Search form

Vicon Releases Blade 1.7

New Version of Motion Capture Pipeline Processing Software Includes Support for Windows 7, Vicon Bonita Cameras, Improved Data Quality and More

Vicon Releases Blade 1.7

Press Release from Vicon

New Version of Motion Capture Pipeline Processing Software Includes Support for Windows 7, Vicon Bonita Cameras, Improved Data Quality and More

Los Angeles, CA (July 7, 2010) -- http://www.vicon.com, an Academy Award®-winning developer of motion capture products, today announced the release of Blade 1.7. The newest version of Vicon's motion capture processing software supports Windows 7, and boasts a host of new features, including a robust, new method for creating 3D reconstructions. Vicon will be showcasing Blade 1.7 at the Develop Conference in Brighton, UK from July 13-15, 2010 and at the SIGGRAPH convention (booth 1047) at the Los Angeles Convention Center from July 27-29, 2010.

Blade now supports Vicon's smallest and fastest selling optical camera, Bonita, which can be used to enable time-saving range of motion setups prior to capture or facial capture in smaller volumes. The new release includes a host of features, such as:

·Robust new reconstruction options -- Users can now opt to reconstruct motion capture data with 2D tracks, for maximum speed, or 3D predictions, for more precise accuracy.

·A Scrub Last tool -- Users can cache previous takes and scrub through them on the timeline.

·The ability to stream offline data -- simplifying workflow and reducing turnaround times.

·New pipelines -- A series of new scripts simplifying workflows by grouping a series of actions for one-step processing of tasks including actor calibration, production skeleton setup and solve, and other workflows.

Vicon Entertainment Product Manager Phil Elderfield said, "This release gives our customers more significant functionality, and with support for Windows 7, adds increased flexibility to their workflows. We look forward to our users' feedback, and continue to build in capabilities they can apply across games, film, television, and more to be even more productive and creative."

"Vicon's commitment to our customers doesn't end with our motion capture systems.  We've designed Blade, and in particular, this latest iteration to truly tackle the production and post production pipeline challenges that artists face when integrating capture data into their animations," said Douglas Reinke, CEO and President, Vicon.

About Vicon Blade

Vicon Blade is a single unified toolset that supports the growing demands of full performance capture, on-set visualization and makes capturing and processing motion capture data for the 3D animation pipeline simpler and more direct than ever before. Blade is fully scalable and simplifies everything from system configuration and actor setup delivering clean and accurate motion capture skeletal solving and retargeting. It includes on set playback and visualization tools.

About Vicon

Academy Award®-winning Vicon is the world's largest supplier of precision motion tracking systems, and match moving software. It serves customers in the CG animation industry, film, visual effects, computer games, and broadcast television, as well as engineering and life science industries.  Vicon operates in four offices worldwide, including its Los Angeles-based Entertainment headquarters: a 26,000 square-foot facility equipped with three performance capture stages for Vicon's service company House of Moves.

Vicon is a subsidiary of OMG (Oxford Metrics Group - LSE: OMG), plc., a group of technology companies that produces image-understanding solutions for the Entertainment, Defense, Life Science and Engineering markets.  Other holdings include: 2d3, a manufacturer of specialized image understanding software for defense applications; Yotta DCL our highways surveying business in the UK; and Yotta MVS, a leading US provider of data collection services for the assessment of property taxation.

Vicon and OMG global clients include: Life Science leaders University of Pennsylvania, the VA Hospitals, Shriners Hospitals for Children, Titleist Golf, The Andrews Institute; Engineering industry leaders Ford, BMW, Airbus, Lockheed, Pratt-Whitney, NASA, Caterpillar, International Truck, and Toyota; and Entertainment companies Sony Pictures Imageworks, Sony Computer Entertainment, Industrial Light and Magic, Sega, Nintendo, Ubisoft, Vivendi, Electronic Arts, Square Enix and many others.