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Solver Control Panel

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Controls how the camera or moving object is solved; this is the primary panel for the Solver room. The solver panel affects the camera or moving object currently selected (in the viewports), or if nothing or something else is selected, it affects the camera or moving object listed as the Active Tracker Host (on the toolbar).

Tip: You’ll often see additional information below this panel in the Solver room; depending on your monitor size it may appear to be cut off. That’s really the Lens control panel, grouped here for convenience on larger monitors. See the Lens panel documentation for details, and switch to the Lens room to operate it if it is truncated. If having it truncated really bothers you, turn off the Secondary panels preference in the User Interface section, and you won’t see it at all.

Go! Button. Starts the solving process, after tracking is complete.

Master Reset. image Button. Resets all cameras/objects and the trackers on them, though all Disabled camera/objects are left untouched. If shift is on, all world sizes are also restored to the default. Control-click is completely different, clears (only) the current object's seed path, and optionally the seed FOV (after confirmation).

more . Button (next to Go!). Brings up the Advanced Solver Settings panel. Lights up if any of the settings are different than the current default values in the Solver section of the preferences.

Error. Number display. Root-mean-square error, in horizontal pixels, of all trackers associated with this object or tracker.

Seeding Method. Upper drop-down list controlling the way the solver begins its solving process, chosen from the following methods:

Auto. List Item. Selects the automatic seeding(initial estimation) process, for a camera that physically moves during the shot.

Refine. List item. Resumes a previous solving cycle, generally after changes in trackers or coordinate systems.

Tripod. List Item. Use when the camera pans, tilts, and zooms, but does not move.

Refine Tripod. List item. Resumes a previous solving cycle, but indicates that the camera was mounted on a tripod.

Indirectly. List Item. Use for camera/objects which will be seeded from links to other camera/objects, for example, an HD shot indirectly seeded from digital camera stills. Use this mode on the camera/object that has links to a (single) other camera/object. That camera/object should use a regular solving mode, such as Automatic or Tripod.

GeoHTrack. List Item. Geometric Hierarchy tracking using meshes and/or hierarchies of moving objects. See separate manual.

Individual. List Item. Use for motion capture. The object’s trackers are solved individually to determine their path, using the same feature on other “Individual” objects; the corresponding trackers are linked in one direction.

Points. List Item. Seed from seed points, set up from the 3-D trackers panel. Use with on-set measurement data, or after Set All on the Coordinate Panel.

You should still configure coordinate system constraints with this mode: some hard locks and/or distance constraints.

Path. List Item. Uses the camera/object’s seed path as a seed, for example, from a previous solution or a motion-controlled camera.

Disabled. List Item. This camera/object is disabled and will not be solved for. Directional Hint. Second drop-down list. Gives a hint to speed the initial estimation process, or to help select the correct solution, or to specify camera timing for

“Individual” objects. Chosen from the following for Automatic objects:

Undirected (previously Automatic). List Item. With the Undirected setting selected, SynthEyes determines the motion.

Left. List Item. The camera moved generally to its left. Right. List Item. The camera moved generally to its right. Up. List Item. The camera moved generally upwards.

Down. List Item. The camera moved generally downwards.

Push In. List Item. The camera moved forward (different than zooming in!).

Pull Back. List Item. The camera moved backwards (different than zooming out!).

Camera Timing Setting. The following items are displayed when “Individual” is selected as the object solving mode. They actually apply to the entire shot, not just the particular object.

Sync Locked. List Item. The shot is either the main timing reference, or is locked to it (ie, gen-locked video camera).

Crystal Sync. List Item. The camera has a crystal-controlled frame rate (ie a video camera at exactly 29.97 Hz), but it may be up to a frame out of synchronization because it is not actually locked.

Loosely Synced. List item. The camera’s frame rate may vary somewhat from nominal, and will be determined relative the reference. Notably, a mechanical film camera.

Slow but sure. Checkbox. When checked, SynthEyes looks especially hard (and longer) for the best initial solution.

Constrain . Checkbox for experts. When on, constraints set up using the coordinate system panel are applied rigorously, modifying the tracker positions. When off, constraints are used to position, size, and orient the solution, without deforming it. See alignment vs constraints .

Independent. Checkbox for experts. When set for a camera, this camera and its objects will be solved independently of other cameras and objects. When set for a moving object, the object will be solved independent of the rest of the scene and its camera too. Importantly, independently-solved objects do not affect the field of view determined from the camera.

Hold. Animated Button. Use to create hold regions to handle shots with a mix of normal and tripod-mode sections. Right-click, shift-right, and control-right delete a key, truncate, or delete all keys, respectively.

Begin. Spinner and checkbox. Numeric display shows an initial frame used by SynthEyes during automatic estimation. With the checkbox checked, you can override the begin frame solution. Either manually or automatically, the camera should have panned or tilted only about 30 degrees between the begin and end frames, with as many trackers as possible that are simultaneously active on both these two frames. If the camera does something wild between the automatically- selected frames, or if their data is particularly unreliable for some reason, you can manually select the frames instead. The selected frame will be selected as you adjust this, and the number of frames in common shown on the status line.

End. Spinner and checkbox. Numeric display shows a final frame used by SynthEyes during automatic estimation. With the checkbox checked, you can override the end frame solution.

World size. Spinner. Rough estimate of the size of the scene, including the trackers and motion of the camera. The world size is used to provide mathematical context when solving the scene, taking into account camera and object paths and relevant coordinate system and locking information. The spinner is underlined in red (key mark) when the world sizes are not all the same. (The world size does not animate). Right-click to reset it, and optionally its children too, to the default

100.0. The world size is used to automatically size objects, clipping distances, etc in the viewports; see the Scene Settings. If those automatic values are inappropriate due to the automatic values, you should adjust the Scene Settings, rather than trying to force the World Size.

(All). Checkbox with no text, immediately right of "World Size", left of the actual spinner.

When set, changing the spinner changes the world size of all cameras and objects. This is on by default as it is most useful. When off, you can change the

world sizes individually, typically to try to get a different solution on very different solves.

Transition Frms. Spinner. MOVED TO ADVANCED SOLVER SETTINGS. When trackers first become usable or are about to become unusable, SynthEyes gradually increases or decreases their impact on the solution, to maintain an undetectable transition. The value specifies how many frames to spread the transition over.

Overall Weight. Spinner. Defaults to 1.0. MOVED TO ADVANCED SOLVER SETTINGS. Multiplier that helps determine the weight given to the data for each frame from this object’s trackers. Lower values allow a sloppier match, higher values cause a closer match, for example, on a high-resolution calibration sequence consisting of only a few frames. WARNING: This control is for experts and should be used judiciously and infrequently. It is easy to use it to mathematically destabilize the solving process, so that you will not get a valid solution at all. Keep near 1.

Filtering control. Launches the Path Filtering control dialog to configure post-solve filtering. The button is lit up if any filtering (applied on each solve) is present.

Axis Locks. 7 Buttons. When enabled, the corresponding axis of the current camera or object is constrained to match the corresponding value from the seed path .

These constraints are enforced either loosely after solving, with Constrain off, or tightly during solving, with Constrain on. See the section on Constraining Camera or Object Position. Animated. Right-click, shift-right, and control-right delete a key, truncate, or delete all keys, respectively.

L/R. Left/right axis (ie X)

F/B. Front/back axis (Y or Z)

U/D. Up/down axis (Z in Z-up or Y in Y-up)

FOV. Camera field of view (available/relevant only for Zoom cameras)

Pan. Pan angle around ground plane

Tilt. Tilt angle up or down from ground plane

Roll. Roll angle from vertical

more. Button (next to Axis Locks). Brings up or takes down the Hard and Soft Lock Controls dialog. Lights up if path, distance, or field of view locks are present on any frame.

Never convert to Far. Now the "If looks far" dropdown on ADVANCED SOLVER SETTINGS. Normally, SynthEyes monitors trackers during 3-D solves, and automatically converts trackers to Far if they are found to be too far away. This strategy backfires if the shot has very little perspective to start with, as most trackers can be converted to far. Use this checkbox if you wish to try obtaining a 3-D solve for your nearly-a-tripod shot.

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