Initial Alignment

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Initial Alignment

Once you have created and rigged your mesh, you are ready to move it into its initial position in the shot. This is a key step, as it shows the GeoH tracker what the image of the object really looks like. The alignment needs to be precise, so that the track does not drift over the duration of the shot (though it might for other reasons).

SynthEyes provides a powerful mesh pinning tool to help with initial alignment.

The pinning tool also helps when you know the shape of a mesh primitive, such as a box or cylinder, but not the relative dimension.


You can do the initial alignment on whichever frame is most convenient, preferably one that presents the best possible view of the object being tracked. If the camera is approaching an object, often you will want to start at the end of the shot, and track backwards towards the front.

To get a match, even on a single frame, requires knowing the exact camera field of view (if at all possible, not based on reading the inaccurate value from the camera lens!). The pinning tool helps with that too.

Note that if you have a hybrid tracker-based GeoH setup, it does not need an image reference, so initial alignment is not required. The rigged mesh should jump into place as you enable tracking and remove any existing locks. (You don't get a field of view from this, though.)


 

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