Blender camera tracking + Python Photogrammetry Toolbox

Year by year the growing of Blender come increasing and surprising us. The short movie Tears of Steel proves this, mainly with the new feature of Blender, the camera tracking.

This article will show some tests with this technology in conjunction with Pyhton Photogrammetry Toolbox. Firstly we did an attempt to reconstruct a scene partially with PPT and match it with the footage.

Second, we use the camera tracked and we imported other scene (sphynx) to use the real movement of the camera.

Why use PPT instead a modeling over a picture? 1) Because the reconstruction over a picture is subjective and have the distortion of the perspective. 2) Because scanning complex objects can be easer than modeling it (thing in a statue broken, or an assimetric vase). 3) Because make the texture will be easier when we use the reference pictures. 4) Because you can use the frames of the footage to reconstruct the scene. 4) Because the work of ilumination can be easier cause the texture already be illuminated and the scene (background) be ready.

How can I use the camera tracking in Blender? Make the process can be more easier than you think. A good videotutorial can be found here. Once you have the scene tracked, you can do the reconstruction using PPT.

The image above is a frame of the original footage. How we said, you can use the video to make the reconstruction with PPT. You will have to convert the video in a imagem sequence using FFMPEG, for example (see the previous articles).

The great news, is that we discover (thanks to rgaidao!) an addon that imports Bundler files (bundler.out) inside Blender.

With this, you can receive the cameras with the pictures to project the texture on model.

And produce a model with a great quality of resemblance with the original.

Obs.: Unfortunately this reconstruction wasn't made by Luca Bezzi, the master of PPT reconstruction. So, we did all possible cover using Meshlab and Ball Pivoting reconstruction. This was sufficient to make a model that matched with the original in the important areas.

With the model tracked, reconstructed and matched, you can increase the possibilities of animation to make the impossible... like the picture above, and the videos in the top.

In archaeology, the Blender traking can be used, for example, to reconstruct ancient builds over current ruins.

The uses can be many, your creativity is the limitation.

A big hug!