The uniquely-named Eadweard Muybridge looked like Hollywood's idea of an Old Testament prophet, which is apposite, since he's widely thought of as the father of the motion picture.

He also clearly espoused Old Testament beliefs, although in Eadweard's case, it wasn't so much as an eye for an eye, as a bullet for a seducer.

His other claim to fame was shooting his wife's lover dead.

From such rich origins, an Oxford company has risen to become one of the three major players in its field - and has just won a brace of Queen's Awards to Industry.

Vicon Motion Systems, which creates moving animated images, sits tucked off the Botley Road.

A more prosaic location for a dream factory would be hard to find, yet Vicon itself is the dream result of a management buyout from Oxford Instruments back in 1984.

"We stuck our hands in our pockets," explains engineering director Tom Shannon.

On a day when the temperature is seething towards 30C, Tom Shannon is dressed for work in shorts and an open-neck shirt This, he says, illustrates the company policy of "Empowerment": "We don't wear ties and we don't work weekends. We have core working hours of between 9.30 and 4.30 and everyone here has responsibility, so we have 50 or 60 pairs of eyes looking for opportunities," he explains.

Vicon's success has been writ large in the cinema and in medicine.

Their technological wizardry devises and manufactures systems that can derive 3D information from the movement of people, animals and objects.

Vicon's specially built cameras and computers then provide information which can be analysed and used by movie-makers and clinicians, which can mean the creation of thousands of extras on films like Titanic and Gladiator, or the chance that a child might walk again after being struck by cerebal palsy.

"Our involvement in the cinema means we have a very high profile, but most of our work is done in the area of medicine," explains Tom, who refers to his job as "how to be almost 50 years old and still get to play with the Meccano".

"We attract some clever people here and we're all in control of our own destiny.

"I look after building the machines, but the changes in technology mean we expect to have to change maniacally every 18 months.

"We're a software company - that's our real cleverness.

"In the movies, we don't want people to 'ooh' and 'aah', we want to be so good that they don't notice what's real and what isn't."

What is very real is Vicom's profitability. The company went to the markets in April this year and expansion is very much on the cards. They need the space, apart from anything else.

The latest Queens Awards - the firm won one for export in 1996 - will be celebrated at a company bash on Friday.

Later this year, Vicon representatives will attend the Queen's Garden Party to officially mark their achievement.

And that won't just be a 'director's only' job, either, says Tom.

"The invitations will be right across the company.'

"People tend to say that we are a good company to work for," he says.

Many of the staff are walking around dressed in Vicon T-shirts. "World Domination Tour 2001", the slogans read.

Or 'Number One - with a bullet', as Eadweard Mubridge might have said...