Continuing my form, I've made another handy plugin for camera tracking. This one is a 3D triangulation plugin, which allows me to continue to add markers in locations after doing the camera track, inside CInema4D. It's really handy, because with tracking markers we can locate and use them to build set geometry (such as a building). My plugin allows me to add more markers where they may not exist in the tracking export, to help make scene geo in places where the tracking did not produce any markers.
In short, it triangulates positions across key tracked frames.
The hero image of this post shows a selection of additional markers my plugin triangulated across a track I did of an ActionVFX shot. The shot, for reference, is part of their free downloads and is available here.
The little green/red/blue axis are the triangulated marker locations. Below is the same view, using another tool I built recently, showing the triangulated markers with green cones.
And here's a shot of the green cones from the tracked camera and background plate:
I did the original track in at the Rising Sun Pictures studio in South Australia and took the camera export home. But I realised, after making such an effort to get a really tight track, that I didn't have many markers for the road itself. There were three on the road surface, and a bunch on the rocks around the road, but not much to determine the road geometry itself. So, I built this little plugin to help me continue adding location markers by triangulation. Neat!
The plugin took me about a week to program to the point it could be used, albeit with a few early limitations. I was trying to squeeze it in so I could submit it as part of my Rookies submission, which I have now done. I just got it finished with only a couple of hours to spare! Phew! I'll make a separate post on the Rookies soon.
Since the Rookies submission I've continued to update the tool's features and fix the initial pesky bugs. There's still a small issue I face with the little display box, used for locating the marker position for each frame. Unfortunately the display doesn't let me place the image to subpixel accuracy. This isn't my doing - it's a perk of the custom display area and how it shows images natively. But I think I can get around this by using another drawing method. The data itself is subpixel accurate, it's just a display issue. So, I'll make a change to that sometime when I can.
Such a really handy tool. It's going to help me make thing!
UPDATE 25-6-2025
Since making this post (which was only a couple of days ago!), I have updated the display area so the user can now see the images with subpixel accuracy. I can even do fine fidelity adjustments within the display area by holding down the control key - so can really hone in the subpixel marker placement. I've also ironed out a couple more bugs and generally cleaned things up. The tool feels really solid now, and seems to work well. Here's a few more screen grabs to finish off:
