About the innovator

Founded in 1982, Signum Bildtechnik is specialized in the development and production of digital image and video systems for broadcast applications as well as for the evaluation of image and video sequences using digital image processing. Signum also provides customized solutions for high-precision video-based analysis of movements.

What is the inn

Signum developed a tracking system for virtual TV sets (green box studios). Common tracking systems on the market need additional sensors attached to the camera. Those systems are hardware based, expensive and difficult to calibrate.  Signum developed a revolutionary new tracking system which is purely software based, a so called "through-the-lens tracking" system. Markers are attached to the green box walls and their position is determined through the eyes of the camera. No additional hardware is needed. The camera detects markers in the image and calculates it's position for the VR render engine. The advantage: Any broadcast-camera can be tracked without specific manipulations to the camera.

Out of the lab. Into the market

The Signum through-the-lens camera tracking is in its final stage. It is fully developed and tested on a laboratory level. From now on, the system needs to be tested in real-studio- conditions. Because todays tracking systems are complicated to use and miss precision we see a huge market for simplified tracking systems like ours in small and medium sized TV studios.

Benefits of participation in the Framework Programme

The other participating parties, especially the end users (broadcasters), delivered valuable insights about how they use tracking systems in their studio environment; this helped us a lot to develop the first prototype in a very short time frame. Because the research projects had so many diverse participants from different countries we had the big advantage to incorporate a very broad feedback that reflects different user behavior from different countries.

This innovation was funded via H2020 project Visualmedia.

Team behind the innovation

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