(Online) CinePaint: Hollywood’s Film Retouching Tool

DATE:   Thursday, November 14, 2024

FROM:  7:00-9:00pm EST

WHERE:  Online

The Washington DC Chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH is proud to present CinePaint project director Robin Rowe. Rob will be presenting an overview of CinePaint and how it is used in the film industry. Chapter board member elections will be held before the presentation.

CinePaint was used to produce visual effects in the Harry Potter films, the Lord of the Rings films, the Stuart Little films, Scooby-Doo, Too Fast too Furious, The Last Samurai and other major motion pictures. CinePaint is an image editor like Photoshop but designed for retouching high dynamic range (HDR) images in motion picture file formats.

In 2000, two Hollywood studios, Rhythm & Hues (later won an Oscar for Life of Pi) and Silicon Grail (later acquired by Apple) sponsored a secret open-source project to create a Linux tool for dust-busting and wire-rig removal. CinePaint supports frame-by-frame retouching with onion-skinning between frames and motion picture sequence playback. CinePaint supported file formats include OpenEXR, TIFF, PNG, JPEG and many more.

In 2002, while a columnist at the magazine Linux Journal, Rowe wrote about CinePaint being used making the film Scoody-Doo. Rowe became the CinePaint project leader. Next, Sony ImageWorks contributed many enhancements. ILM provided OpenEXR support. CinePaint was initially Linux only. Rowe created the Windows version, and created libunistd, a Windows port of the Linux operating system APIs. A Mac version of CinePaint was created.

What’s next? CinePaint is adding generative AI, multi-track soundtrack editing (to replace Avid ProTools using open-source software created for Pixar), animation (to replace Adobe Flash), slide shows (to replace Microsoft PowerPoint), and making updates to the GTK1 graphics APII.

The meeting will be hosted on the Zoom platform. A link to the meeting will be provided 5 minutes prior to the presentation to all those who have responded to the announcement on our MeetUp. The link will also be visible to those who RSVP. Those who do not RSVP to the MeetUp announcement will not receive the link to the meeting.

MeetUp:

https://www.meetup.com/dc-acm-siggraph/events/304188340

The Zoom client may need to be downloaded to connect to the meeting. Safelinks Protection, used by some email applications, may alter the link. Please contact us if you have issues accessing the meeting.

Please join us on Thursday, November 14, 2024, from 7pm to 9pm EST online to learn more about CinePaint.

** Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by attendees of the Washington DC ACM SIGGRAPH local chapter meetings are those of the authors/speakers and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of ACM, ACM SIGGRAPH, or the Washington DC chapter of ACM SIGGRAPH.


Biography – Robin Rowe

Professor Rowe joined DreamWorks Animation in 2004, creating software for Shrek 2 and Over the Hedge. At House of Moves, the largest motion-capture sound stage in Hollywood, Rowe created their MotionBuilder-Unreal animation system, used by Disney Marvel to produce fight scenes in Spider-Man Far from Home. At the World Health Organization, Rowe led medical metaverse engineering for worldwide telemedicine. At Lenovo, Rowe was design strategist for their ThinkReality AR glasses.

As chief technologist and AI research lab director at the multi-billion-dollar engineering firm SAIC, Rowe created real-time AI crisis detection and monitoring software integrated into the U.S. national defense system, then sailed on the aircraft carrier USS Lincoln to test it at sea. Created BrowseCutter, an MPEG video editing system sold to Time Warner and installed in 100 TV stations. Built the robotic television studios at NBC WMAQ-TV Chicago. As an NBC-TV broadcast news technical director, produced live nightly newscasts at WICD-TV in Champaign, Illinois. Former DARPA principal investigator for AI. Former Navy research scientist NATO VR war gaming.

Currently, Rowe is CEO of a start-up creating a compiler for a new programming language similar to C/C++, to provide the memory-safe benefits of Rust without the learning curve. Rowe served as chairman of the Rust Language Group at the Motion Picture Academy and was chairman of the ISO C++ Standard Group Low Latency Financial Systems Subcommittee. Professor Rowe taught computer science at the Naval Postgraduate School (Advanced C++) and at the University of Washington (Intermediate C++).

In May 2024, while serving as chairman of the UN ITU Medical Metaverse Task Group, Rowe moved to the Washington D.C. area.


Contact Washington DC ACM SIGGRAPH:

http://washington-dc.siggraph.org/

http://www.meetup.com/DC-ACM-SIGGRAPH/

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