The Foundry Camera Tracker versus Imagineer Mocha Ae v3 Camera Solver Feature

[Ross Shain]

Hey there,
Sorry for the late reply.

mocha v3 does a 3D camera solve based on planar tracking, while the Foundry’s camera tracker is a 3D feature tracker.

One difference is that mocha v3 will solve a virtual camera and “select” 3D planes. mocha v3 exports 3D nulls instead of a point cloud. Because mocha is using the planar tracker to solve, one of the benefits will be the ability to track and solve footage with motion blur, footage that goes offscreen, etc. Common difficult tracks such as reflections or obscured tracking areas, the planar tracker can solve.

On the other hand, mocha’s 3D solver does not give you the entire camera space, only select planes. This could be very useful for many match moves, set extensions etc.

It is probably best to download mocha v3 which is now shipping and activate the 15 day trial to do some tests and compare for yourselves. Both products so similar but different things depending on what kind of work you do.

mocha AE v3 is also very useful for roto and 2D tracking. Upgrade from the AE bundle version is $195.

Best,
Ross

Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com

[Ian Douglas]

Thanks Ross,

So from what you say, the accuracy of the 3d camera solve is based on a decent (accurate) planar track (or more) first in order to give the solver something to work with?

Is that correct?

regards
Ian

[Ross Shain]

Yes – that is it. If you already know mocha, you should quickly get a handle around the 3D Camera Solve.

You basically track a couple of co-planar areas, select them all and then solve for 3D.

What it does not expose is a lot of detail for individual point tracks.

The last thing to possibly add is that mocha is also very useful to “assist” other camera trackers by either exporting out roto hold out masks or even sometimes using mocha planar data to composite patterns on top of difficult footage.

Hope this is useful,
R

Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com

[Ian Douglas]

Ross,

Thanks, that is real useful. off to play with MOCHA v3 now …..

cheers
Ian

[Ross Shain]

Sounds good. I’d love to hear your thoughts. Feel free to email me off the list.

-R

Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com

[Duca Simone luchini]

Hi Ross,
Very interesting this post above all for the improvements about Mocha concerning 3D tracking!
But when and why is better to use a 3d sw tracking, instead Mocha, as Syntheyes, Boujou, Matchmover and many others?

Thank you!

[Tom Daigon]

I use Mocha AE when I am doing object tracking and rotoscoping. It comes free with AE.

I use the AE Camera tracker and Syntheyes when I want to insert an object (i.e., text or 3D model) into video that has camera motion in it.

I personally dont feel that the added expense of upgrading Mocha AE is warranted since I have 2 extremely powerful 3D camera tracker programs.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Ross Shain]

Hello Simon,
mocha v3 products (mocha AE v3 and mocha Pro v3) use the planar tracker and different technology methods to solve 3D camera movement. We designed the camera solver to be very fast and use many less features (pixels) than 3D camera software such as Syntheyes, PFTrack, etc.

One common problem we have seen from customers is on shots taken in large green screen studios in which the wall and tracking markers are very out of focus. These kind of shots can be problematic for 3D feature trackers, but mocha can usually handle the out of focus track.

The actual result that you get out of mocha’s camera solve is different in that it solves the camera’s motion in relation to select planes. What that means is mocha does not produce an accurate camera model for the entire scene. You can use mocha’s camera module, then drop in a 3D text element or model that is relative to the the planes that you tracked, but if you had multiple 3D elements in the scene on different planes, they wouldn’t necessarily be in the proper 3D space. Hopefully this makes sense…

mocha 3D camera solve module does not replace 3D camera software. Tracking applications (Syntheyes, PFTrack, etc) are very powerful and necessary for tasks in which you have multiple 3D elements in a scene. Where mocha’s 3D solver really excels is for set extensions (digital matte paintings), simply adding 1 element to 3D comp and of course shots that have very little features to track or are out of focus.

mocha’s 3D solve also solves “moving objects” and exports animated 3D nulls for AE. This is something the CS6 camera tracker doesn’t do and can be useful for tracking 3D particles (Particular or Boris Fx) to a moving object in a scene.

Hopefully this answers your questions. You can check out a good video tutorial from Ben Brownlee showing the moving object tracking here: https://youtu.be/tYKSw2rj_QQ

Since this is getting long, I’ll add a bit more on the next thread.

Best,
Ross

Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com

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[Tom Daigon]

[Ross Shain] “The actual result that you get out of mocha’s camera solve is different in that it solves the camera’s motion in relation to select planes. What that means is mocha does not produce an accurate camera model for the entire scene. You can use mocha’s camera module, then drop in a 3D text element or model that is relative to the the planes that you tracked, but if you had multiple 3D elements in the scene on different planes, they wouldn’t necessarily be in the proper 3D space. Hopefully this makes sense…”

Wow, thanks Ross for that clarification. I was not aware of this.

Tom Daigon
PrP / After Effects Editor
http://www.hdshotsandcuts.com
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxPrG3WUyz8
(Best viewed at 1080P and full screen)
HP Z820 Dual 2687
64GB ram
Dulce DQg2 16TB raid

[Ross Shain]

Just to add to Tom’s previous post, I wanted to give a couple of my “biased” reasons on why After Effects users might be interested in upgrading to mocha AE v3.

Beyond the 3D camera solver module, mocha AE v3 has the following features not included the mocha AE CS6 bundle:

Interface:
• more short cuts for nudge, hiding overlays, etc
• dopesheet keyframe editor

Improved Roto Tools & workflow:
• transform tool for shape and layer editing
• color code splines & fills
• multi-select layers, fold and group layers

Lens Module & mocha Lens Plug-in:
• analyze lens distortion
• remove or match lens distortion
Lens module can be useful even when using the AE Camera tracker to create a more natural lens match on inserted 3D elements.

Added Support formats:
• export to Apple Final Cut Pro v7, Motion, HitFilm and Boris FX
The export to Boris FX is very useful if you want to send mocha track data to Avid Media Composer, Symphony or Sony Vegas Pro.

If you are an AE user and only use mocha AE CS6 for the occasional corner pinned screen insert, maybe the upgrade is not for you. But if you use mocha for any rotoscoping/masking tasks or want to take advantage of the 3D camera solve and lens distortion module, it is a very useful upgrade.

Find the compare products chart here:
https://www.imagineersystems.com/compare-products

Best,
Ross

Ross Shain
Imagineer Systems
http://www.imagineersystems.com