Digital Domain Media Group, an Early Innovator of Volumetric Technology, Supports Open Source Release of OpenVDB by DreamWorks Animation
PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla., Aug 03, 2012 — Digital Domain Media Group, Inc. announces its support for the open source release of OpenVDB, a powerful and innovative tool for use in volumetric effects by the visual effects and animation industry, by DreamWorks Animation SKG. The companies believe this tool will enable significant technical improvements in the creation of animated and visual effects-driven feature films, offering a large step forward in the size of volumetric effects possible.
“We believe in the sharing of technology to benefit the entire industry as a whole when appropriate and are pleased to add our support to OpenVDB,” said Darin Grant, Chief Technology Officer of DDMG. “OpenVDB was developed by former Digital Domain employee Dr. Ken Museth, who made significant advancements in volumetric processing while at Digital Domain. Insights he gained from that work led to the development of OpenVDB.
“DDMG continues to be an industry leader in the development of advanced tools to create ever more spectacular computer-generated visual effects,” added Grant. “Most recently, our ground-breaking work in creating virtual humans was highlighted with the appearance of a virtual Tupac Shakur at the Coachella Music festival, and we are now applying that technology to creating a virtual Elvis Presley.”
OpenVDB utilizes a new data structure for efficient representation of sparse, time-varying volumetric data discretized on a 3D grid. The result allows digital artists and animators to make more efficient use of scalable volumetric data. In conjunction with DWA’s open source release, Digital Domain anticipates joining the industry in rapid adoption of OpenVDB.