Leading visual effects developer RE:Vision Effects, Inc. is delighted to announce that the company founders, Peter Litwinowicz and Pierre Jasmin, will be honored with a Technical Achievement Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences©. The formal awards ceremony and presentation will take place on February 10, 2007 in Los Angeles. The award is being given for the design and development of the RE: Vision Effects family of optical flow-based image manipulation software tools. The A.M.P.A.S. reviewing committee recognized RE:Vision Effects’ products for their unique user interface and affordable cost that led to the company’s success in making the technology ubiquitous.

Optical flow, or motion estimation, is a class of techniques that tracks every pixel between successive frames of a moving picture sequence. RE:Vision Effects released their first product in 1999, Video Gogh, which tracks and moves painted brush strokes from frame-to-frame to create animated painting sequences. The underlying technology for Video Gogh is similar to the software that the founders created for use in making What Dreams May Come, which won the 1998 Academy Award© for Best Visual Effects. Subsequent products have followed that use the optical flow technology: ReelSmart Motion Blur, the first product on the market to add motion blur using optical flow; Twixtor, the first optical flow-based retiming product on the Macintosh; RE:Flex, the first and only warping and morphing tool to use optical flow to help the user align objects; and FieldsKit, a product that deinterlaces using optical flow techniques.

The RE:Vision Effects optical flow-based tools have been used on many high profile movies including Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest, Mission: Impossible III, Hellboy, Superman Returns, Aeon Flux,Sin City, Star Wars: Episode III, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Van Helsing, Blade II, Nutty Professor II, the Klumps, and Magnificent Desolation (an IMAX film).

RE:Vision Effects optical flow technology is also being used in the Diamant film restoration software to aid the processes of noise reduction and artifact removal. RE:Vision Effects was also instrumental in the making of the miniseries Dreamkeeper, which won the 2004 Emmy for Outstanding Special Visual Effects for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special. This project entailed developing a novel optical flow technique that extracted depth from stereo imagery for special effects’ use.

In the effort to reduce workflow overhead, the tools are designed to work within many host applications including Adobe After Effects, Adobe Premiere Pro, Apple Final Cut Pro, Apple Shake, Avid systems, Autodesk Systems that support Sparks, Autodesk Combustion, SoftImage|XSI, Quantel generationQ, eyeon Fusion, among others.

RE:Vision Effects, Inc. would like to congratulate Mr. Litwinowicz and Mr. Jasmin on their recognition by the A.M.P.A.S.

ABOUT A.M.P.A.S. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a professional honorary organization of over 6,000 motion picture professionals, was founded to advance the arts and sciences of motion pictures; foster cooperation among creative leaders for cultural, educational and technological progress; recognize outstanding achievements; cooperate on technical research and improvement of methods and equipment; provide a common forum and meeting ground for various branches and crafts; represent the viewpoint of actual creators of the motion picture; and foster educational activities between the professional community and the public-at-large.

ABOUT RE:VISION EFFECTS, Inc. RE:Vision Effects is a leading software manufacturing company providing software tools for the film and video industries. Among the products are the acclaimed Twixtor, ReelSmart Motion Blur and RE:Flex products. RE:Vision Effects was founded in 1998 by Peter Litwinowicz and Pierre Jasmin.

Visit RE:Vision Effects’ website http://www.revisionfx.com for more information on features, demo versions, pricing and compatibility of products.

RE:Vision Effects, Twixtor, ReelSmart, RE:Flex and FieldsKit are the trademarks of RE:Vision Effects Inc. "ACADEMY AWARD" and A.M.P.A.S are trademarks or registered trademarks of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Other trademarks are the trademarks of their respective owners.

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