The Pixel Farm release PFTrack 2011

[darylshail_vb]

The Pixel Farm announced the immediate availability of PFTrack 2011 at NAB this past week. PFTrack has been completely re-written and now features the same node-based flowgraph architecture that was introduced in PFMatchit at Siggraph last year. Notable features include:

Geometry Tracking
Geometry Tracking can be used to track either the camera or a moving object, using a triangular mesh instead of tracking points, which avoids many of the typical pitfalls that plague conventional tracking such as glints, highlights and motion blur. In PFTrack 2011, Geometry Tracking has been enhanced so that it may be used to track a deformable object like a talking face. This can be achieved by creating one or more deformable tracking groups, assigning some of the triangles in the mesh to those groups, and specifying how the groups can transform relative to the rest of the mesh.

Image Modelling
Image Modelling can be used to construct 3D polygonal models that match elements viewed by a tracked camera. A set of modelling primitives are provided that can be positioned in 3D space and edited to match the image data, or new models can be constructed by connecting 3D vertex positions to form a polygon mesh. Z-Depth can be used to estimate the distance of every pixel in an image from the camera frame, producing a grey-scale depth map image encoding z-depth, and a triangular mesh in 3D space. Texture UV maps can be created and edited for any object, and both static and animated textures can be mapped onto geometry for export.

Stereoscopic Tracking
When tracking a stereoscopic camera in PFTrack 2011, auto and user features are tracked simultaneously on both the left and right eye images. When solving the camera, artists have full access to the data defining the rig including interocular distance, convergence, etc.

Image Processing
Already benefiting from the Enhance, Shutter Fix and rotoscoping capabilities of PFMatchit, PFTrack 2011 adds a new Optical Flow tools to calculate dense optical flow fields describing the apparent motion of objects relative in the camera plane. It will also retime clip and motion data to increase or decrease the apparent frame-rate of the camera.

Mocap Solver
The Mocap Solver node can be used to calibrate the motion of individual tracking points viewed from two or more camera positions. This is often used to track the motion of a body or face, where tracking points have been identified using physical markers. In contrast to standard object tracking, the Mocap Solver node does not assume that the object is moving in a rigid fashion. The motion if each tracking point is completely independent and can therefore represent movement of non-rigid objects.

Optical Flow
Re-engineered Optical Flow*tools calculate dense optical flow fields describing the apparent motion of objects relative to the camera plane, and features retiming of clip and motion data to increase or decrease the apparent frame-rate of the camera. Retiming after a camera solve will also retime the camera solution, meaning shots do not require re-tracking due to editorial decisions that occur later in post production.

PFTrack 2011 retails for $3,300 USD and is a free upgrade for anyone with an active Annual Maintenance subscription. Users of earlier versions of PFTrack can upgrade for the cost of an Annual Maintenance subscription of $660 USD, which includes technical support and all PFTrack software releases for one year.

For more information please contact us at [email protected]

Cheers!

Daryl Shail
VFX Product Manager
The Pixel Farm Ltd.

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