The Pixel Farm, a company focused on innovation in the field of high-end digital post-production, has released PFClean1.5. Since its release in 2005, PFClean has already been adopted by a growing number of DI and post-production facilities worldwide including, Hollywood Intermediates, Ollin Studios and Hungarian Film Labs.
Meanwhile, The Pixel Farm is transitioning its technologies to the new Intel- based Mac platform. The forthcoming release of PFTrack 3.5, the companys market leading 3D Match Moving and analysis system, will be the first MacTel application from The Pixel Farm, with others following as new releases appear.
PFClean 1.5 builds on the strengths of version 1.0, adding support for QuickTime import and export, which greatly increases the flexibility of the system. Users of QuickTime formats are now able to open them within PFClean and utilize the array of tools for cleaning up and repairing image sequences. QuickTime is the standard acquisition and transport format in many facilities and provides a very cost effective means of digitizing images from film and video.
In addition, PFClean 1.5 has an improved automatic scratch detection, which has been developed in conjunction with existing customers. Automatic scratch detection is extremely difficult, as it is often hard to determine scratches from the valid image data. The new system in Clean 1.5 finds, and fixes, a wider range of scratch types during automatic clean up.
General UI and speed improvements within 1.5 now provide PFClean users with one of the best DI image preparation systems available.
PFClean is a fast and flexible image clean up system designed for use with scanned image data prior to the commencement of the VFX, post-production and the DI process.
Built on The Pixel Farms extensive research in the areas of optical flow analysis and realtime play back technologies, PFClean features a comprehensive set of resolution independent tools to clean up and prepare plates for all aspects of post-production. The tools include dust busting, scratch removal, stabilization, rig removal and a complete suite of grain tools. PFClean has full support for defect maps produced by scanners with Infrared facilities, making it the fastest automatic clean-up system available. PFClean operates flexibly in an ever-changing post-production environment, working as a manual, fully automatic or hybrid system, allowing the user to define plates or anomalies to be fixed in a non-destructive environment. Image sequences can then be processed immediately or committed to The Pixel Farms tightly integrated cross platform batch processing engine, PFFarmer.
All fixes, whether applied automatically or manually, are executed via a per frame meta data map. Fixes, right down to individual paint strokes, are stored in the meta data stack for later modification if required. This provides realtime control over any image modification and effectively provides the user with an unlimited number of non-sequential undos. The data is maintained throughout the process and Notes can be added to each meta data tag to inform processes later in the vfx process.
PFClean has all the tools required to address the workflow from scanners, archival footage and digital film cameras to post-production, including:
* A realtime Paint system including clone and dust-busting brushes and tracking paint strokes* Image stabilization including frame auto fill* De Grain and Re Grain tools* Rotoscope tools to assist paint and motion analysis* De-flicker* Vignette correction* Global de-noise/sharpen/blur etc..* Noise/grain adjustment* Support for defect maps* Fast Non-linear Workflow
A non-linear workflow allows the user to go back at any stage and edit the sequences without the need for multiple renders. By making use of meta data, every action, automatic or manual, is recorded and made available for editing in a fully non destructive environment. The application interface and toolset is optimized to provide an efficient as well as effective working environment, making PFClean by far the fastest way to get images from the scanner into the DI pipeline.
The application architecture is built around highly optimized and efficient motion analysis algorithms. The system is fully scalable across multiple CPU's allowing processing power to grow with user or project requirements. The addition of a cross platform batch processing system and a meta data architecture greatly simplifies system integration. The entire application is built on The Pixel Farms own playback architecture allowing realtime 2K playback on MAC/Win/Linux and 4K on the SGI Prism.
The GUI can be used to review clips and assess what parameters the batch processing system will require to complete a job. A batch script can then be left to run as files are released from the scanner and as frames become available to the GUI, thereby fully automating the clean up process. If required, the batch applied fixes can be adjusted, modified or rejected in near real-time using the meta data tags created for each fix. The addition of extra information such as the IR scan from the scanner where available, will greatly increase the possibility of fixing the errors with little or no user interaction.
Now shipping, PFClean 1.5 is supported on Linux, Windows XP and Mac OX 10.4. Multi processor single node license £12,999 / $22,499. Unlimited multi node rendering £4,999 / $7,999. Free upgrade from version 1.0.
The Pixel Farm (www.thepixelfarm.co.uk) was formed in 2002 to provide innovative solutions for digital composting. Based in the U.K., with a very strong focus on research and development, The Pixel Farm work with customers on key projects to ensure PF products match the needs of the production environment.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
