ALIVE – Live Action Lightfields for Immersive Virtual Reality Experiences

ALIVE is an eighteen-month applied research project that aims to make it possible to create immersive Virtual

Reality experiences that use live action video, by using lightfield capture technology to give a much more

realistic appearance and sense of immersion than is currently possible. The project will result in new algorithms

and methods, incorporated in advanced software prototypes and demonstrated in a short experimental

production. We will develop new ways of accurately tracking moving multi-camera lightfield rigs; representing,

editing, post-producing and streaming immersive light-fields; and rendering the results as free-viewpoint video

with true parallax to support viewer head movement, in real time, to consumer headsets.

The project consortium is made up of a leading medium-sized visual effects software developer (The Foundry),

an SME creative production company specialising in VR experiences (Figment Productions) and a leading

research centre specialising in multi-view data capture and processing (University of Surrey).