Today, I am going to propose this awesome new idea I've just had, as a great method for match moving in cinematography and compositing.
Match moving, sometimes referred to as motion tracking or camera solving, is the analysis of a clip of video in usually expensive software to try to determine the exact motion of the camera during the recording. It can be used to simulate the exact motion of a virtual camera in a 3D animation program, and then to superimpose and composite the clips so that the perspective seems seamless, or for video stabilization. It is done in the following way: The user defines a "ground" plane and a few other points, and then the tracking software goes frame by frame in the clip and traces the motion of those points that define the planes. Then, the software computes the camera movements from the relative movements of the points, in perspective.
Here is a video with a clip whose camera movement has been matched and used to add a car into the clip:
Even though the required computer power for this operation is rapidly becoming more abundant, I feel that we might have been missing something; that maybe we don't even need computer power for this operation at all!
Let me introduce you to the concept of eye tracking, or, more specifically, gaze tracking. Gaze tracking is done by a device, sensor bar, camera, or other implement that, once calibrated properly, can track in real time the exact point at which your eyes are looking.
So, you could simply pick a point in the frame, stare at it, and follow it with your eyes as the video plays! Then, pick another important point, stare at it, and follow it with your eyes!
You can define the planes needed, and then track their points with your eyes rather than with expensive software and computer power!
I estimate that, depending on the accuracy with which you need to track your video, an eye tracking camera with an accuracy on the screen of about 5 millimeters or so should be sufficient.
I don't know if this has been thought of before, but in all of my searching today I have not yet come across it!
Photo Credit: Richard via socialpepper.nl
This would be great if it weren't totally useless. You see, your eye could theoretically track x and y of an object. Scale, rotation and z axis would not be used. For 2d tracks we have pretty advanced software anyways that could do better than an eye. There are more practical uses for eye movement in video though, such as piloting drones and generally looking like an idiot in the process. You cannot tell be this guy looks cool:
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