Polymersive: Immersive Video Production Tools for Studio and Live Events

"Whilst audiovisual production pipelines have recently been developing to include stereoscopic 360-degree video content and directional or spatial audio, the viewer is still assumed to be at a fixed location---able to turn their head, but not actually move. Headsets that can track head movement (often called 6DOF) are becoming available and finding application within video games, but there is currently no production-ready pipeline for 6DOF audiovisual content capture. We refer to such content as ""Polymersive"" This project sets out to develop a production tool chain to support Polymersive content.

IMRSVRay, Surrey University, and the BBC will bring together their work on lightfield capture and spatial audio to give conventional production teams the tools and processes they need to rapidly create immersive content. We call this toolset the Polymersive Production system. We will also develop tools for post-production to enable these teams to create experiences and test level distribution systems for end-user feedback.

We will work with BBC Studios to test a range of content types, from music and sports to drama and nature programmes. The goal of this project is to create a robust system that makes it easy for a conventional production team to start making 6DOF immersive content."