Walt Disney Research is an informal collaboration of the Walt Disney Company with various labs including Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zürich (ETH Zurich), under a five year commitment.
These labs conduct R&D for Walt Disney Parks & Resorts division, Disney Media Networks, ESPN, Walt Disney Animation Studios, Walt Disney Motion Pictures Group, Disney Interactive Media Group and Pixar Animation Studios.
The labs will include computer animation, computational cinematography, autonomous interactive characters, robotics and user interfaces and others in its R&D efforts.
CMU is working in particular on robotics, HCI, vision, graphics, and sports visualization under Professor Jessica Hodgins.