3ality Technica – a merger of 3D leaders

 NAB, Las Vegas—We talked with 3ality Technica about rigs and other equipment.3ality Digital acquired (bought) the company Element Technica. Now they are one single company, called 3ality Technica, which merges the complementary expertise of both companies.

3ality Digital created 3D rigs, using a tool kit which included algorithms and image processing technology to solve problems, whereas Element Technica had a hardware focus. Since they shared customers, they started talks about joint calls, which led to acquisition discussions. The combined company now offers integrated hardware-software solutions for 3-D rigs. The integrated systems use the software to align the hardware for interocular, range, vertical, horizontal, and angular discrepancies.

The next generation of imaging accessories will be the focus of the combined company. The individual hardware and software components are fairly small. The mechanical layer and manufacturing are part of Technica’s expertise while the workflows are 3ality’s. cinema workflows and equipment are different from broadcast.

The tentpole, mid-size, and smaller independent films are converging on a single workflow. Some of the latest 3-D films are now shooting on a 2-D schedule using 4 rigs full time, plus a steady cam for handheld shots. The technical support is down to only one technician and the stereographer does most of the pulls. In comparison, broadcast still has many flavors, depending upon subject, audience, and venue.

The latest rigs require very few geometric corrections. There are major differences between the cinema and broadcast rigs; the cinema rigs have the second camera on top while the broadcast versions have the second camera below. The broadcast crews have to consider seating blockages while the cinema versions have complete control of the viewing and shooting environment.

As an example of the automation and integration, the setup time for the soccer World Cup only took 4 hours at the stadium. The relevant metadata for the cameras was generated by the I/O module and included information on interocular, lens control, remote head, crane, etc. plus the time code for the shoot. All of this information is an important part of the production flow.

The system also supplies correction and analysis data to the metadata flow, and all the data are aggregated for viewing on a laptop through a browser interface. The software allows the director to search for any parameters and log comments while the shoot is in progress.

In response to a question on polarization artifacts, they responded that there are no obvious sparkle or small scale visual defects, but they are now aware of geographic distinctions. They use multiple coatings on the splitting mirror to reduce reflections and assure color fidelity, but on a shoot in South Africa, the sky was magenta. They found out that the sky polarization differed between northern and southern hemispheres and the coatings had to change to accommodate the differences.

As the industries move to 4K 4:4:4 video, the next generation of rigs will be more highly integrated to reduce size and weight. The latest rig integrates TS5 and Atom modules to achieve these reductions.