VICON TO RECEIVE SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACADEMY AWARD®

Pioneering Developer of Motion Capture Systems and Software Used on Feature Films from "The Polar Express" to "Titanic" Honored with Technical Achievement Award

Oxford, UK (January 11, 2005) - VICON, the leading developer in motion capture, will be honored February 12, 2005, with a Scientific and Technical Academy Award® from The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. The Academy accolade, the first to recognize optical motion capture technology in feature film, will be presented as a Technical Achievement Award to VICON's Dr. Julian Morris, Michael Birch, Dr. Paul Smyth and Paul Tate in tandem with the 77th Annual Academy Awards®, Scientific & Technical Awards.

"Recognition by the Academy and, through it, the motion picture industry, is a high honor," said VICON founder Dr. Morris. "Over the years, our engineers, product architects and representatives on the ground in Hollywood, London and around the world have worked very closely with the motion picture and visual effects community to innovate, develop, roll out, support and continually update motion capture products to meet the demanding and specific needs of feature film. We would like to thank the Academy for acknowledging these achievements, and our customers, whose successes elevate our technology to true art. In receiving this award we want to call to the forefront the huge contributions of the teams at Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Digital Domain, Moving Picture Company, Framestore CFC, Jim Henson's Creature Shop and many others."

VICON motion capture allows film artists to drive computer-generated characters and animation by precisely recording the movement of real human actors, animals and other subjects. Delivering high performance and accuracy, the company's cameras and software have been used to add realism in visual effects- and non visual effects-driven cinema - from animating digital passengers on the ship deck in "Titanic" and giving life to crowds around the Coliseum in "Gladiator" to producing the first completely performance-capture feature, "The Polar Express" starring Tom Hanks.

VICON's systems are the motion capture tools-of-choice at Industrial Light & Magic, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Moving Picture Company and other leading studios, who have used VICON on such memorable and ground-breaking movies as "Spider-Man," "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl," "Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace," "Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones," "The Patriot," "The Mummy," "The Mummy Returns," "The Hulk," "Pearl Harbor," "Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" and "Black Hawk Down."

Creative tools and services provided by VICON and its sister companies 2d3 and House of Moves now contribute to a large proportion of movie productions involving visual effects, including four of the seven films competing for this year's Best Visual Effects Oscar® award - "The Day After Tomorrow," "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," "Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events" and "Spider-Man 2". Also, in 2004, more motion pictures - from "Van Helsing" and "Catwoman" to "King Arthur" and "Troy" -- were completed using VICON motion capture than in any year to date.

About VICON
VICON Motion Systems is a subsidiary of OMG plc (LSE: OMG) with global headquarters in Oxford, UK, and US headquarters in Lake Forest, CA. OMG subsidiary 2d3 Ltd. produces innovative visual geometry software deriving 3D data from moving images. Since 1984, VICON has been providing professionals with the latest tools to accurately capture the subtleties of three-dimensional human motion for research, medicine, sport, engineering, game development, broadcast and film. For more information about VICON, or to view a comprehensive list of worldwide distributors, visit www.vicon.com or contact +44 (0) 1865-261800 in the UK or (949) 472-9140 in the US.

VICON and 2d3 are trademarks of OMG plc. Academy Award, Academy Awards and Oscar are trade and servicemarks of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.