Paul Debevec will discuss the technology and production processes behind "Welcome to Light Fields", the first downloadable virtual reality experience based on light field capture techniques which allow the visual appearance of an explorable volume of space to be recorded and reprojected photorealistically in VR enabling full 6DOF head movement. The lightfields technique differs from conventional approaches such as 3D modelling and photogrammetry. Debevec will discuss the theory and application of the technique. Debevec will also discuss the Light Stage computational illumination and facial scanning systems which use geodesic spheres of inward-pointing LED lights as have been used to create digital actor effects in movies such as Avatar, Benjamin Button, and Gravity, and have recently been used to create photoreal digital actors based on real people in movies such as Furious 7, Blade Runner: 2049, and Ready Player One. The lighting reproduction process of light stages allows omnidirectional lighting environments captured from the real world to be accurately reproduced in a studio, and has recently been extended with multispectral capabilities to enable LED lighting to accurately mimic the color rendition properties of daylight, incandescent, and mixed lighting environments. They have also used their full-body light stage in conjunction with natural language processing and automultiscopic video projection to record and project interactive conversations with survivors of the World War II Holocaust.
Paul Debevec is a Senior Staff Engineer at Google VR and an Adjunct Research Professor at the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies. Since his 1996 Ph.D. at the University of California at Berkeley, Debevec’s publications and animations have focused on techniques for photogrammetry, image‐based rendering, high dynamic range imaging, image‐based lighting, appearance measurement, facial animation, 3D displays, and virtual reality. Paul received SIGGRAPH's first Significant New Researcher Award in 2001 for his contributions to image-based modeling and rendering and a Scientific and Engineering Academy Award® in 2010 for his contributions to the Light Stage facial capture systems, now used in over 30 major motion pictures. He recently served as Vice President for ACM SIGGRAPH and co-chairs the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ Science and Technology Council.