In a previous post, we had talked about motion-tracked camera controllers for shooting CG movies. The Director’s Lens system, recently presented at ACM Multimedia 2011 and at ParisFX conferences, combines such camera controllers with state-of-the-art automatic virtual camera control algorithms to provide smart assistance while shooting.
More specifically, the system is able to compute, cluster and display (step 1 in the figure) a large set of viewpoint suggestions for starting a shot. Viewpoints follow classical cinematic conventions in screen composition and ensure the visibility of actions occurring in the scene. The filmmaker browses the suggestions to explore many cinematic possibilities, selects one and refines it by aiming the motion-tracked camera, and starts shooting (step 2 in the figure).
Furthermore, viewpoint suggestions computed for next shots are adapted to what has been previously filmed, by taking into account continuity of gaze, continuity of motion, line of interest, and also filmmaker’s previous choices.
Director's Lens workflow
You can read more about the technical details of the system here. The Director’s Lens, which is a patent pending work, is a joint project between some of the authors of this blog (Christophe Lino, Marc Christie, and Roberto Ranon) and William Bares from Millsaps College, USA.
Director's Lens in action
Hello. I am intrigued by your Director’s Lens device, but my application is for live video production, not virtual reality or gaming positioning. Might your device be adaptable to control, in real-time, a PTZ remote camera controller? Or do you know of another device, currently in production, that would allow a remote camera operator to manipulate a virtual camera that controls a physical camera remotely? Thanks, and great blog!
Hello, in principle yes, it could be adaptable. Our software tracks in real-time the position/orientation of the handheld device. These data could be then easily used to control a remote physical camera.