Multimedia
Today, multimedia applications are becoming more and more an integral part of our life. These applications are not only targeted for television sets and PCs, but also mobile devices offer an ever increasing set of multimedia services. The hunger for higher resolution and ubiquitous access results in an ever increasing complexity of the provided services. To support these increasing processing requirements, IMEC is concerned with the efficient implementation of video coding services (see section Efficient mapping of video codec standards).
Additionally, new multimedia applications are emerging. Multiple cameras and/or stereo/3D displays give a true depth impression to the viewer: from free viewpoint video, where the displayed video sequence is an intermediary, virtual view from the captured scene, to immersive 3D environments, where one can interact in a natural, real-life way with others on a remote location. These applications require a whole set of new, highly complex algorithms. Therefore IMEC is studying these algorithms and implementing them to allow real-time operation: (see section 3D visual systems).