The aim of realistic digital imaging is the creation of high quality imagery, which faithfully represents the physical environment. The ultimate goal is to create images, which are perceptually indistinguishable from a real scene. The RealVision network brings together leading universities and centres focused on industrial development and companies in multimedia, optics, visual communication, visual computing, computer graphics, and human vision research across Europe, with the aim of training a new generation of scientists, technologists, and entrepreneurs that will move Europe into a leading role in innovative hyper-realistic imaging technologies.
Current imaging technologies capture only a fraction of visual information that the human eye can see. The colours and dynamic range are inadequate for most real-world scenes and not all depth cues required for natural 3D vision are captured. This limits the realism of the experience and has hampered the introduction of 3D technology. Advancement in imaging technologies makes it possible to circumvent those bottlenecks in visual systems. As a result, new visual signal-processing areas have emerged such as light fields, ultra-high definition, highframe rate and high dynamic range imaging. The novel combinations of those technologies can facilitate a hyper-realistic visual experience. Without a doubt, this will be the future frontier for new imaging systems. However, there are several technological barriers that need to be overcome as well as challenges in what are the best solutions perceptually. The goal of this network is to combine expertise from several disciplines, i.e. engineering, computer science, physics, vision science and psychology – that are usually disconnected – and train the RealVision Early-Stage Researchers (ESRs) to be capable of working with all stages and aspects of visual processing to overcome existing interdisciplinary and intersectorial barriers to efficiently develop truly perceptually better visual imaging systems.