Animating the Position of Geometries

You can animate the position of geometries by defining a Point Tracker and assigning it to the axis of the geometry.

To animate the position of a geometry with the Point Tracker:

1. In the Secondaries menu, activate the secondary layer button that contains the geometry you want to track.
2. Click Show.
   
3. The Point Tracker option should already be enabled by default.
   Note: When the Diamond Keyer is selected, disable the Show button (beneath the Source Primary button) to display the Tracker panel.
   

   (a) Point Tracker button  (b) New button  

4. Enable a new tracker by clicking New.
5. In the Player, go to the frame where you want to start tracking, and then click a tracking point in the image.

   In the Player, the tracker is assigned to, and positioned over, the tracking point. A tracker number is assigned to the tracker and the tracker is set to On.

   

   (a) Tracker status  (b) Solo/Gang button  (c) Tracker list

   When a tracker is on, it is displayed in the Player and can be analysed.

6. Disable the Solo/Gang button to select Solo mode.

   In Solo mode, only the current tracker is analysed.

7. Use the Analyse buttons to analyse the shot:
   • To track the tracking point forward in time, click the Analyse Forward buttons.
   • To track the tracking point backward in time, click the Analyse Backward buttons.
   

   (a) Analyse Backward buttons  (b) Analyse Forward buttons

   The system analyses the image and generates tracking data. For each frame in the shot, the position of the tracking point is displayed in the Player. The current position of the tracking point is highlighted in magenta.

8. Enable Assign.
   
9. In the Player, click the geometry's axis.

   The tracker is assigned to the geometry's axis or vertex.

10. If the tracker loses the tracking point, click the image to stop the process, and then use the Step Backward or Step Forward button in the Player controls to return to the last frame that was correctly tracked.
11. In the Player, do any of the following:
    • To resize the tracker, modify the Match area (magenta rectangle) and Search area (yellow rectangle) by dragging the vertices of the rectangles.
    • To reposition the tracker, drag the centre point of the tracker.
    • To reposition the tracker and reference point, middle-click and drag the centre point of the tracker.
    Tip: You can reposition the tracker and reference point when the reference point moves off-screen.
12. Continue using the Analyse buttons to analyse the shot.
13. To manually add or reposition a tracking point, go to the frame where you want to modify the tracking data, enable Add Key, and then click a tracking point in the image.
    

    The position of the tracking point is displayed in the image.

14. To manually delete the position of a tracking point, go to the frame where you want to remove the tracking data, and then click Del Key.
    

    The tracking data is deleted.

    Note: Linear interpolation is used to set the tracking position for frames without tracking data. For these frames, the previous defined tracking position and the next defined position are used to interpolate the tracking position.