Bringing tracking data into Vuo

Discussions
1

Is it possible to track a shot (footage) in another program and then bring that 3d camera path into Vuo?
I’d really like to composite some of my vuo compositions into some footage I shot and was wondering if I could match up the motion.
Any workarounds welcome.

Thanks

2

If the other program can export the camera path in a way that Vuo can read, then yes.

Some possibilities (haven’t tested):

  • Apple Motion
    • If you select the tracker and copy-paste it, you get a humongous XML file. It looks like the coordinate data is there under the path ozml/behavior[name="Track copy"]/parameter[name="Tracker Root"]/parameter[name="Analyze"]/parameter[name="Track 1"]/parameter[name="Result"]/parameter[name="X"] so Vuo 1.2.6 should be able to handle it.
  • Adobe After Effects
    • Documentation says “You can export 3D Camera Tracker data to 3D applications like MAXON CINEMA 4D” without any detail on the other applications or what file format it uses.
    • https://forums.adobe.com/thread/967614 says you can copy-paste the data as CSV and/or TSV so Vuo 1.2.6 should be able to handle it.
  • SynthEyes
    • Documentation says “Flexible generic ASCII text exporters for tracker 2-D paths and 3-D positions, camera/object paths, animated illumination” so Vuo 1.2.6 should be able to handle it.
  • Final Cut Pro X doesn’t have built-in tracking support, but there are several paid plugins.
3

Hey Jaymie,

Thanks for getting back to me. I’ve literally been trying to get this to work all day, I’m close but somethings not quite right and I’m not sure what it is. I’m thinking it’s something to do with the different coordinate systems between After Effects and VUO but I’m guessing.

PICTURE 1+2
I’ve shot some 30FPS footage on my iPhone 6 (FOV 73degrees) to test with.
I’ve taken it into after effects and 3d tracked the footage.
That’s given me some keyframes for the cameras positional and orientation data.
I’ve managed to copy these keyframes and have built 2 csv files for the positional and orientational data :)
I’ve also marked a null point (white circle) on the floor in my footage and copied its AE positional data so I can put my vuo object in its place.

In theory I should be able to replicate the same scene and camera motion now.

PICTURE 3
In vuo I’ve brought my clip in
I’ve added an object (wireframe sphere) into the scene and positioned it in the same place as my null in after effects.
I’ve fetched the tables and and linked them to a vuo perspective cameras position and rotation and made sure the items in my list are running at the 30fps (same as my footage).

For some reason it’s just not working quite right, the balls floating and I’m just not sure why?
If anyone has any suggestions or can help make this work I’d really love to know.
I’ve uploaded all my files (clip, csv, vuo and AE) if anyone fancies the challenge.

Much appreciated,
Mario

trackingtest.zip (31 MB)

pic1.jpg
pic1.jpg3840×2400 1 MB

pic2.png
pic2.png3840×2400 1.12 MB

pic3.jpg
pic3.jpg3840×2400 645 KB

4

Still really struggling with this. I just can’t get it to work perfectly, I can get all the keyframe data and appear to be reading it in vuo. The ball just keeps bouncing around and I don’t know why. Argggghhh

5

Are you using sin/cos to get a point (the direction) from the degrees?

6

Have you tried calibrating with some simpler videos? I’m looking at your composition and thinking, wow, this is a lot of numbers and I don’t know what the right ones are supposed to be. Maybe you could do some very short videos where you move along just one axis, like straight left-to-right for a known distance, and figure out the correct mapping of After Effects coordinates to Vuo coordinates.