Individual Strategic Projects

Individual projects are aimed at driving outstanding new technologies and solutions from which one might anticipate long-term strategic impacts in the ICT sector. These varied projects adopt a forward-looking approach and are particularly significant for the German economy.

Suitable ideas can be submitted to the Project Management Agency and given limited funding. A committee comprising representatives of the Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology, the Project Management Agency and independent external experts assesses the proposals and decides whether they merit funding.

ASP – Automated Stereo Production

Set against the growing demand for 3D TV productions was the still very high costs, personnel and equipment requirements of a 3D production. Due to complex calibration and recording processes and elaborate production requirements, good 3D productions were currently extremely expensive. Producers therefore often tried to reduce these exorbitant costs by using simple methods that often resulted in unacceptably low 3D quality. This applied in particular to 3D TV live productions, as it was not yet possible to capture these without complex, motorised 3D recording systems with complicated mirror rigs requiring significant amounts of personnel and maintenance. Although there were constant efforts to reduce high operating costs through the use of assistance systems, the costs of 3D productions still significantly exceed the budgets of traditional 2D productions. A further disadvantage of these recording Systems was their size, which often made it impossible to get very close to the scene in live productions.

For this reason, the submitted project ASP aimed to design the prototype of a small, robust and cost-effective 3D recording system that significantly reduced the operating costs of 3D productions in general and 3D live productions in particular, and brought them to a level that was acceptable for TV productions. Moreover, the project aimed to achieve a compact size for the largely autonomous system so that it became possible to make stereo recordings very close to or even within the scene, or to track objects within the scene.

Project consortium:

• Carl Zeiss AG
• Fraunhofer Institute for Telecommunications (HHI) and Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits (IIS) (consortium coordinator)
• KUK Filmproduktion GmbH
• P+S Technik GmbH

Project duration: 2012–2013

Total volume: approx. 2.2m euros

Funding volume: 1.3m euros