XGRIDS' $5,000 spatial camera

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Welcome to VP Land! Atlassian just bought The Browser Company, maker of web browsers Arc and Dia, for $610 million. Their post says they're continuing to go all in on Dia, their agentic browser that competes with Perplexity's Comet (and how all these companies think we’ll interact with the web in the future).

But this is my plea for them to continue developing Arc, which I got hooked on over a year ago and can't find a suitable alternative for.

Aside: this acquisition may possibly be the greatest ROI ever for a slick startup video.

In today's edition:

XGRIDS' new PortalCam brings high-quality 3D scanning at $5K price point
I, Robot director argues AI can rebuild the movie industry
AI tools being used in Hollywood talent negotiations
HunyuanWorld-Voyager generates explorable 3D scenes from single images

PortalCam: XGRIDS Brings 3D Capture to Filmmakers

3D scanning hardware manufacturer XGRIDS has announced PortalCam ahead of IBC, positioning it as the first consumer-friendly spatial camera that captures real locations as explorable 3D environments using LiDAR, photogrammetry, and Gaussian Splatting technology.

The handheld device launches at $5,000, targeting indie filmmakers and creative professionals who need rapid location digitization.

PortalCam combines four cameras (two front-facing, two side-mounted fisheyes) with a front-mounted LiDAR sensor that captures over 860,000 depth points per second for precise spatial mapping.
The device handles both traditional photogrammetry and advanced Gaussian Splatting reconstruction, automatically processing walkthrough captures into textured 3D models through XGRIDS' LCC Studio software.
Filmmakers can scan locations, then export ready-to-use 3D assets directly into Unity, Unreal Engine, and other standard creative pipelines for virtual production workflows, or use for pre-vis and location scouting, using upcoming tools like Lightcraft's Spark platform.
The $5,000 price point puts professional-grade spatial capture within reach of independent studios and advanced creators, previously requiring equipment costing tens of thousands of dollars (just watch our video on the $60,000 Leica scanner).
Output includes fully explorable 3D worlds that support digital set extensions, pre-visualization, and AI-driven environment generation for film and VFX projects.

For filmmakers embracing virtual production, PortalCam represents a significant workflow shift from expensive, complex location scanning to accessible, walk-and-capture simplicity. Professionals can now digitize practical locations as easily as shooting traditional coverage, opening new creative possibilities for blending physical and digital environments.

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Director Alex Proyas: AI Will Rebuild Film Industry

Australian filmmaker Alex Proyas argues the movie industry is "broken" and needs rebuilding from the ground up, in an interview with The Guardian. The director behind The Crow and I, Robot sees AI as the solution to democratize filmmaking by slashing production costs.

Proyas blames streaming platforms and studio consolidation for squeezing filmmaker residuals and shrinking project budgets, not AI itself.
His new film RUR, about a woman’s struggle to liberate robots from capitalist exploitation, uses virtual production with Dell workstations to create AI-generated assets in real time during filming, cutting environment design time from six months to eight weeks.
The director views AI as "augmenting intelligence" rather than replacing human creativity, allowing smaller teams to accomplish what previously required massive studio resources.
Traditional studio productions that would cost $100 million can now be made at a fraction of that budget through AI-assisted workflows.
Proyas emphasizes that his role as director hasn't changed, but he now collaborates with AI tools the same way he directs human crew members with specific creative vision.

Proyas represents a growing faction of filmmakers who see AI as creative liberation rather than a threat. His hands-on approach with RUR could provide a roadmap for independent creators looking to compete with big studio productions without the traditional gatekeepers.

Hollywood Agents Use AI for Negotiations...But is the Data Right?

AI tools are transforming how Hollywood negotiates talent contracts, with agents now using ChatGPT and similar platforms to analyze audience sentiment and prove their clients' true value. The shift puts hard data behind what used to be subjective star power discussions.

Priyanka Chopra Jonas' team used AI analysis to show she drove 50-60% of audience conversation for Amazon's Heads of State, despite being the third lead behind Idris Elba and John Cena who each generated only 20-25% of the buzz.
Talent representatives can now instantly analyze social media chatter, news coverage, and streaming data across all platforms to build negotiation cases, replacing the guesswork that dominated the streaming era's opaque metrics.
Studios have been using these same AI sentiment tools for two years without sharing the data, but now talent reps have equal access to prove their clients' impact with hard numbers.

But is there more to what the Variety story is reporting? ChatGPT and Grok don't have access to live data - that needs to be sourced elsewhere and can then be analyzed with an AI model. We debated this on Denoised the previous week.

HunyuanWorld Makes 3D Production Faster

Tencent finally released HunyuanWorld-Voyager, an AI system that transforms a single 2D image into a fully explorable 3D scene complete with point clouds, video, and depth data.

Single-image input generates complete 3D environments that you can navigate and export directly to standard formats like OBJ and PLY for immediate use in game engines and VR applications.
The system trained on over 100,000 video clips and outperforms Runway's Gen-3 in camera control and scene consistency according to WorldScore rankings.
Unlike competing AI frameworks that need multiple images or video input, HunyuanWorld-Voyager extrapolates entire explorable spaces from just one reference photo.
You can export the generated 3D worlds as meshes and point clouds that work seamlessly with existing VR, simulation, and game development pipelines.
The tool bridges the gap between concept art and playable environments, letting small teams build larger virtual worlds without traditional 3D modeling workflows.

In TED Intersections, VFX artist Rob Bredow (ILM) and curator Nora Atkinson (Burning Man) explore the future of art, where AI, LED walls, and algorithms reshape creativity while keeping its soul.

Stories, projects, and links that caught our attention from around the web:

🎶 A visual designer who uses Suno has become the first AI music creator to sign a record deal.

🎬 Dolby has introduced Dolby Vision 2, a next-generation video platform that leverages AI and advanced motion smoothing for more realistic on-screen visuals.

📊 IMDb has unveiled new B2B data licensing solutions at IBC to provide businesses with advanced entertainment data and insights.

🤝 The Browser Company, maker of Arc and Dia, is being acquired by Atlassian for $610M.

📱 Adobe announced an iPhone version of Premiere.

Joey and Addy explore tips and use cases for Nano Banana (Gemini Flash 2.5), Mickmumpitz’s green-screen-free VFX workflow, and AI’s disruption of music with synthetic bands, idols, and record deals.

Read the show notes or watch the full episode.

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