SCIENCE

Pioneer in Digital 3D Entertainment and Producer of 'U23D' Deploys Isilon IQ to Power Creation and First-Ever, Live-Action Broadcast of 3D Content: Isilon Systems today announced that 3ality Digital Systems, a pioneer in digital 3D entertainment, is using Isilon IQ clustered storage to power the creation and post-production of live-action 3D programming. Using Isilon IQ clustered storage, 3ality is able to unify, manage and access vast libraries of complex and extremely high resolution 3D programming from a single, highly scalable, shared pool of storage -- accelerating and simplifying its entire digital workflow from shooting and producing, to staging programming for satellite broadcast. In the near future, 3ality, in conjunction with U2, will release "U23D," a live-action 3D film, featuring performances from U2's Vertigo Tour. The movie is the first film ever entirely shot, edited and shown in digital 3D, with production that featured the most 3D cameras ever used for a single project. "True, all-digital 3D content is rapidly shifting from cinema's future into today's reality, and 3ality is driving this paradigm shift by dedicating our entire workflow to creating live-action, digital 3D content from initial shoot to final, satellite broadcast," said Howard Postley, CTO of 3ality Digital Systems. "Our unique production processes amplify the difficulties of storing digital content many times over, as live-action 3D imagery is much more complex and at higher resolutions than even the most advanced digital video. Therefore, we require storage with unparalleled scale, performance and ease of use and Isilon IQ delivers on all points, helping to refine our production and take our digital 3D entertainment mainstream." Actual 3D imagery is produced by creating binocular disparity -- slightly different two-dimensional images delivered to each eye -- which are then integrated in the brain into a single three-dimensional image through a process called stereopsis. Using proprietary software running on high resolution digital cameras, 3ality is able to shoot true 3D video by producing simultaneous 2D images for each eye as shooting occurs. This raw 3D imagery is then stored directly on Isilon IQ clustered storage, where it is easily and immediately accessible online for 3ality's post-production team. Using 3Post, 3ality's proprietary production software running on Isilon IQ, 3ality analyzes mass amounts of raw imagery, automatically aligning the depth and convergence of dual, 2D image sets, creating an easy-to-view, truly unique 3D experience for the viewer. With Isilon IQ's easily expandable, high performance single file system, 3ality's production engineers are able to concurrently access and collaborate on multiple images simultaneously, speeding time-to-results while saving valuable time and resources. "The explosion of digital content is no longer a new phenomenon, it is an everyday reality, and the results of this dramatic shift are creating groundbreaking new opportunities in digital media for pioneering enterprises to deliver never-before-seen entertainment to viewers," said Brett Goodwin, VP of Marketing & Business Development, Isilon Systems. "3ality is leading this next generation of media by capitalizing on the digital content explosion to create one-of-a-kind, digital 3D entertainment. By using Isilon IQ to unify its rapidly growing stores of 3D data into one, easy to use and highly scalable pool of storage, 3ality can accelerate its production times and ensure the world is able to enjoy the benefits of true 3D long before they thought possible." Prior to using Isilon IQ, 3ality was unable to scale its traditional storage to match data growth demands, separating image sets into disparate silos of data and ultimately limiting workflow collaboration and vital content analysis. Additionally, traditional storage systems' lack of concurrent performance hindered 3ality's 3Post processing operations, resulting in production bottlenecks that slowed project completion times while consuming valuable IT resources. By deploying Isilon IQ, 3ality was able to unify its disparate silos of 3D content into one, single, highly scalable, easy to use, shared pool of storage, dramatically accelerating its digital 3D content lifecycle while significantly reducing costs. Powered by OneFS, Isilon IQ delivers the industry's first single file system that unifies and provides instant and ubiquitous access to the rapidly growing stores of digital content, eliminating the cost and complexity barriers of traditional storage architectures. OneFS is a unified operating system software layer that powers all of Isilon's award-winning IQ family of clustered storage systems including the Isilon IQ 200, 1920, 3000, 6000, 9000, Accelerator, and EX 6000 and 9000. Isilon also provides a robust suite of software applications including SnapshotIQ, SmartConnect, SmartQuotas, MigrationIQ and SyncIQ that leverage OneFS and clustered storage, providing the highest levels of data protection and automated data management.