Fraunhofer is the largest research organization in Europe with more than 20000 employees working at over 60 institutes. Fraunhofer’s mission is to perform applied research and acting as intermediate partner between academia and industry. As a member of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft, the Fraunhofer Institute for Integrated Circuits IIS is a leading research institution for microelectronics and IT system solutions and services and with a staff of approximately 950, it is the largest institute.
When it comes to advanced audio and video technologies for the rapidly evolving media world, the Fraunhofer IIS stands alone. It is home to the organization’s Audio and Media Technologies division that has been working in audio and image coding and signal processing for more than 25 years. Fraunhofer IIS is the main inventor of mp3, universally credited with the co-development of AAC and built the DCI test plan for the worldwide interchangeability of digital cinema movies.
Computational Imaging and Algorithms Group
Within the Audio and Media Technologies division at Fraunhofer, the research group Computational Imaging and Algorithms investigates new imaging technologies in order to create a hyper-realistic visual experience. The team covers research topics such as light-field technology as well as depth based image processing for applications like Virtual Reality.
Referring to light-field technology, the research group is responsible for the improvement of new workflows for post-production based on camera arrays and for the development of algorithms in order to generate depth maps and apply effects like refocusing and virtual camera renderings. The integration from light-field technology into post-production software is realized as a plugin for Nuke – the industry-leading compositing software – that offers additional and unseen visual effects, that with today´s tools are not available.
Further competences include the creation of compression codecs for the transmission of high-resolution image data.