PFMatchit™ Overview

So Just What is PFMatchit?

PFMatchit was developed in response to customer demand for a lower-cost entry point to The Pixel Farm’s motion tracking technology. Featuring the unique flowgraph architecture and key algorithms of PFTrack, PFMatchit’s reduced toolset make it an ideal choice for the day-to-day tracking of single camera and stereoscopic scenes. With a focus on the principals of matchmoving, large teams of artists can complete the vast majority of common tracking tasks, very cost effectively. Project compatibility allows content created in PFMatchit to benefit from the additional tools and functionality of PFTrack, where senior artists can augment scenes using deformable geometry tracking modelling, z-depth, and other creative tools.

Tracking Tree	Object & Camera Tracking	Stereoscopic Tracking

PFMatchit represents a huge leap forward not only for its affordability, but also for its distinct competitive advantages over other applications. Innovative technology, flexibility, ease of use, speed and accuracy make PFMatchit a “trenches” tool that dramatically improves the fundamental processes involved in matchmoving.

Sharing the same user interface, basic toolset and workflow makes the transition between PFMatchit and PFTrack completely transparent. With a convenient and cost-effective upgrade option, users with limited budgets can easily take advantage of PFMatchit’s competitive advantages today, with the choice to upgrade to PFTrack in the future. All you’ll see are new creative possibilities.

PFMatchit or PFTrack?

PFMatchit and PFTrack share the same user interface and basic toolset, with PFTrack featuring additional tools and functionality that go far beyond conventional camera and object tracking. For a detailed overview of the feature differences between PFMatchit and PFTrack, please refer to the comparison below.

1

General Workflow

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Resolution independent	•	•
GPU processing	•	•
Multiple Tree workspaces	•	•
Resolution independent	•	•
Unlimited Trees per project	•	•
Fully multi-threaded processing across all CPU cores	•	•
Unlimited nodes per Tree	•	•
Node-based flowgraph architecture	•	•
Background processing	•	•

2

Geometry Tracking

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Painting of vertex weights to indicate how much each vertex should contribute to the overall solution	•
Import OBJ or FBX files as tracking geometry	•
Define multiple deforming motion groups to track regions of the mesh independently	•
Tracking of deformable motion groups	•
Tracking of rigid camera and object motions	•
Calculated refinement of manually adjusted geometry orientation	•
Pin mesh vertices against the backplate for easy positioning and orientation of tracking geometry	•
Tracked points used as "helpers"	•
Selectable display settings (wire-frame, hidden-line, face-shaded, smooth-shaded, transparent, checkerboard, textured, flat, weights)	•

3

Image Modelling & Scene Reconstruction

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Polygon and vertex editing	•
Auto-generate textures by extracting image data based on the current frame, all frames, best frame per triangle, best frame per UV group	•
Import any OBJ as a modelling primitive	•
Paint textures on to UVs	•
Create, position and edit primitives, complex geometry or "tracking" primitives	•
Generate and edit UV projection maps (planar, cuboid, cylinder, sphere, camera, custom)	•
Image-based modelling of single frames or image sequences	•
Export meshes as OBJ	•
Construct 3D polygonal models that match elements viewed by the tracked camera	•
Mesh triangulation from scene structure	•

4

Image Processing

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Marker enhancement	•	•
Rotate images from landscape to portrait orientation	•
Focal length estimation	•	•
Use Display LUT as colour enhancement (Cineon, Kodak, Matrix, Truelight, Generic)	•	•
Define regions of interest and remove unwanted areas of the frame (blanking, sprocket holes, etc.)	•
Flip and flop of source clip	•	•
Adjustment of footage including red/green/blue color channels, contrast, brightness, saturation, gamma, colour curves	•	•
Separate single-frame stereoscopic left & right eye images	•
De-interlacing of source clip	•	•
Cache the result of any image processing operation to disk	•	•
Crop, resize and rotate source clips	•
Work with R3D files natively	•	•
Crop, rotate and resize clips	•	•
Noise removal with detail preservation - colour space specific	•	•
Apply frame offset to source clip	•	•
Rolling shutter correction	•	•

5

Lens Distortion Management

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Support for anamorphic lenses	•	•
Dynamic lens distortion correction (variable, relative to focal length)	•	•
Automatic lens distortion estimation and correction	•	•
Apply distortion to clips based on corrected values and lens presets	•	•
Basic (reference calibration line) lens distortion estimation and correction	•	•
Lens library management	•	•
Comprehensive multi-parameter assisted lens distortion estimation and correction	•	•
Export of lens distortion corrected plates in any supported format	•	•

6

Manual & Automatic Feature Tracking

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Editable tracking ROI (region of interest)	•	•
Remove tracker keyframes in current frame, earlier frames, later frames	•	•
Preview estimated user feature track paths	•	•
Frame-by-frame editing of automatic and user feature track paths	•	•
Multiple search modes (Best Speed, Best Accuracy, Optical Flow)	•	•
Trackable roto, rectangle, ellipse, lasso, colour and roto masks with boolean control	•	•
Manual feature tracking	•	•
Merge selected trackers	•	•
Define the number of candidate auto features to be placed per frame, failure thresholds, and the target quantity	•	•
Frame-by-frame editing of automatic and user feature track paths	•	•
Support for unlimited reference frames and witness cameras	•	•
Keyframeable garbage masks	•	•
Automatic feature tracking	•	•
Split trackers at current frame	•	•
Adjustable search and track target regions	•	•
Convert auto features to manual features for editing	•	•
Unlimited tracking groups	•	•
Motion Capture tracking	•	•
Track user features frame-by-frame	•	•
Feature deformation tolerance of rotate, scale and skew	•	•
View tracked frame durations and X & Y curves in the curve editor	•	•
Track on any independent, or combination of RGB color channels	•	•
Import/export of trackers in an ASCII text file	•	•
Track forward and reverse	•	•
Image-based masks	•	•
Track at proxy resolutions	•	•
Hide tracker in current frame, earlier frames, later frames	•	•
Zoomed window display of the selected tracker target area	•	•
Import survey data as tracking features	•	•
Multiple reference window update modes (starting frame, every frame, above threshold)	•	•
Editing of inner and outer mask boundaries	•	•

7

Media Management

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Replace source clips and relink offline media	•	•
Adjust default properties for multiple clip selections simultaneously	•	•
Drag-and-drop importing of individual clips, clip ranges, or entire directory hierarchies	•	•
Multiple clip display modes	•	•
Sort Media Administration contents by any category	•	•
Display sequences as grouped files or single frames	•	•
Thumbnail preview scrubbing	•	•
Display source metadata such as creation date, file format, interlacing, camera preset, keycode, film stock, in/out, duration, handles, file size and material source	•	•
Browse local and remote storage directories and preview clips directly from their source	•	•
Sort clips in the Media Bins by name, duration or source	•	•
Media Administration view for project-level source clip management	•	•
Store paths to footage as relative to the project file, or as an absolute path to storage media	•	•
Replace source media with clips of different frame durations	•	•
Media Bins for organizing clips, viewable as thumbnail and name, thumbnail and info, thumbnail only	•	•

8

Motion Capture

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Automatic orientation and scale of point cloud data relative to the picture plane	•
Support for a single moving or static shot camera and unlimited static witness cameras	•
Permits tracking of non-rigid objects	•

9

Optical Flow

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Utilize masks to exclude areas of the image from the optical flow calculation	•
GPU-accelerated calculation of dense optical flow fields	•
Export raw optical flow data as floating point OpenEXR images	•
Paint-style editing tools for adjusting optical flow calculations	•

10

Playback & Review

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Single, dual horizontal, dual vertical and quad display cinema views	•	•
Selectable pixel aspect ratio	•	•
RGBA channel views	•	•
Store and recall user-defined zoom and pan settings	•	•
Timeline display of bad frames, frame markers, keyframes, frame numbers, timecode	•	•
Image zooming and panning	•	•
Display LUT support (Cineon, Kodak, Matrix, Truelight, Generic)	•	•
Full screen viewing	•	•

11

Project Management

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Modify, rename and duplicate projects, default properties, and all associated metadata for versioning or archiving	•	•
Assign and modify project default clip properties such as frame rates, media handles, camera presets and de-interlacing	•	•
Access to large amounts of RAM permits memory caching of long, high resolution clips	•	•
Internal (local) or external (SAN) disk caching of clips	•	•
Add notes per node, page and Tracking Tree	•	•
Link to multiple projects and switch between them	•	•
Rename nodes	•	•

12

Scene Calibration

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Manually solve approximate camera paths	•	•
Camera rotation constraints including none, normal, lock roll	•	•
Extend initial camera solutions by frame or range in any direction	•	•
Placement of OBJ geometry as test objects	•	•
Free motion shots with constant and variable focal lengths	•	•
Unlimited witness and reference frame camera solves	•	•
Camera translation constraints including none, off-centre, small, normal, linear and planar	•	•
Solve cameras frame-by-frame in any direction	•	•
Tools for achieving camera solves on "untrackable" shots	•	•
Estimation of real-world scene scale in specified unit of measure	•	•
Unlimited object motion solves	•	•
Calculated camera translation, rotation and variable focal length smoothing	•	•
Solve for sub-ranges	•	•
Advanced interactive orientation the scene X, Y, Z axis lines and "box" methods	•	•
Point, line and planar constraints	•	•
Unlimited camera solves	•	•
Static camera shots with constant and variable focal lengths	•	•
Solve for pre-defined frame ranges	•	•
Interactive orientation of the scene using translate, scale and rotation manipulators	•	•
Align and merge multiple solved cameras	•	•
Nodal pan shots with constant focal lengths solvable using a single tracked point	•	•
Solve shots with known, unknown and approximate focal lengths	•	•
Automatic orientation of the scene in world space using 1, 2, 3 or more calculated points	•	•
Edit and optimize camera and object solves	•	•
Nodal pan shots with constant and variable focal lengths	•	•

13

Stereoscopic

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Anaglyph visualization	•	•
Calculation of interocular distance, interocular range (constant or variable), vertical offset, depth offset, pitch offset, roll offset, convergence distance, convergence range (constant or variable), know or unknown	•	•
Solve stereo cameras separately or with stereoscopic constraints	•	•
Stereoscopic object tracking	•	•
Stereoscopic camera tracking	•	•

14

Workflow Customization

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Complete, scriptable access to project metadata	•	•
User-defined file formats	•	•
Interactive Python console window	•	•
Command line scripting	•	•
Curve editor for refining various animation curves	•	•
Run Python scripts as nodes	•	•
Custom dialog windows	•	•
User interface extensions	•	•

15

Z-Depth

	PFTrack	PFMatchit
Multi-threaded per-pixel calculation of z-depth based on the entire clip, a frame range or current frame	•
Export depth maps as an OpenEXR sequence or triangular mesh object	•
Use masks to exclude areas from the calculation, or to indicate boundaries between objects at different depths	•
Calculate depth maps from a single moving camera, or from a primary camera and up to two additional witness cameras	•