Volumetric Studio Opens In Babelsberg Just Outside Berlin

• High profile consortium Volucap starts first commercial volumetric video studio on the European continent

• New stereoscopic depth technology enables innovative forms of presentation for film and media beyond entertainment

• Actress Emilia Schüle (known from Ku’damm 59, Traumfabrik) was the first person to be recorded in the volumetric studio at the opening.

Berlin, June 11, 2018 The representatives of the Volucap GmbH operating consortium, together with Brandenburg’s Minister of Economics and Energy, Albrecht Gerber, gave the starting signal for the volumetric studio in Potsdam-Babelsberg on Monday. Actress Emilia Schüle was the first person to be recorded by cameras from all sides in the Volucap studio so that she could later be digitally staged.

The studio is located on 170 square meters in the fx.center on the grounds of Studio Babelsberg and is equipped with 32 cameras, which are installed all around on a nearly 4 meter high light rotunda. People and objects can be scanned three-dimensionally and lifelike in the room. The corresponding basic technology was specially developed by Fraunhofer Heinrich Hertz Institute. The previous prototype of the volumetric video studio is for laboratory use only and has been in operation there since October 2017. The installed software “3D Human Body Reconstruction” does not create digital avatars, but creates hologram-like representations of real people that can be processed like computer-generated models. The actors recorded in this way can be placed in real and virtual worlds. It is also possible for spectators to enter the worlds with the help of VR technology and view the events and the person photographed or the object photographed from every possible angle.

It is not only in the film industry that completely new possibilities for narrative forms towards “walk-in film” arise. As the first commercially used studio on the European mainland, the new technology can also be used for professional commissioned productions in many areas of media beyond entertainment such as in medicine, automotive or the games industry. Compared to the existing solutions, including studios in London and San Francisco, Volucap is pursuing a new concept that is future-oriented towards an even higher quality and will also be used for cinema productions in the long term.

For commercial use, the shareholders ARRI Cine Technik GmbH & Co. Betriebs KG, Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, Interlake System GmbH, Studio Babelsberg AG and UFA GmbH founded the joint company Volucap GmbH.