Voodoo Camera Tracker Tutorial
Voodoo Camera Tracker, produced by digilab, is a piece of free software for Windows and Linux that produces 3-D models from video sequences. The program will give you back only what you put into it. To get a good product, you first have to learn how to use the software.
Other People Are Reading
-
Sequence Loading
-
To produce a 3-D model, you will need a video sequence to work from. The sequence loading process in Voodoo Camera Tracker is fairly simple. Open the "File" menu, click "Load," and then click "Sequence." This will open the "Sequence Select" window, where you can select the video file you want to work with. You can also change the interlacing type, starting frame, ending frame and frame step. The starting and ending frame will dictate in which frame the tracking process begins and ends. If you want to use the entire video, select "1" for the starting frame and the final frame of the video for the ending frame. The frame step will determine how many "steps" the tracker will take. To take every frame, set the frame step to 1. To take every other frame, you would set the frame step to two, and so on. The two available interlacing types are "maintain even lines," which will interlace the upper field first, or "maintain odd lines," which will interlace the lower field first. Choose the camera movement type: "rotation," which is best for a video that rotates horizontally on a tripod, or "free move," which is best if the camera rotates horizontally, vertically and diagonally. Pick the correct movement type for a good end product.
Initial Camera Parameters
-
Properly setting the initial camera parameters is vital to accurate 3D modelling. To set initial camera parameters, open the "File" menu, click "Load," and then click "Initial Camera." From the "Initial Camera" window, you will have to input several input camera parameters, including focal length, width and height of the film, aspect ratio and pixel ratio. You also have the option of inputting additional parameters, such as radial distortion. However, if you're not sure what these options are, you can leave them at their default settings.
-
Setting Controls
-
Setting the controls in Voodoo Camera Tracker will help the tracking process. With accurate control settings, Voodoo Camera Tracker will be able to better track both object and camera movement. To adjust control settings, open the "View" menu and click "Controls." From here, you can not only set correlation parameters, but you can also choose which parameter settings to enable. The five parameter settings in the Voodoo Camera Tracker tracking process are Detection, Correspondence Analysis, Outlier Elimination, Estimation and Final Estimation. Detection and Correspondence Analysis will help determine the edges and location of objects, Outlier Elimination will eliminate data that does not fit the overall tracking process. Estimation and Final Estimation will clean up the data depending on what camera tracking type you are using.
Running the Tracker
-
Once all your parameters and options are set, you can start the tracking process. To start the tracking process, you just have to press the "Track" button in the lower right-hand corner of the screen. The Voodoo Camera Tracker will produce, based on your input, a 3-D model.
Video Tips
-
To get a good video, you have to put in a good video. Videos with motion blur, poor focus, or variable focal length will interfere with the tracking process and will potentially lead to a shoddier end product.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Photos.com/Photos.com/Getty Images
