2006 Edition of SynthEyes Camera Tracker Debuts at Siggraph

* Malvern, PA. July 25, 2005.

Andersson Technologies LLC is pleased to announce the new SynthEyes(tm) 2006 Edition of its camera tracking software. Highlights include facial and motion capture capabilies, a perspective window with mesh-building and preview movie capabilities, and an image preprocessing system. The new edition can be seen at Siggraph in Booth 816.

Earlier SynthEyes versions have been used in features such as Aviator, Mr. and Mrs. Smith, The Island, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Racing Stripes, National Treasure, Blade: Trinity, and Master and Commander: Far Side of the World.

SynthEyes's affordable pricing and availability for both PC and Mac artists has brought it to a broad worldwide audience of visual effects studios, regional and local commercial producers, independent film producers, architects, accident reconstruction specialists, and aspiring effects artists.

* New Features

SynthEyes can now perform facial and motion-capture tasks, where many features move independently, using multiple cameras. New capabilities help calibrate the cameras, and make inter-shot tracker linkage easier.

A new perspective display window serves as a focal point for many of the new capabilities. It allows the user to explore computed tracker locations, insert test objects, and produce anti-aliased preview movies, including shadow-casting onto the ground plane or meshes. A depth map can also be output. Trackers may be pre-placed onto imported reference meshes, especially for tough object-type tracks where a 3-D scan is already available.

Another set of perspective-window operations lets the user turn a collection of tracker locations into a mesh object, which can then be exported to the user's animation or compositing program, or used as a reference for tracking other shots. This capability is useful not only for building object models, but also for building shadow catchers and other proxy objects to help add visual effects to a shot.

A new image pre-processing system allows shots to be manipulated before they are brought into the RAM cache, to improve feature visibility, correct for distortion and cropping, and reduce that amount of RAM required for shot storage. The processed shot can be saved to disk to achieve a complete lens distortion workflow.

The supervised tracking capabilities have also been upgraded, with a new tracking mode for hand-held shots, sizing handles, quicker tracker direction changes, easier re-placement after loss of tracking, and more keyboard operations permitting mostly-mouse-free supervised tracking.

Other new features include a skip-frame track, input and tool script types, dialog boxes and matrix operations for scripting, easier rotospline management, and additional object and tracker weighting options.

* Compatibility

SynthEyes exports to most common 3-D computer graphics and compositing packages. CGI programs include 3ds max, Animation:Master, Blender, Cinema 4D, Electric Image, Houdini, Lightwave, Maya, Poser, Realsoft, trueSpace, and XSI. Compositing programs After Effects, Combustion, Digital Fusion, Flame, Inferno, Nuke, Shake, and Toxik are supported (some in beta).

Images can be imported in formats including BMP, Cineon, JPEG, DPX, OpenEXR, PNG, SGI RGB, Targa, and TIFF. Movies can be imported from AVI and QuickTime(tm) movie formats, including DV and MPEG.

SynthEyes runs on Intel and AMD processors equivalent to Pentium III or later, under Windows XP Pro, XP Home, and 2000. SynthEyes runs under Mac OSX 10.3.x or later on G5 and G4 processors. At least 512 MB of RAM is suggested, with 1 GB typical. An 800x600 or larger display with 24 or 32 bit color and OpenGL support is necessary, along with a 3-button mouse. A native 64-bit Windows XP Pro 64 version has been demonstrated, inquire for more information.

* Pricing and Availability

The new SynthEyes 2006 will be priced at $399 and will be available in early August. The previous version, SynthEyes 2004, may be purchased through July 29th at https://www.ssontech.com for $349 US for download, and customers will receive a free upgrade to SynthEyes 2006 when it becomes available for Siggraph. A CD adds $10 when shipped to the US, or $20 internationally. Quantity and volume educational-institution discounts are available. 

Existing SynthEyes customers in good standing may upgrade to SynthEyes 2006 for $149; those who purchased in June may upgrade for $75, those who purchased in July will receive complementary upgrades.

A free demonstration version of SynthEyes 2006 is available now.