Industrial Light & Magic adopts Vicon MX

Vicon, a leading developer of Academy Award-winning motion capture systems and part of Oxford Metrics Group plc has announced that visual effects facility Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) has upgraded its Vicon motion capture system to Vicon MX.
A Lucasfilm Ltd company, ILM is a leading force in visual effects production and has been a Vicon customer for nearly a decade.
Vicon MX systems offer new levels of precision, performance and practicality for motion capture within the entertainment field with CMOS sensors, on-board intelligent image processing and revolutionary 10-bit grayscale processing. ILM’s upgraded system, already installed on the facility’s campus at the recently opened Letterman Digital Arts Center in San Francisco, is equipped with 40 Vicon MX40s - the world’s first four million-pixel motion capture cameras.
“Vicon has been a valued vendor since 1996, when we installed our first optical motion capture solution – a Vicon 370e system,” said Mike Sanders, Digital Supervisor, Industrial Light & Magic. “The company has consistently innovated its technology for the film and entertainment market, and with Vicon MX it continues to be known for accuracy and performance as well as truly commendable service and support – assisting ILM in leading the industry for virtual cinematography.”
Jon Damush, Vice President and General Manager of Vicon’s entertainment division, said: “We’ve been privileged to count ILM as a customer for the past 10 years, harking back to some of the first and most memorable uses of motion capture in filmmaking -- from the droid battle sequence in Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace, to breakthrough realism with a CG character in The Mummy and The Mummy Returns. Clients like ILM inspire us to aim high with new systems like Vicon MX.”
“We have always had a strong relationship with ILM and are delighted that they have signalled their satisfaction with our products through an upgrade to a Vicon MX40 motion capture system,” added Nick Bolton, Chief Executive Officer of OMG plc.
ILM has provided post-production visual effects services to the entertainment industry since 1975. Motion pictures, commercials, trailers, music videos and special venue projects have utilised ILM's unequalled artistry in techniques such as model making, matte painting, computer-generated imagery, digital animation and a variety of related processes required in the production of visual effects.
ILM has been associated with 14 movies that have earned the Oscar for Best Visual Effects and has been awarded 17 technical achievement awards from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Recent projects at the facility include: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, Poseidon, Mission Impossible III, Munich, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and Star Wars: Episode III: Revenge of the Sith.
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