Canon U.S.A., Inc., a leader in digital imaging solutions, at CES 2023, launched a first-of-its-kind immersive movie experience that placed attendees inside the immersive story. CES attendees were able to fully immerse themselves into M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming Universal Pictures thriller, Knock at the Cabin (in theaters February 3, 2023).
Additionally, Canon launched the theme ‘Limitless Is More’ event at CES with the brands latest imaging innovations. The brand proved how its solutions can remove the limits humanity faces to create limitless imagination, communication, perspectives, and collaboration across four technologies.
Limitless Imagination: MREAL
MREAL, a mixed reality experience, utilizes Canon imaging technology to integrate real and virtual worlds, showing end-users what this type of integration can do for industry, education, medicine, entertainment, and more. MREAL is unlike anything Canon has ever developed, a premium visualizer/simulator that helps account for limits of scale, perception, analysis, and participation, and provides superb, almost life-like image clarity and color accuracy.
The MREAL technology is currently in the market research phase in the USA, but an example of the technology can be seen in the Canon CES booth. Visitors to the booth were able to experience a break-in scene from the movie Knock at the Cabin as if they are a character in the movie. A gamified experience gave CES attendees the ability to immerse themselves in the movie’s action. Users interacted with virtual furniture and other objects in order to barricade themselves inside the cabin and successfully keep intruders out.
Limitless Communication: Kokomo
Kokomo is a first-of-its-kind immersive virtual reality software^, designed to change human communication by combining virtual reality with an immersive calling experience. The innovative software is designed to provide users with a way to meet friends and family virtually “in-person” by using a compatible VR headset and a compatible smartphone. The Kokomo solution will allow users to see and hear one another in real-time with their live appearance and expression, in a photo-real environment.
The Kokomo solution is being designed so that people can feel together and experience social interaction from their home, hotel, dorm room or across other distances if there is a compatible headset, the software and an internet connection. The Kokomo solution will work to fully mirror true physical appearance – even facial expressions – inside what is effectively a 3D video call. At the Canon booth, visitors were able to put on a VR headset and step into a 1:1 Kokomo conversation with one of four characters from Knock at the Cabin.
Limitless Perspectives: Free Viewpoint
The revolutionary Free Viewpoint Video System for arenas, stadiums, and studios comprises more than 100 Canon Cinema EOS-based 4k cameras and lenses. The data captured from the cameras is sent to a server system that creates point-cloud based 3D models that quickly reproduce various viewpoints or desired camera angles, like that from a drone, swooping in and around players, or a small POV camera, looking at actors in a commercial or music video shoot. The result is an immersive and customizable viewing experience from perspectives that may not be possible with traditional camera systems.
In the USA, the system has been installed at two NBA arenas including Rocket Mortgage Field House in Cleveland (Cavaliers), as well as Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York (Nets). The video can be broadcast out live and also compiled into replay clips. The system also allows for extensive flexibility with virtual advertising and other opportunities for monetization.
At CES attendees were able to view an action scene from Knock at the Cabin from multiple perspectives as captured by the Free Viewpoint Video System, supervised by M. Night Shyamalan and shot at Canon’s Volumetric Video Studio in Kawasaki, Japan. Viewing the scene from multiple viewpoints allows for different perspectives to be uncovered as attendees watched through the “eyes” of the various characters.
Limitless Collaboration: AMLOS (Activate My Line of Sight)
The AMLOS (Activate My Line of Sight) solution* was developed by Canon U.S.A. to help amplify how people see and interact in hybrid meeting environments. The AMLOS solution is a software-and-camera product suite designed to provide an amazing level of engagement for collaboration across multiple meeting locations. The advanced software-and-camera product suite features sophisticated PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) camera functionality guided by hand gesture controls for certain actions for in-person participants.
Remote users are given the flexibility to customize their viewing experience and to see objects or areas of the in-person space. This allows both in-person and remote participants to engage in meetings or collaborative discussions, with an intuitive experience with hand gesture controls for certain actions for in-person participants, and a user interface that can be customized by a remote participant to help promote collaboration.
Using AMLOS, CES attendees connected with a stranger on the actual set of Knock at the Cabin located in Philadelphia. They worked together to investigate the aftermath of events from the movie while creating their own stories on what could have happened in the cabin. Canon worked with M. Night Shyamalan to develop clues that were placed throughout the space for participants to discover, varying from handwritten notes to broken furniture and more, adding to the mystery of the movie’s events.
Visit Canon’s website at www.usa.canon.com for more information.
About Canon U.S.A., Inc.
Canon U.S.A., Inc., is a leading provider of consumer, business-to-business, and industrial digital imaging solutions to the United States and to Latin America and the Caribbean markets. With approximately $30.6 billion in global revenue, its parent company, Canon Inc. (NYSE:CAJ), as of 2021 has ranked in the top-five overall in U.S. patents granted for 36 consecutive years† and was one of Fortune Magazine’s World’s Most Admired Companies in 2022. Canon U.S.A. was featured in Newsweek’s Most Loved Workplaces list for 2021, ranking among the top 100 companies for employee happiness and satisfaction at work. Canon U.S.A. is dedicated to its Kyosei philosophy of social and environmental responsibility. To keep apprised of the latest news from Canon U.S.A., sign up for the Company’s RSS news feed by visiting www.usa.canon.com/rss.
About Knock at the Cabin
While vacationing at a remote cabin, a young girl and her parents are taken hostage by four strangers who demand that the family make an unthinkable choice to avert the apocalypse. With limited access to the outside world, the family must decide what they believe before all is lost. The film stars Dave Bautista (Dune), Jonathan Groff (Hamilton), Ben Aldridge (Pennyworth), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Persuasion), newcomer Kristen Cui, Abby Quinn (Little Women) and Rupert Grint (Servant).
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Source: Canon
