Project Imagination

Developing sensors, research transmission technologies and compression

About Imagination

Image capture, 3D situational awareness and image data transmission are generic technologies used in a multitude of business applications, including: production technologies, robotics, security, healthcare and digital entertainment. In all vision based professional applications, the trend in image capture continues towards higher spatial and temporal resolutions, and better image quality. The IMAGINATION project will develop:

  • ultra high resolution image sensors,
  • building blocks for visible, Time-of-flight (TOF), and 'outside visible spectrum' image sensors,
  • research technologies like stitching for small global shutter pixels and stacking,
  • wavelet based compression for transmission of data rates of 100 gigabits per second over fibre.

A highly qualified and multi-disciplinary team is required to develop the various aspects of the technologies such as optics, image capture, video processing and transmission. To develop and optimize these technologies for professional products, a consortium with a critical mass of world-class engineering and research skills is required. This project brings together important European players in the imaging industry with proven records of accomplishment. The team consists of an R&D institute, fabless design houses, a semiconductor manufacturer, and system integrators experienced in image sensor technologies, signal processing, transmission and camera integration. Technical results will be demonstrated in a Machine Vision and in a broadcast camera application, as well in technology demonstrators.

OUR CONSORTIUM





News & Events


ePicture This

PCM – 10th April, 2025

All partners joined a hybrid (in-person and online) PCM meeting, hosted by Euresys in Seraing, Belgium, to review progress and plan upcoming activities

ePicture This

PCM - January 17th, 2025

All partners participated in a hybrid (online and offline) PCM meeting, hosted by Grass Valley, to discuss progress and plan future activities.

ePicture This

Joint Evaluation - December 9th , 2024

IntoPIX visited GV to jointly evaluate the tico_RAW compression that GV integrated in their dual-sensor camera set up.

ePicture This

Dissemination by GV - October 21st-24th , 2024

Klaus Weber presented their recent work on "Film-Look in Live Production" at SMPTE 2024. The presentation can be found here.

ePicture This

October 11th , 2024

All partners participated in an online PCM meeting hosted by Grass Valley to discuss progress and plan future activities

ePicture This

October 8th to 10th , 2024

At the Vision Stuttgart 2024 trade show, the Imagination second year review GenDC demo, by Euresys/Adimec, has been showcased to the public on the EMVA booth. A related newsrelease can be read here

ePicture This

September 26th, 2024

ePicture This event organised at the Eindhoven University of Technology on 26th September 2024 and the best presentation award was received by Klaus Weber from Grass Valley

ePicture This

Demos at 2nd Year Review, July 3rd,2024

Successful demonstrations by partners at the 2nd-year review in Ieper, Belgium

ePicture This

Second Year Review – July 3rd, 2024

Second year review held at Melexis in Ieper, Belgium

Joint evaluation

Joint evaluation - August 30, 2023

Joint evaluation (GV and Adimec) of the GV 2/3-inch image sensor in Breda on 30th August, 2023

Visit of Grass Valley to Adimec on July 11th, 2023 to discuss de-mosaicking

July 11th, 2023

Visit of Grass Valley to Adimec on July 11th, 2023 to discuss de-mosaicking

Visit of Grass Valley to Adimec on July 11th, 2023 to discuss de-mosaicking

July 11th, 2023

Visit of Grass Valley to Adimec on July 11th, 2023 to discuss de-mosaicking

Visit of Adimec to Grass Valley on July 5th, 2023 to discuss experience sharing

July 5th, 2023

Visit of Adimec to Grass Valley on July 5th, 2023 to discuss experience sharing

Visit of Adimec to Grass Valley on July 5th, 2023 to discuss experience sharing

July 5th, 2023

Visit of Adimec to Grass Valley on July 5th, 2023 to discuss experience sharing

First year review

First year review - June 22, 2023

First year review held at TU Delft

Y1-EYR

ePicture This - June 21, 2023

ePicture This event organised at the Delft University of Technology on 21st June 2023 and the best presentation award was received by Dirk Meier from IDEAS

Grass Valey and TNO

April 13th, 2023

Grass Valley and TNO met on April 13th in The Hague to discuss and align the work frame-based depth map generation with Deep Learning algorithms. Intention is to link the work in the Penta projects Mantis Vision and Imagination

Grass Valey and TNO

April 13th, 2023

Grass Valley and TNO met on April 13th in The Hague to discuss and align the work frame-based depth map generation with Deep Learning algorithms. Intention is to link the work in the Penta projects Mantis Vision and Imagination

Y1-EYR

Progress Meeting - January 23, 2023

On 23rd January 2023, TNO and Grass Valley met in Breda to discuss the progress on deep learning depth map generation and align future activities in both the Mantis Vision and Imagination project

Grass Valey and TNO

November 24 & 25, 2022

Imagination booth at EFECS 2022, November 24 & 25

EFECS

EFECS 2022, November 24 & 25

We are glad that Project Imagination gained attention exhibiting demonstrators at EFECS 2022!

EFECS

EFECS 2022, November 24 & 25

We are glad that Project Imagination gained attention exhibiting demonstrators at EFECS 2022!

Grass Valey and TNO

October 14th, 2022

On 14 October 2022, the team met for their quarterly consortium meeting at intoPIX in Mont-Saint-Guibert. Overall project management, technical progress, and preparation of EFECS were discussed, and intoPIX demonstrated their technical achievements

Kick-off!

Project Imagination kick-off! 8 July 2022

The project was successfully kicked-off today. The event was hosted by Delft University of Technology (TUDelft), the Netherlands.


Publications

Internal link for consortium members to register publications.

ePicture This (workshop 2025)

On Tuesday, 28 October 2025, we held the 3rd edition of ‘ePicture This’ - an international industrial workshop on imaging, hosted by TU/e. The workshop attracted interest from leading imaging companies across Europe. Speakers from 3DHistech (Hungary), Inria (France), Grass Valley (UK), Teledyne E2V (France/Spain), Philips (NL), Essens (Belgium), and ASML (NL) presented their latest research in imaging AI, sensor design, and Tier-1 imaging applications.

The Senaatzaal at TU/e was fully booked with participants. As always, the coffee breaks were the most fruitful moments for idea exchange, networking, and plenty of laughs. We were also gently censured by TU/e management for the extensive use of the vuvuzela, loudly announcing the start of each session.

The Best Presentation Award, decided by the jury, went to Leo Kampmeijer (TNO) for his talk ‘Shared situational awareness in robotic perimeter surveillance.’ The workshop was supported by XECS, AENEAS, and ITEA4.

The organizers - Egor Bondarev (AIMS lab, SPS, EE, TU/e), Klaas Jan Damstra (Grass Valley), Marcel Dijkema (Adimec Teledyne), and Sandra K.R. (TU Delft) - are very thankful to the keynote speakers, presenters, and audience for the in-depth discussions and fun during the event. We look forward to seeing all of you and other imaging experts at the next edition in 2026!



Venue: Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), in the Netherlands

Agenda

Find below the agenda for the workshop

Keynotes

François Brémond: "Action Recognition for People Monitoring".

François Brémond is a Research Director at Inria Center d'Université Côte d'Azur, where he created the STARS team in 2012. He has pioneered the combination of Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Computer Vision for Video Understanding since 1993, both at Sophia-Antipolis and at USC (University of Southern California), LA. In 1997 he obtained his PhD degree in video understanding and pursued this work at USC on the interpretation of videos taken from drones. In 2000, recruited as a researcher at Inria, he modeled human behavior for Scene Understanding: perception, multi-sensor fusion, spatio-temporal reasoning and activity recognition. He is a co-founder of Keeneo, Ekinnox and Neosensys, three companies in intelligent video monitoring and business intelligence. He also co-founded the CoBTek team from Nice University in January 2012 with Prof. P. Robert from Nice Hospital on the study of behavioral disorders for older adults suffering from dementia. He is author or co-author of more than 300 scientific papers published in international journals or conferences in video understanding. He has (co)-supervised more than 30 PhD theses.
More information is available at: http://www-sop.inria.fr/members/Francois.Bremond/
Click here for the abstract.

Rafael Romay: "3D stacked technologies applied to Custom CMOS Image Sensors: A very solid reason to invest in differentiation".

Rafael Romay owns an double MSc in Microelectronics System Design and Computer Science by University of Seville. After an initial research period in the Spanish National Council of Research (CNM-CSIC) in high-speed data converters, he joined Bell Labs as Design Engineer. In 2001 he joined the founding team of AnaFocus, a start-up company specialized in CMOS image sensors, where he worked as Business Dev. Director and CEO until 2014, when the company was sold to e2v. e2v was acquired in 2017 by Teledyne Technologies (TDY). Today Rafael is Executive Vice President and General Manager of Teledyne in charge of CMOS image sensors and aerospace & defense groups.
Click here for the abstract.

Ian Fletcher: "Living Life on the Edge: Leveraging Cloud-First, Edge-Enabled Architectures for Remote Production".

Ian is Chief Technology Officer and also oversees the design and development of Grass Valley’s next generation software platform. Ian Fletcher’s broadcast career began at the BBC, where he worked as a Sound Engineer, before setting up his own video production company. During this time Ian became increasingly interested in the new, low-cost microcomputers and the potential they offered for innovative solutions in the broadcast industry. This led to the formation of OmniBus Systems, pioneers in the development of computer control systems for television studios. As CTO of OmniBus Systems, Ian spearheaded many of the technological revolutions in the broadcast industry. This includes the transition from tape to server-based systems, news automation, large-scale multichannel automation and the ground-breaking, software-based playout system, iTX. Over the years, Ian has received a number of industry accolades, including the coveted Queen’s Award for Innovation. Following OmniBus’ acquisition by Miranda and the subsequent merger with Grass Valley, Ian has continued to drive the development of software systems, particularly in the emerging areas of cloud playout and virtualization. He holds two patents for video image identification and cloud-based playout. Ian is a Fellow of the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers.
Click here for the abstract.

If you are involved in the electronics, components and systems industry specifically on the topic of digital imaging, we invite you to participate in the workshop by registering below. The deadline for registration is October 14th 2025.

Visual highlights from 2025

Contact info

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CONTACT

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