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SynthEyes has the tools to aid you in the task of set reconstruction: building a digital model of the as-filmed motion-picture or television set. Set reconstruction involves two main tasks, building meshes to represent the geometry, and extracting textures to place upon the meshes. The meshes may be simple cards, with an alpha channel for detail, or complex digital models.
Set models can serve to catch or cast shadows, act as front-projection targets, surfaces for vehicles or characters to move upon, serve as a basis for extensions to the set, etc. These uses can be previewed within SynthEyes before moving to your compositing or animation package to produce finished work.
We will begin by considering how to build mesh geometry. There are three basic approaches to that: creating simple planar 'cards'; by converting tracker locations into a mesh; or by setting up geometric primitives (boxes, cylinders, etc) to match the scene. Using cards is easy for relatively simple camera motions; the second approach works best with irregular natural geometry; while using primitives works best for man-made objects and sets.
Tip : See also the sections on Creating Mesh Objects and Importing Mesh Objects.
Set reconstruction activities happen nearly exclusively within the perspective window(s), via the right-click menu or perspective-window toolbars.
You should almost always complete the tracking of the scene before beginning set modeling activities, as changes to the tracking will allow the entire scene to shift around in ways that will force you to manually update your set model. You should always have a clearly defined and well-thought-out coordinate system set up first!
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