Vicon launches Cara - the new face of film and games production

Motion capture technology innovator, Vicon, today announced the launch of Cara, a pioneering facial motion capture system. The latest addition to the Vicon suite of digital motion capture systems is available to order now.

Cara is designed to enable film and games studios of any size to bring characters to life through advanced facial tracking and capture. It offers users improved efficiency and performance for games and film production, setting the standard for affordable, accessible and high-quality character realism.

The system is available as a standalone product or can be seamlessly integrated as part of a full Vicon motion capture workflow, opening up the performance capture market to a whole new range of potential customers. Its modular design gives users complete flexibility when dealing with the captured data. Users can take up to four high definition images and pass them either through Vicon's CaraPost software to automatically produce 3D points or their processing pipeline of choice to recreate the actor's performance on a computer generated model.

Based on 30 years' motion capture experience, Vicon has developed Cara to be reliable, future proof and to offer unrivalled quality, enabling users to focus on the creative process rather than breaking shoot momentum with failed or aesthetically unacceptable visualisation.

Ben Guthrie, motion capture supervisor, Framestore, said: Head mounted cameras are the way forward when it comes to large scale capture stages. Through beta testing of Cara weve seen at Framestore that Vicon is an innovator in the industry. Cara offers four synchronised high-speed cameras with full wireless connectivity, and a robust dot tracking solution that integrates well into existing Vicon motion capture products as well as being a solid standalone system.

Vicon is also showcasing its recently launched real-time animation software, Blade 2 at SIGGRAPH. It enables the most effective production pipelines and workflow efficiency for motion capture projects, delivers the best realtime performance on the market and integrates seamlessly with Vicon's T-Series and Bonita camera ranges.

Blade 2's Quick Post feature gives users the option to automate the post processing workflow. Reconstruction, labelling, fixing and solving can all be achieved with one click, reducing the need for intensive manual clean up and back-end editing.

Vicon CEO, Imogen Moorhouse, said: The need for a modular, high-performance and accessible facial motion capture and tracking system has long been recognised within the industry. This makes the launch of Cara very exciting and instrumental to the future of facial motion capture. Vicon's long heritage and industry expertise allows us to develop practical innovations to enable our customers to push the boundaries of what is possible. Whether the user is a start-up studio or a long-standing Hollywoodgiant, high quality facial motion tracking is now accessible to all.'

About Cara

The Vicon Cara system consists of:

1 Pico logger1 Pico BOB4 Pico cameras 720P, 60fps, Global shutter (monochrome)4 Pico camera-to-BOB cables1 Pico BOB-to-logger cable2 batteries and cable1 battery charger with power leadVicon Cara HeadRigCara calibration objectsAccessoriesDocumentationTransportation and storage Case

The Cara system utilises two pieces of software:

CaraLive this software has access to all Cara system functions for set up, static calibration, capture, control and recording. Exporting is possible from this software not only to CaraPost but to other external software packages via a variety of formats. CaraPost this software contains frame-by-frame calibration, tracking, editing and export functions. The output of CaraPost consists of 3D points representing markers on the face. Exporting from here is easy to third-party animation packages.

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 CG animation, film, visual effects, computer games, broadcast television, as well as engineering and life sciences industries.

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, defence, life sciences and engineering markets. Other holdings include: 2d3, a manufacturer of specialised image understanding software for defence applications; Yotta DCL aUKhighways surveying business; and OMG Life, a new consumer subsidiary.

Among many others, Vicon and OMG global clients include:

Entertainment: Audiomotion, The Imaginarium, Quantic Dream, SEGA, Konami, Activision, Sony, Dreamworks, ILM and USC

Life Science: Nuffield Orthopaedic Centre - Oxford, Headley Court, University of Western Australia, Adidas, Digital Human Research Centre - Japan, Gillette Children's Specialty Healthcare, Shriners, Marquette, UMich and Red Bull

Engineering: European Space Agency, BMW, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research South Africa, ETH Zurich, Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology, NRL, UPENN GRASP, MIT, Ford and General Motors

For more information about OMG and its subsidiaries, visit: http://www.omgplc.com, http://www.vicon.com, http://www.vicon.com/boujou, http://www.moves.com, http://www.2d3sensing.com, http://www.yottadcl.com or http://www.autographer.com.

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