It's summer and in Europe and the sports crazies are transfixed by Euro2008, with action from teams representing 16 different European countries. In case you've never watched, the score in a typical soccer match is less than what the Lakers and Celtics will ring up in the last 30 seconds tonight. Slow. Slow's a good word. Deadly slow's probably better, but why be mean?
Here in the states, ESPN is covering the action and they've added something to juice the excitement. They call it Axis, but it's really a technology called LiberoVision coming from the Swiss company of the same name. Simply, Axis allows an operator to position virtual cameras and cover a play after that play's already over! The results are nothing less than sensational. This is as large a leap as instant replay originally was!
"Using the conventional, physical camera streams, the «magic eye» computes new images from new angles and puts them together to full flights in 3D space with hardly any loss in image quality." - LiberoVision press release
With a virtual soccer game now recorded, an announcer or producer can replay a fly-through across the field with the action unfolding. Position the camera anywhere to add perspective, even if there was no camera there to begin with! For the first time you stand with the players in game situations, seeing what they see, understanding their actions. You can even take the same play and position the camera from the perspective of a defender or goalie. In really complex situations, a click of a producer's mouse will remove players, simplifying the view and probably mystifying first time viewers.
This technology will be coming to American football as well. There's currently no network announced on LiberoVision's website, meaning you can assume there's still a little sales resistance to be sweated out. Though NFL or college ball fans might not admit it, from a TV production standpoint, soccer and football games are quite similar. This technology is a perfect fit.
The amount of math necessary to recreate 3D space from a series of separate 2D cameras boggles the mind and overwhelms heavy computing iron. This is replay, but not yet instant replay. The typical time to crunch a fly through is around five minutes. The quality is there, not the timeliness. This technology can also be used to insert virtual advertising into a scene. For the rest of what LiberoVision does I'm almost ready to let that slide... almost.
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