Lastest greatest 3D tracking sofware ?

[Adam H. Stewart]

I'm doing research for a Kawasaki pitch, and we're going to have to track some footage. I've never really had any luck with 3D tracking, well then again I've never really used in any substantial way, always gave up before I got it to work.

I am wondering for anybody in VFX field what you have been using to do you're tracking and what your experience has been ? I know that they come out with a new tracker every couple of months or so, I just don't know which one we should go for.

Thanks a million as always

[LarsSonparsson]

I have used Boujou, syntheyes and Pf-track.

Boujou is really good and stable software. Allmost every time you
have perfect camera-track after few clicks. But if somehow Boujou
can't track the shot there is nothing much to do. That's why I like
PF-Track so much. It has many ways to improve solution after tracking.
Also, if you need object tracking, I would use PF-Track. It's amazingly easy
software to use.
Syntheyes is cheap, but didn't give enough good results.

-LarsSon

[Da_elf]

id ben using that oooooold free version of icarus for sooo long now. but hey. i dont do the most adventurous of things with it

[jacksc02]

Im a big fan of Syntheyes.
Quick and easy to use. Sometimes though Boujou can give you a better track but 99% of the time Syntheyes is just as good.

[joconnell]

I'm a big fan of syntheyes - bought my own license of it too. The best part of it aside from it's price, speed and ability to solve hard shots is the support - it's very close to the level that vlado provides with vray so if you have a serious problem you can mail russ that wrote the app and he'll point out what's going wrong straight away. Can't recommend it enough.

In terms of quality of results what LarsSon mentioned is nonsense - try se on some nasty footage and learn how to manual track with it. It's very easy and will solve most shots with 8 - 12 manual tracks.

[instinct]

Am a syntheyes fan too. We did all the recent stuff with Syntheyes. It's not as "shiny" and some interface concepts need a bit of getting used to. But it allows for unsurpassed manual adjustment. The tracking is INCREDIBLY fast. Have yet to see anything that gets even near the speed of syntheyes. Pricing is perfect and the support is killer indeed!

Kind Regards,
Thorsten

[dellis]

I say Syntheyes as well....the support is awesome. One thing that i thought was cool too is that you can use a still image, with the features in it, to help with the matchmove. Its cheap as hell too!!!

[Adam H. Stewart]

Sweet - sounds like Synth Eyes is the tracker for me - I tried using it before on another project, but I run out of patience with these things, I give it a real shot this time.

Thanks a million as always for your help.

[aphex79]

i've tried syntheyes, but i cannot seem to get the coords setup right.. any pointers? i've seen a few tutorials, where they just click the *3 button, and click 3 trackers, and voila, but that isn't working for me at all..

[instinct]

http://ssontech.com/content/pokey.htm

[aphex79]

hehe.. i dont like pokey the horse actually, it didn't make me any wiser..