StageTools Announce MovingPicture

Software for Real-Time Zooms and Pans on High Resolution Still Images for Documentary and Educational Video Projects

StageTools announces MovingPicture, a new tool for documentary and industrial filmmakers to pan and zoom on high-resolution images. Rather than using expensive and bulky motion-control rigs to create pans and zooms on stills, MovingPicture uses digital images on a desktop PC. This allows for perfectly repeatable pans and zoom move and eliminating the need for expensive photographic prints.

MovingPicture uses an animation-stand metaphor, where a virtual camera viewfinder is positioned over the digital image in real time. A series of "key frames" can be set, each one specifying what the camera will see at some point in time. The program will smoothly flow from one key frame to the next in real time.

The resulting scenes can be recorded on videotape in real time for use directly or for sources to a nonlinear editor. Color storyboards and full-motion AVI and VRML files can also be created.

Four-time Academy award-winning documentary film maker Charles Guggenheim said "MovingPicture promises to be one of the most valuable tools created in recent years for the documentary film maker."

MovingPicture uses off-the shelf OpenGL-based rendering cards to create smooth, high quality pans and zooms on images up to 4,000 by 4,000 in resolution. It can also run on laptops, although not in real time.

MovingPicture is made by StageTools, a company dedicated to providing high productivity design tools to the professional creative community, including OnStage!, a previsualization tool designed for motion picture and video producers to help visualize scenes before they are shot.

StageTools is headed by Bill Ferster, the founder of West End Film and Editing Machines Corporation. EMC developed the first digital nonlinear editing system and received an EMMY Award, for pioneering a technology that has revolutionized the way films and videos are edited.

MovingPicture is Windows 95/98/NT based and supports the OpenGL 3D rendering standard. This makes MovingPicture compatible with a wide variety of inexpensive 3D acceleration cards for real-time performance. An evaluation copy can be downloaded from the website: www.stagetools.com. MovingPicture is priced at $495.

Web Site: http://www.stagetools.com