Canon Innovations Push the Boundaries of Storytelling With a First-Of-Its-Kind Immersive Movie Experience at CES 2023

Canon U.S.A.,a leader in digital imaging solutions, pushed innovation to new heights in 2022. At CES 2023, the company will demonstrate how its technology is working to help dissolve limits between real and virtual worlds through a first-of-its-kind immersive movie experience that will place attendees inside of the story. With the launch of the theme ‘Limitless Is More,’ and Canon’s latest imaging innovations, CES attendees will be able to fully immerse themselves into M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming Universal Pictures thriller, Knock at the Cabin (in theaters February 3). Canon will prove how its solutions can remove the limits humanity faces to create more meaningful communication, more powerful collaboration, more exciting perspectives, and more boundless imagination across four unique technologies.

“Canon is creating groundbreaking solutions that help people connect in more ways than we ever could have imagined, redefining how they work and live at a time when many of them are embracing a hybrid lifestyle,” said Kazuto Ogawa, President and CEO, Canon U.S.A., Inc. “Canon’s ultimate role is to bring people closer together by revealing endless opportunities for creators. Under our theme of ‘Limitless Is More,’ we will show CES 2023 attendees what we are creating as a company focused on innovation and a world without limits.”

The corporate philosophy of Kyosei, the principle defined as “all people, regardless of race, religion, or culture, harmoniously living and working together into the future for the good of society,” is threaded through all of Canon’s technologies, services and people. With Kyosei as the driving force, Canon’s immersive experience and featured technologies at CES 2023 will show attendees how the company looks to contribute to society and have a positive impact.

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Kokomo is a first of its kind immersive virtual reality software^, designed to change human communication by combining virtual reality with an immersive calling experience. The innovative software is designed to provide users with a way to meet friends and family virtually “in-person” by using a compatible VR headset and a compatible smart phone. The Kokomo solution will allow users to see and hear one another in real time with their live appearance and expression, in a photo-real environment.

The Kokomo solution is being designed so that people can feel together and experience social interaction from their home, hotel, dorm room or across other distances if there is a compatible headset, the software and an internet connection. The Kokomo solution will work to fully mirror true physical appearance – even facial expressions – inside what is effectively a 3D video call. At the Canon booth, visitors will be able to put on a VR headset and step into a 1:1 Kokomo conversation with one of four characters from Knock at the Cabin.

The revolutionary Free Viewpoint Video System for arenas, stadiums, and studios comprises more than 100 Canon Cinema EOS-based 4k cameras and lenses. The data captured from the cameras is sent to a server system that creates point-cloud based 3D models that quickly reproduce various viewpoints or desired camera angles, like that from a drone, swooping in and around players, or a small POV camera, looking at actors in a commercial or music video shoot. The result is an immersive and customizable viewing experience from perspectives that may not be possible with traditional camera systems.

In the USA, the system has been installed at two NBA arenas including Rocket Mortgage Field House in Cleveland (Cavaliers), as well as Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York (Nets). The video can be broadcast out live and also compiled into replay clips. The system also allows for extensive flexibility with virtual advertising and other opportunities for monetization.

CES attendees will be able to view an action scene from Knock at the Cabin from multiple perspectives as captured by the Free Viewpoint Video System, supervised by M. Night Shyamalan and shot at Canon’s Volumetric Video Studio in Kawasaki, Japan. Viewing the scene from multiple viewpoints allows for different perspectives to be uncovered as attendees watch through the “eyes” of the various characters. Booth visitors will experience a new meaning to the term “best seats in the house.”

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MREAL, a mixed reality experience, utilizes Canon imaging technology to integrate real and virtual worlds, showing end-users what this type of integration can do for industry, education, medicine, entertainment, and more. MREAL is unlike anything Canon has ever developed, a premium visualizer/simulator that helps account for limits of scale, perception, analysis, and participation, and provides superb, almost life like image clarity and color accuracy.

The MREAL technology is currently in the market research phase in the USA, but an example of the technology can be seen in the Canon CES booth. Visitors to the booth will be able to experience a break-in scene from the movie Knock at the Cabin as if they are a character in the movie. A gamified experience gives CES attendees the ability to immerse themselves in the movie’s action. Users can interact with virtual furniture and other objects in order to barricade themselves inside the cabin and successfully keep intruders out.

The AMLOS (Activate My Line of Sight) solution* was developed by Canon U.S.A. to help amplify how people see and interact in hybrid meeting environments. The AMLOS solution is a software-and-camera product suite designed to provide an amazing level of engagement for collaboration across multiple meeting locations. The advanced software-and-camera product suite features sophisticated PTZ (pan, tilt, and zoom) camera functionality guided by hand gesture controls for certain actions for in-person participants. Remote users are given the flexibility to customize their viewing experience and to see objects or areas of the in-person space. This allows both in-person and remote participants to engage in meetings or collaborative discussions, with an intuitive experience with hand gesture controls for certain actions for in-person participants, and a user interface that can be customized by a remote participant to help promote collaboration.

Using AMLOS, CES attendees will connect with a stranger on the actual set of Knock at the Cabin located in Philadelphia. They will work together to investigate the aftermath of events from the movie while creating their own stories on what could have happened in the cabin. Canon worked with M. Night Shyamalan to develop clues that will be placed throughout the space for participants to discover, varying from handwritten notes to broken furniture and more, adding to the mystery of the movie’s events.

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