Speakers for 2010 tbc. As speakers are confirmed, details will be added.

To give you some idea of the high calibre of the speakers at CVMP2009, they were:

Andrew Oliver Blitz Games Peter Hillman Weta Digital Marc ProesmanEyetronics Neil Marsden Hibbert Ralph Chris Steel Effectivus Dr.Toni Mateos Barcelona Media Prof.Marc Pollefeys ETH Zurich Sergi Sagas Rica Media Pro Rob Pieke MPC

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Andrew Oliver Chief Technical Officer, Blitz Games Studios.

Andrew Oliver is co-founder and co-owner of Blitz Games Studios and took on the role of Technical Director when he and his twin brother Philip started the company in 1990 following nearly ten years of designing and writing highly successful video games. In August 2002 he was appointed Chief Technical Officer and is now responsible for all aspects of the company's game development direction and future technology strategy, including spearheading the organisation’s move into digital stereoscopic 3D gaming. He ensures that the company's reputation for high quality development standards, prompt delivery and the creation of cutting edge in-house tools is consistently maintained. He is also a member of BAFTA, reflecting his ongoing interest in the future of entertainment.

Talk synopsis...

Creating Console Games in Digital Stereoscopic 3D
We know that Hollywood believes in digital stereoscopic 3D entertainment, investing hundreds of millions of dollars into recent and upcoming project’s. But many believe it is games that will lead the 3D revolution and bring it into the home.
During this session, Blitz Games Studios will show the world it’s first released game in full digital 3D running on the Xbox360, PS3 and pass on their real experiences on developing the game including the visual considerations and the technical challenges of integrating stereoscopy into a real-time rendering pipeline and give a glimpse of where real-time S-3D graphics could be taking us.

Peter Hillman, R&D Software Engineer - Weta Digital

Peter joined Weta Digital in April 2007 as a freelance 2D Research and Development Software Engineer.

He has specialised in the development of stereo image compositing tools, supporting the workflow and pipeline for all upcoming projects being created at Weta Digital, including the forthcoming Avatar.

He has also developed tools for various Weta Digital projects including The Water Horse ; The Legend of the Deep and The Chronicles of Narnia : Prince Caspian

Peter received his PhD in video matte creation from The University of Edinburgh in 2003, after which he was a Research Associate at the University's Institute of Digital Communications.

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Marc proesman, Eyetronics

Marc Proesmans graduated in 1987 as an engineer in electronics from the K.U.Leuven, where he started his career as a scientific researcher in image processing. He worked on several aspects of image recognition such as license plate recognition, forensic applications, early visual processing and industrial imaging.

He obtained a PhD in 1998 in image processing frameworks. His PhD work forms the basis of the Eyetronics' proprietary and patented technology. On Feb 13th 1998 he was one of the Company’s founders and at this moment as the Chief Technology Officer is still the driving force for the Technology development.

Talk synopsis...

3D scanning became a key technology for visual effects in feature film and TV series, for highly realistic characters in video games and for amazing stunts in commercials and music videos.The entertainment sector is also a market that forces us to constantly find innovative solutions. In the presentation it will be shown how Eyetronics innovated its 3D scanning technology over the years and what its vision is for the future. The technology has come to a point that it can be used for consumer applications.

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Neil Marsden Head of Technology, Hibbert Ralph Animation

Neil Marsden is Head of Technology at Hibbert Ralph Animation and has worked in the animation industry for over 10 years. Providing the technical support for the production of HRA's regular TV commercial output he has also worked on numerous animated television series most recently Fireman Sam for HIT Entertainment. Currently he is leading the team developing Redboard, Hibbert Ralph's unique storyboarding and pipeline management system. He is equally happy discussing the latest computing trends or configuring HD video equipment for broadcast environments.

Chris Steele Founder Effectivus

Chris Steele founded Effectivus, an Oxford based consultancy focused on helping conceive and bring innovative, high tech products to market. Chris has 25 years experience in bringing innovative high tech products to market. He has a barrier-crossing background in engineering, design, business and teaching.

He has worked with many complex software and hardware products in both start-ups and large multinational companies. These products have often had multi-cultural teams and international markets.

Products he has helped bring to market have won 3 Queen’s Awards, 2 Emmys and wide industry recognition. He has developed professional relationships with Sony, Adobe, Apple, Samsung and many others.

Chris has an MA from the Royal College of Art and an MBA from Cranfield University.

Talk synopsis...

Redboard is unique workflow which unites traditional storyboarding and CGI productions. Over recent years Hibbert Ralph Animation has seen continuous pressure on budgets and production schedules and at the same time audiences, which are used to the production values of Hollywood, have expectations which broadcasters pressurise production companies to meet. As a result an optimised digital pipeline is essential in all CGI productions. Redboard establishes an efficient production pipeline right from the outset of a CGI production. Utilising game engine technology the workflow allows storyboards and editorial decisions to be passed directly and automatically into the CGI pipeline. By ensuring the accurate transfer of storyboard and 3D data right from the start of the production Redboard bridges the gap often created by the pre-production being done in one part of the world and the production process being carried out in another. The workflow, supported by this game-engine based software application, has dramatically reduced storyboarding costs and eliminated errors in scene setup and layout. At the same time it allows storyboard artists to use more adventurous camera angles and moves and given producers and directors far greater confidence that the animatics that they approve will be faithfully reproduced in the final CGI deliverable.

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Dr. Toni Mateos, Barcelona Media

Dr.Toni Mateos is Technical Coordinator of the Audio Lab at Barcelona Media Innovation Centre & an Associate Lecturer at the University Pompeu Fabra

Current research areas include 3D Audio and Modeling of the acoustic field in virtual environments.

Toni took a Ph. D. in Theoretical and High Energy Physics at the University of Barcelona in June 2004, with his thesis being on "D-branes, noncommutative theories and the gauge/string duality". His Postdoc was on 'String Theory and Supergravity' and was taken at the Imperial College, London, in 2004-2006.
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Rob Pieke Head of R&D at MPC

Rob Pieké is the Head of R&D at MPC (Moving Picture Company) in the heart of Soho, London. His team develops and maintains a wide range of proprietary visual effects tools for MPC's 300+ artists, giving the company a competitive edge in being able to efficiently deliver extremely high-quality imagery throughout a highly-complex film project.

Rob received an Honours BASc in Computer Engineering from The University of Waterloo in 2003, and spent three years leading the R&D team at C.O.R.E. Digital Pictures in Toronto before coming to MPC to work on The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian. Mainly focussing on simulation and destruction technologies, Rob has recently worked on Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, GI Joe: Rise of Cobra, and Clash of the Titans.

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Prof.Marc Pollefeys, ETH Zurich

Marc Pollefeys is a full professor and head of the Institute for Visual Computing of the Dept. of Computer Science of ETH Zurich which he joined in 2007. He leads the Computer Vision and Geometry lab. He currently also remains associated with the Dept. of Computer Science of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His main area of research is computer vision. One of his main research goals is to develop flexible approaches to capture visual representations of real world objects, scenes and events. Dr. Pollefeys has received several prizes for his research, including a Marr prize, an NSF CAREER award, a Packard Fellowship and a ERC Starting Grant. He is the author or co-author of more than 100 peer-reviewed papers. He is one of the program chairs for the IEEE Conf. on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition 2009 and was co-chair of the Third Symposium on 3D Data Processing, Visualization and Transmission and has organized workshops and courses at major vision and graphics conferences and has served on the program committees of many conferences. He is a regular reviewer for most of the major vision, graphics and photogrammetry journals. Prof. Pollefeys is on the Editorial Board of the IEEE Transactions on Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence, the International Journal of Computer Vision and Foundations and Trends in Computer Graphics and Computer Vision.

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Sergi Sagas Rica, Mediapro

Sergi Sagas is currently the Director of Research and Development at Mediapro (www.mediapro.es). He holds a BSc+MSc in Computer Science, in 1992 he was a technical Director at Animatica and he also taught the first Masters program in Computer Animation and Visual Effects at ESCAC (School of Cinema and Audiovisual Studies of Catalunya). In 1994 he moved to Los Angeles where he graduated in Film and TV production at UCLA. In October 1994 he started working at the Walt Disney Company as a Technical Director of the Feature Animation division, and after 8 years of working at Disney he was hired at Sony Pictures Imageworks as a Lead Technical Director where he worked on both R&D and production projects. The work he and his team did for some of theses projects has gained international recognition and was credited with several prestigious awards including 2 Oscars and a Technical Achievement awards from the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences.

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Les Zellan, Cooke Lenses

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more information coming soon for...
Jules Cocke, Squint Opera