The story
Image Metrics was founded in 2000 in Manchester by Gareth Edwards, Kevin Walker and Alan Brett. The Image Metrics office in Santa Monica was opened six years later.
The Image Metrics performance capture animation process was developed over the past seven years by an in-house team of physicists, programmers and animators. Since its inception, Image Metrics facial animation technology has been applied in over 40 video games, movies and commercials worldwide. In 2006, The New York Times heralded Image Metrics' techniques as "technology that captures the soul".
Image Metrics technology was also used to animate the deceased actor Richard Burton for a computer-generated encore performance. The company provided the modeling and facial animation for a photo-realistic, 11-foot 3D hologram of the late Burton for the Live on Stage! production of "Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of The Worlds." Image Metrics animated a Richard Burton in his mid 30s to recreate his role as journalist George Herbert. Image Metrics completed a total of 23 minutes of facial animation synchronized to the original audio recording of the international star of stage and screen.
From Wikipedia’s article on Image Metrics, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4