Vizrt Drives Fox Sports Graphics During Daytona 500

Fox Sports employed Vizrt live broadcast graphics technology during its HDTV coverage of the Daytona 500 on February 27, 2012.  This is the second consecutive season that the Vizrt graphics production workflow has been an integral part of the Daytona 500 telecast.

Considered one of the most prestigious races on the NASCAR calendar, the Daytona 500 is held annually at the Daytona International Speedway, in Daytona Beach, FL.  For this year’s race, Fox Sports used four Viz Trio template-based, real-time 3D character generators (CG) paired with four Viz Engine 3D rendering engines for real-time compositing of graphics and video. The Viz Engines were used to generate live graphics including lower thirds, over the shoulders, full screens and the FOXBOX crawl driven by real-time data of the running order of the drivers.

“Coming into the 2012 NASCAR on FOX season we wanted to make a unique visual difference, and Vizrt has helped us achieve this,”  said Zac Fields, director of graphics for Fox Sports. “We believe the Viz Artist authoring software, along with its real time 3D rendering, helped create one of the most unique analysis tools ever used in sports broadcasting.”

The main set, dubbed the Hollywood Hotel, featured the Ford Tech Center, an interactive display that leveraged a Viz Trio/Viz Engine combination feeding video and graphics to a 55-inch Perceptive Pixel touch screen. NASCAR on Fox Announcer Jeff Hammond used the touch screen to explain the innovative technology and 3D car parts behind NASCAR vehicles. The Vizrt scene included over 2 million polygons running in real time on an Nvidia Quadro 6000 graphics card.

“We’re thrilled that FOX Sports has once again demonstrated confidence in our live graphics technology, and we’re delighted to be a part of an event that NASCAR fans wait for all year,” said Petter Ole Jakobsen, CTO of Vizrt.  “The talented designers at Fox Sports have really taken full advantage of the Viz Engines capabilities by designing scenes that are both engaging and very functional. We look forward to a long and rewarding relationship with FOX Sports and to continuing to provide a reliable, creative 3D HD graphics workflow that enhances their live sports coverage.”