Reconstructing optical data

This topic explains how to use the Optical settings to reconstruct and correct some common optical problems. A suggested workflow is as follows.

To reconstruct optical data:

1. Import an Optical motion file.

   You can import files to transfer optical data, raw data and skeletal data files between MotionBuilder and other software packages, applications, and dedicated hardware.

2. Make sure a Navigator window is open so that you can view the optical data for the selected optical marker.
3. Label all segments appearing at the beginning of your motion file, or at a location where the most segments are seen.

   When you label a segment, it becomes a marker.

   See Segments and Labelling.

4. Create Rigid bodies using the markers you labelled in step 3.

   See Creating a Rigid body.

5. Create an Actor and use the optical markers to define the Actor’s marker set. This is an optional step but highly recommended.

   Using an Actor makes it easier to view problems such as marker swapping and noise.

   See Creating an Actor.

6. Eliminate marker swapping. While labelling markers, you may find that two markers that have passed close to one another have been swapped.

   Eliminating Swapping

7. Fix noise and partial occlusion by studying and correcting Rigid body quality.

   See Correcting Rigid body quality.

8. Fill in gaps. MotionBuilder provides two methods of filling in gaps: filling with unlabeled segments and filling with interpolation.

   See Filling Gaps with Unlabeled Segments and Filling Gaps with Interpolation.

9. Switch all optical markers to Done so that further filtering may be applied using the FCurves window.