Imagineer Systems - History

History

Imagineer Systems was established in June 2000 by Allan Jaenicke and Philip McLauchlan. The pair had been carrying out a joint research project at the University of Surrey in Guildford, United Kingdom, with the aim of applying the latest computer vision research to the problem of image registration - the stitching together of disparate still image. McLauchlan focused on development of the core algorithms whilst Jaenicke focused on building a user interface that would allow a user to ‘stitch’ together spherical and cylindrical mosaics.

During some trials with video sequences McLauchlan discovered that the algorithms developed had a different and more useful aspect. When analyzing a panning shot of Stefan Edberg playing tennis, the algorithms quickly removed Stefan from the shot, computing a clean background shot. Some discussions with a manufacturer in the post production space revealed that there was a real need for such a product to perform wire & rig removal and so mokey, the company's first product, launched at IBC2001, was born. Nearly two years later, in May 2003, the first glimmerings of the software that would become monet came to light. A technology demo led the internal R&D team at top London effects house Cinesite to conclude that Imagineer had the technology to solve a specific upcoming problem: namely how to efficiently insert the animated paintings into the picture frames in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. After an intensive development period working hand in hand with the Cinesite team, Imagineer announced monet at IBC2003, releasing version 1.0 a year later at IBC2004.