Tutorial on Augmented Reality at Professional Broadcast Quality

Graham Thomas, BBC Research & Innovation

This workshop will present some of the theoretical and practical aspects that need to be appreciated by anyone hoping to generate an augmented reality system at a level of quality that would be acceptable for professional TV broadcast.

Whilst many academic researchers will have experience with systems based on conventional web cameras and PCs, there are a range of issues that need to be understood when moving to professional-quality cameras, including the behaviour of zoom lenses, the need to maintain a constant frame rate locked to an external reference, and handling interlaced images. There are also issues relating to the choice of tracking systems for cameras or objects, and other processes such as chroma-keying and visual feedback for actors, which need to be understood in order to put together a practical system that produces professional-quality results.

Although the workshop is based on the author’s experiences of developing and using augmented reality for TV production, it will be useful for anyone who wants a deeper understanding of the practical aspects of using augmented reality, and wants to be able to produce high-quality results. It will be illustrated with a wide range of examples of AR techniques being applied to programme production.