Vicon announced Vicon iQ 1.5, a new release of the company’s intelligence-based motion data processing application. Now shipping, the new software encompasses a number of production-critical capabilities to enable automated handling of motion data from capture through to animation. These major advancements include: support for realtime multiple character capture, realtime kinematic fitting and diagnostic tools, improved 3D reconstruction and automatic labeling, kinematic model building, automated production QA tools, batch processable editing tools and pipeline operations, all within a customizable workspace.

With Vicon iQ, introduced the industry’s first unified application to minimize the manual work associated with editing 3D motion data and applying it to a character model. Vicon iQ’s intelligent technologies are already in use by more than 100 of Vicon’s customers worldwide in film, television and games.

Vicon iQ 1.5 enhances the existing Vicon iQ toolset with dramatic improvements for working in realtime and in post processing.

* Streaming live captures from multiple characters to computer graphics packages with kinematic fitting, diagnostic and QA tools all supported in realtime.
* Improved kinematic model building and import tools have been made more comprehensive, offering users the ability to work with skeletons built in off-the-shelf CG applications.
* Improved batch processing and new sets of editing tools, such as virtual points, rigid bodies, kinematic filling, camera calibration, healing of trial data and quality assurance tools have been added.
* Any operation in iQ can be applied to a custom pipeline and batch processed automatically in any order.
* Enhanced 3D reconstruction and labeling tools, which offer unprecedented levels of automation, accuracy and integrity for any moves captured.
* Pipeline operations are fully batch enabled, allowing different pipelines to be associated to different trials.
* The workspace is now highly customizable, with multiple windows, colors, visibility and layout options available. This includes hypergraph, outline modes and expanded hotkey sets for quick and easy access to key features.

"We recently installed a Vicon system with Vicon iQ, and it has dramatically increased our level of productivity,” explains Rich Nelson, motion capture studio manager, Visual Concepts Inc. “Our previous system would choke if we attempted to capture three performers simultaneously. With Vicon iQ, we have captured five performers, with props, and the results have been great. In working with the beta-build of Vicon iQ 1.5, the kinematic fitting technology automatically solves skeletal motion from marker data and saves us a tremendous amount of time on the back end."

“Vicon iQ 1.5 offers production-ready tools designed to allow users to dedicate time to their animations and characters, not to processing motion capture data,” added Gary Roberts, development manager, Vicon. “The benefits of Vicon iQ for helping streamline the motion capture process become all the more powerful and effective when you can see, control and check the quality of what the software is doing on one character, or many characters, simultaneously in realtime as you capture.”

With the new advanced kinematic model builder, kinematic labeling, 3D reconstruction tools, graph-based motion editing functions and direct exporters (Kaydara MotionBuilder, Alias Maya, 3ds max and Avid’s XSI), Vicon iQ encompasses capabilities from capture through to fitting character skeletons to the captured data. The application also includes wide-ranging features for quality assurance, with the software informing the user every step of the way as changes are made to the data. A full suite of automated editing tools, as well as manual editing tools, provides users with the power and flexibility they demand. Vicon iQ 1.5 is used with Vicon’s MCam2, VCam or SVCam systems.