[snogglethorpe]

A lot of cool rendering/modeling research seems amazingly well-suited for the film industry and this is a perfect example ... besides the obvious applications in making CGI versions of real-world scenes, you can just imagine the director saying "oh no, that lamp is in the wrong location in all that footage... move it (without reshooting)!"

I wonder if it's just a coincidence, or whether the mega-bucketloads of money the film industry throws at CGI are a major factor in funding related research even in academia?

[bsenftner]

Not to imply that this technology is anything short of fantastic, if you look closely at the video again you will notice fairly obvious artifacts when an object is 'moved' from it's original location - the background replacement is only so good from a single image. Likewise, the 3D objects themselves created by this system show unrealistic artifacts. I'd like to see the results after they expand this system for multi-photo input, of the type used in film with multiple images from a moving camera. My point being, this is a fantastic combination of known technologies to create something truly new, and with refinement will be suitable for feature film work. However, as it is shown in the video, not high enough quality for VFX applications. (Disclaimer: VFX pipeline developer here.)

[snogglethorpe]

> However, as it is shown in the video, not high enough quality for VFX applications

Sure, understood.

The thing is, I imagine film VFX guys are already doing this kind of task—making 3D versions of real objects from the movie and doing CGI additions from them—and tools like this (with, as you say, refinements) could be a great help in speeding up that process...