Digital Fusion launches Fusion 4

Digital Fusion has just shown at Siggraph a new version of their compositing software

The new version has a great new UI, a new warper, improved tracking and some complex transform concetenation code to speed up compositing, all warped in a new infarstructure that supports floating point in every module.

“Digital Fusion 4 offers infinite possibilities for the creative professional, at a realistic price. With DF 4, eyeon has achieved what most companies hope for, a strong sense of accomplishment and pride with great people behind our products.” Steve Roberts CEO, eyeon Software

DF 4 is fully multithreaded for maximum CPU efficiency and interface response. New Ram caching and cluster rendering provide interactive real-time playback based on system memory resources.

The sexy new DF 4 engine boosts the already diverse working environment, such as the new split screen image interface and unlimited floating display views, independent color LUT’s for each view and the ability to drag and drop footage directly into the flow. New floating point processing increases the accuracy of color correction, enabling the artist to work well above 16 bit color depth for optimal film integration. Overall the product just looks more professional and is easier to navigate.

“Floating point accuracy in Digital Fusion expresses our concern for the needs of the film compositor. eyeon was one of the first to offer 16 bit per channel processing for Windows NT, and now we can provide even more color precision to the artist or film editor, without sacrificing system performance or memory efficiency” Isaac Guenard Product Manager, eyeon Software

Digital Fusion’s new advanced features include
• custom macro tools that are both reusable and distributable by combining several tools and tool settings.
• The re-designed tracking functions boast unlimited track points and advanced multi point stabilization. Interestingly the new tools also include a great deal of user feedback during tracking, with such powerful new tools as a UI of the actual tracking target, and RGB confidence indicators per frame.
• The flow-based 3D particle suite supports unlimited particle streams, N-GON particle styles, improved 3D space control, and an advanced particle emitter tool.
• Perform grid-based image deformations with the new Grid Warp tool, in appearence and fundamentals it is not dissimilar to the Dsicreet Warper with source and destination grids, but which unlike flame’s grid warper allows additional master beszier control curves.
• DF now also has transform concatenation – familar to Shake users, this feature speeds render time by effectively compiling transforms and thus removing redunant transforms. Transform concetenation also improves image quality by removing unneeded passes of anti-alasing and resampling.

Pricing and Availability
Pricing for DF 4 lists at $ US 4,995 full version and $US 495.00 for DF 4 upgrade from DF 3.1. DFX + upgrades vary depending on module configuration. Digital Fusion 4 is expected to ship at IBC, September 2002.