V-Lab: Creative technology

Goal: Creative audio and visual technology for immersive experiences

• Leading UK research group in creative technology (audio and video)
• Immersive content production for virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR)
• Machine learning for understanding video and audio.

Impact: Pioneering creative technologies since 1996

• World-leading video-realistic content production for film, games and VR
• Spatial audio for VR – GooglePlay ‘Best VR Experience.’

Current projects

V-lab is active in a portfolio of research projects supported by EPSRC, EU, TSB, industry and the Royal
Society. The research activity is underpinned by an EPSRC platform grant in visual media providing
strategic long-term funding for adventure and continuity of research.

• Visual Media Platform (EPSRC)
• BodyShape 'Body Shape Recognition for Online Fashion' (EPSRC)
• Royal Society Industry Fellowship with Framestore Digital Doubles: From real-actors to computer generated digital doubles
• S3A: Future spatial audio for an immersive listener experience at home
• Video-based capture, reconstruction and rendering of people
• VisualMedia
• Total Capture for real-time animation (Innovate UK)
• ALIVE ‘Live Action Lightfields for Immersive Virtual reality Experiences’ (Innovate UK).

Previous projects

• RE@CT - Immersive production and delivery of interactive 3D content (EU IST)
• SCENE - Novel scene representations for richer networked media (EU IST)
• SyMMM - Synchronising multimodal movie metadata (TSB)
• i3Dpost - Intelligent 3D content extraction and manipulation for film and games (EU IST)
• i3Dlive - Interactive 3D methods for live action media (TSB/EPSRC)
• iview - Free-viewpoint video for entertainment content production (TSB/EPSRC)
• VBAP - Video-based animation of people (EPSRC).

Strong collaborations

• BBC Data Science Research Partnership
• UK Creative industry: Film, TV, games, VR/AR
• G3: Guildford Games Hub (est. 2015).