Hi Gideon (and others),
You shouldn't ask me for input, you know that. ;-)
So what I would love is a calibration tool for portal/XR. Obviously we try to get the screen(s) in the studio aligned or perpendicular to the virtual axis, but that is not always possible, resulting in a geometrical/mathematical nightmare to get the screen(s) calibrated in Voyager. That's not so bad if you have a production for a few weeks, but, as you know, we regularly have 'one-offs' and for these productions we want to keep things as easy (and cheap) as possible.
It would be great if there would be a separate application you could run on a Voyager system which would take care of the calibration.
As I see it, the tool would output a sequence of test patterns on an SDI/IP output you could feed the screen in the studio. The output of the camera and the tracking data would be fed back into the tool. The tool knows which pattern it outputs and can 'see' what it gets back from the camera and by combining multiple test patterns patterns, input from the camera and the tracking data, it should be able to determine the settings for the portal in Voyager.
What possibly makes it complex is that the lens distortion of the camera, obviously, also distorts the position of the screen/test pattern the camera feeds the calibration tool. This could be solved by using a calibrated lens and load the lens curves in the tool as well, but ideally you shouldn't have to, since one of the beautiful things of portal/XR is that any lens will do: it doesn't have to be calibrated.
I love to hear what you think of the idea.
Kind regards,
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Gerard de Vries
Solution Architect Live Graphics & Virtual Graphics
United / EMG
The Netherlands
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