NAB 2009, Las Vegas - ARRI has entered into
a letter of intent to develop and sell a new Texture
Control software tool for digital intermediate (DI) and mastering
facilities. Powered by Pixel Strings, a high-performance GPU-based
motion estimation engine developed by Cinnafilm Inc., this tool set adds interactive control of grain and noise levels to the
creative palette, according to a company representative. The software is designed to run on a dedicated
workstation with Fibre Channel or Gigabit Ethernet connections to a DI
facility’s storage area network (SAN), extending the
capabilities of the DI suite.
This software product adds interactive manipulation of image texture to
the DI process, with motion-compensated grain and noise reduction
technology. Using the tool, cinematographers can control image texture,
mixing, and matching the grain of film and digital media in an
integrated and visualized DI environment. It leverages Cinnafilm’s
patent-pending Pixel Strings technology with a high-speed GPU
implementation.
ARRI is working with Cinnafilm on a software development and licensing agreement.
This
technology was originally developed by Cinnafilm and Digital Film
Central, a DI facility in Vancouver, California. As a film mastering
facility, DFC had developed a host of image processing applications
over the years, unearthing ways to remove grain from film images while
retaining detail. Their initial success with the service led to the
opportunity to create a product, and Cinnafilm provided the software
development on the GPU-enabled Pixel Strings platform.