. from shooting through to 3D broadcasting.

What is the goal of the 3DLive joint project?

Frédéric Devernay : It's a project focusing on 3D television. The PRIMA project-team, which I'm a part of, develops very sophisticated computing algorithms capable of correcting live video for 3D shooting systems. The company Binocle then integrates these into their existing filming tools. The aim of this project is to limit viewer fatigue, which is caused by shot changes. During a football match for example, you often have wide camera shots right after very close-up shots. However, it takes no less than a second for the eye to adapt to these changes in shot depth. So we still have a lot to do in this respect, because managing transitions is still a technological obstacle.

Does the 3DLive project address other aspects of 3D?

Frédéric Devernay : It also deals with the ease of adapting 3D films to multiple media. At the moment a programme won't have the same rendering on both a cinema screen and a home 3D TV. It's a question of geometry. We're looking to change the characteristics of these films to achieve the same effect, regardless of the medium. This is expected to happen during 2011. The problem of image mixtures is another major issue. Incorporating a virtual scene into a real image while automatically managing the 3D effect or showing a match score or the subtitles for a 3D film is not easy. One of the prospects of 3DLive is therefore to harmoniously integrate these elements, all in real time.

Are the technologies you have developed together already being used?

Sergi Pujades : Yes, for more than a year. The tools that we use incorporate the algorithms created for Stéréocam. We use them on professional and sporting event shoots such as Roland Garros 2009 and the Six Nations Championship 2010. We also put them to use them in healthcare, during surgery. Following the development of the 3DLive project, we were able to test our prototypes on 4 July at the rugby league Super League 2010. We're also getting going again at the Biennale Dance Festival in Lyon in October. However, cinema is our bread and butter. At the moment we're taking part in the first French feature film in 3D: "Derrière les Murs". These are real-life tests. To get these tools into use, you need to get out of the lab!

Keywords: Interviews Rugby PRIMA Binocle 3D