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Masking areas to be tracked with Planar Tracking

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AriGolan

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Masking areas to be tracked with Planar Tracking

PostSun Nov 12, 2017 7:12 am

What is the preferred method for masking out areas to be tracked with the planar tracker?

I have a moving gimbal shot in a house, with an actress next to a window. A loose diffuse gel can be seen fluttering outside the window and catching reflections, making it pretty noticeable. I would like to use the planar tracker to track the window frame, then apply the track to a clean plate of just the inside of the window where the gel isn't blowing to "paste" over the shot.

The issue is that there are trees and bushes blowing in the window filling most of the window frame, preventing the planar tracker from getting a good lock on the window frame itself, and causing the track to slip and slide all over.

My question is, is there a way to obscure certain areas of the frame from being tracked? (in this case, a simple rectangular poly inside the window frame would do the trick, but I don't know how to use it to mask or prevent tracking from within that area.
Ari Golan
Atomic Imaging, Inc./Golan Studios
1501 N. Magnolia Avenue
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ari@atomicimaging.com

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Glenn Sakatch

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Re: Masking areas to be tracked with Planar Tracking

PostSun Nov 12, 2017 5:16 pm

For things like this I would consider tracking the outside of the frame, where the wall and frame meet as your plane. Anything seen outside the window is on the wrong plane anyway. The "plane" you are looking for is the window, which is basically at the same level as the wall, and the frame the surrounds the window. Try tracking only the one side of the window frame and using that track information.

Of course if it is a really long arc-ing movement, you will not be seeing any perspective shift outside the window as the camera moves around.
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AriGolan

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Re: Masking areas to be tracked with Planar Tracking

PostSun Nov 12, 2017 8:24 pm

Hi Glenn,

Thanks for your response. Grabbing only one side of the outside of the frame is what I would have like to done, however there isn't much there for the trackers to grab onto, it's a plain smooth wall and the window is a large part of the frame, so I would like to use all the details around the window...

So is there no way to create a large planar tracker and then exclude tracking points via a shape from somewhere within the plane? (like a boolean operation) I was thinking that if there were, it would be a lot more efficient.

Yes, you are right about the outside being on the wrong plane and looking flat, but for the amount of movement, that may be the lesser of two evils.
Ari Golan
Atomic Imaging, Inc./Golan Studios
1501 N. Magnolia Avenue
Chicago, IL 60642 USA
(312) 649-1800 x5701
ari@atomicimaging.com

MacPro Tower 5,1 High Sierra
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Sander de Regt

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Re: Masking areas to be tracked with Planar Tracking

PostSun Nov 12, 2017 9:30 pm

[quote="arigolan"My question is, is there a way to obscure certain areas of the frame from being tracked? (in this case, a simple rectangular poly inside the window frame would do the trick, but I don't know how to use it to mask or prevent tracking from within that area.[/quote]
Yes, there is. Create a rectangular poly mask like you suggest yourself and use that in the 'occlusion mask' input of the planar tracker.
Sander de Regt

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AriGolan

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Re: Masking areas to be tracked with Planar Tracking

PostMon Nov 13, 2017 2:25 am

Ahaa! That's what I was looking for.
Thank you Sander.
Ari Golan
Atomic Imaging, Inc./Golan Studios
1501 N. Magnolia Avenue
Chicago, IL 60642 USA
(312) 649-1800 x5701
ari@atomicimaging.com

MacPro Tower 5,1 High Sierra
64GB RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X

MacPro Trash Can 6,1 High Sierra
32GB RAM
Dual D700s

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