Clean Up Trackers Dialog

Clean Up Trackers Dialog

Run the clean up tracker dialog after solving, to identify bad trackers and frames needing repair. This helps remove bumps in tracks and improves overall accuracy. Start it from the Track menu.

The panel is organized systematically, with a line for trackers with different categories of problems. A tracker can be counted in several different categories. There are Select toggle buttons for each category; each Select button selects and flashes trackers in that category in the main viewports. Click the button a second time to turn it off and de-select the trackers.

After cleaning up the trackers (“Fix”), you should re-solve or refine the solution.

All trackers. Radio button. All trackers are affected.

Selected trackers. Radio button. Only the trackers already selected when the dialog is opened are affected.

(Delete) Bad Frames. Checkbox. When checked, bad frames are deleted when the Fix button is clicked. Note that the number of trackers in the category is shown in parentheses.

Show. Toggle button. Bad frames are shown in the user interface, by temporarily invalidating them. The graph editor should be open in Squish mode to see them.

Threshold. Spinner. This is the threshold for a frame to be bad, as determined by comparing its 2-D location on a frame to its predicted 3-D location. The valud is either a percentage of the total number of frames (ie the worst 2%), or a value in horizontal pixels, as controlled by the radio buttons below.

%. Radio button. The bad-frame threshold is measured in percentage; the worst N% of the frames are considered to be bad.

Hpix. Radio button. The bad-frame threshold is a horizontal-pixel value.

Disable. Radio button. When “fixed,” bad frames are disabled by adjusting the tracker's enable track.

Clear. Radio button. Bad frames are fixed by clearing the tracking results from that frame; the tracker is still enabled and can be easily re-tracked on that frame.

 (Delete) Far-ish Trackers. Checkbox. When on, trackers that are too far-ish (have too little perspective) are deleted.

Threshold. Spinner. Controls how much or little perspective is required for a tracker to be considered far-ish. Measured in horizontal pixels.

Delete. Radio button. Far-ish trackers will be deleted when fixed.

Make Far. Radio button. Far-ish trackers will be changed to be solved as Far trackers (direction only, no distance).

(Delete) Short-Lived Trackers. Checkbox. Short-lived trackers will be deleted.

Threshold. Spinner. Number of frames a tracker must be valid to avoid being to short-lived.

(Delete) High-error Trackers. Checkbox. Trackers with too many bad frames will be deleted.

Threshold. Spinner. A tracker is considered high-error if the percentage of its frames that are bad (as defined above by the bad-frame threshold) is higher than this first percentage threshold, or if its average rms error in hpix is more than the second threshold below (next to “Unsolved”) . For example, if more than 30% of a tracker's frames are bad, or its average error is more than 2 hpix, it is a high-error tracker.

Unsolved/Behind. Checkbox. Some trackers may not have been solved, or may have been solved so that they are behind the camera. If checked, these trackers will be deleted.

Threshold. Spinner. This is the average hpix error threshold for a tracker to be high error. Though it is next to the Unsolved category, it is part of the definition of a high-error tracker.

Clear All Blips. Checkbox. When checked, Fix will clear all the blips. This is a way to remember to do this and cut the final .sni file size.

Unlock UI. Button. A tricky button that changes this dialog from modal (meaning the rest of the SynthEyes user interface is locked up) to modeless, so that you can go fix or rearrange something without having to close and reopen the panel. Note: keyboard accelerators do not work when the user interface is unlocked.

Frame. Spinner. The current frame number in SynthEyes, use to scrub through the shot without closing the dialog or even having to unlock the user interface.

Fix. Button. Applies the selected fixes, then closes the panel.

Close. Button. Closes the panel, without applying the fixes. Parameter settings will be saved for next time. The clean-up panel can be a quick way to examine the trackers, even if you do not use it to fix anything itself.