If you’ve followed the technical explanations FiLMiC shares about development of its products, like, for example, with the FiLMiC Pro LOGv2 Technical Overview (iOS), then the name Cubiform is not a complete surprise to you. Back in December 2018 ProVideo Coalition published a note about the use of LogV2, which the company says is “the culmination of years of work done on a proprietary computational-imaging module that we internally call “Cubiform”. Cubiform creates a mathematical environment where we can process the luma and chroma of an image with 64-bit precision.”
Well, the company’s unique and highly-efficient technology for image remapping Cubiform is now patented – patent, No. US 10,855,886 B2, a new development that further strengthens FiLMiC’s intellectual property positions in mobile cinematography and photography. FiLMiC Inc. is the developer of a suite of professional-caliber cinema camera and photography software for mobile devices; including FiLMiC Pro, its signature mobile cinema camera app; DoubleTake, the highly acclaimed app that transforms an iPhone into a multi-cam studio; and Firstlight, its revolutionary professional photography app.
FiLMiC’s newly-patented image remapping technology, Cubiform, is an approach to applying a remap to each pixel in an image. Rather than directly modifying images, Cubiform generates a stream of color look-up tables (C-LUTs) from a dynamic set of parameters, which can be modified by users in real time. The stream of C-LUTs created by Cubiform can be applied to an image – or a series of images – with minimal performance impact on the CPU or GPU.
Rather than relying on per-pixel processing for chrominance and luminance modifications, Cubiform C-LUTs are used to ‘look up’ new values from a pre-calculated table. This approach is significantly more efficient for complex remap operations as the C-LUT is treated like a static data-model and discarded if a different transform is desired.
In use therefore, Cubiform can reflect image-transform parameter changes in real-time at the cost of a lower resultant image quality – but only while edits are occurring. When edits are complete, Cubiform will generate a high-precision C-LUT capable of producing a high-quality image remap.
“FiLMiC’s Cubiform technology not only represents a significant technological advancement in image processing, it also represents our deep commitment to forwarding mobile cinema camera and professional mobile photography innovation,” said Neill Barham, CEO of FiLMiC Inc. “The entire team at FiLMiC recognizes the responsibility we have to our customers, and to the industry. This is no longer just about making great apps, this is about enabling an entirely new generation of filmmakers and photographers; and to do that well demands advanced technological sophistication and elegance. We’re extremely proud of this contribution.”