Hello
I am writing to you from the company Melt in Barcelona. We have a PTrack license version 24.12.19 and we have a problem, which we need to fix as soon as possible. We are doing some geometry track of some heads and the Refine button does not work as in previous versions.
We track a chunk, create a couple of keys to readjust some poses, go to the frames inbetween the two keys and hit Refine. The Refine progress bar is activated as if it's calculating, but when it reaches 100% the head has not been adjusted, it remains in the same position and the keys for translation and rotation of the object as they were before, with a jump between them.
Could you tell us if it's a version error or we need to do something different, as soon as possible. We urgently need it.
In case the problem cannot be solved, could we have the stand-alone version 2022.9.4.14 that did not have this problem?
Looking forward to your reply, thank you.
Llorenç
Hello Llorenç,
This is not a version error, we can confirm the refine operation in the Geometry Track node appears to be working as expected.
Just for clarity, here is the typical way it would be used:
1. Position your geometry in frame 1 of your clip
2. Track the geometry forwards, and if you see it drifting then stop the tracking
3. Re-position your geometry in the frame where you stopped - you now have a small jump in the motion between this frame and the last
4. Move back one frame and click the Refine button. This will try to re-track the motion between your pair of keyframes and smooth out the jump
5. Move forwards one frame and continue tracking forwards through your shot.
Whether refinement is able to smooth the motion or not depends a lot on the amount of motion between your keyframes, and any illumination changes in your target clip. PFTrack uses optical flow to help estimate your object motion between keyframes, and this can be affected by specular highlights and other features in your image data.
If you are having trouble then I'd suggest trying to insert more keyframes (which will reduce the motion difference between each pair), or using an upstream User Track node to track some helper points to assist the optical flow.
Helper points will help PFTrack try to work out what the object motion should be. You can also enable the "Use Helpers Only" option so it only uses your helper points and ignores the optical flow in the frame. Regarding earlier versions, as you are using the personal subscription version of the software, older versions are not available.