Camera Matching in Cinema 4D

[jeremylondon]

Hi guys.

 

Can anyone advise me on whether it is still possible to match a 3D scene to a background photograph in Cinema 4D using points rather than perspective lines. 3DS max uses 'Campoints' which are quite effective (see this video

), and I'm aware that back before the camera calibration tag was introduced in R14, there was a third party plugin available for C4D from an outfit called Pano4D that also had this functionality (check out from about 2:25 onwards in this video

). The Pano4D plugin seems to be discontinued now and their website is inactive.

 

The current system in the camera calibration tag that uses perspective lines may work well enough for basic 3D compositing, but I've found it to be very unreliable for accurately compositing architectural scenes, even into photographs that have identifiable x y and z axes. And in a situation where I have known / surveyed points in the photograph but no perspective lines, it is no use at all.

 

If anyone knows of a current plugin for C4D that can match photos using points, or has another reliable methodology for this that they're willing to share, I'd love to hear from them.

 

Thanks!

Jeremy

[Ernest Burden III]

I don't know of any plugs that work by points. The lines method works very well, most of the time. But not ALL of the time. I would like a better solution, too. I will ask Maxon about that.

 

Actually, there is a 'pin' that is based on a point X Y Z, might that help.

[jeremylondon]

Thanks for your reply Ernest.

 

If Maxon can be talked into to adding a 'point mode' to the camera calibration tag I think it would help make C4D a much stronger application in the arch viz world.

 

The 'pin' in the current configuration is used for defining a single reference coordinate only, you can't create another pin. If you could create multiple pins and generate a camera position from them, we would essentially have the system I'm hoping for.

 

I downloaded a trial of 3DS max the other day and tested the 'Campoint' camera match tool, and it matched one of my 3D scenes to the background image flawlessly, with a camera error of around 0.5. Previously I'd tried at least a dozen times to composite the same image in Cinema 4D using the camera calibration tag, with highly variable results each time and no real success.

 

The fact that an old 3rd party plugin from pre-R14 had the same point-matching functionality as today's 3DS makes me hopeful that it could relatively easily be introduced by Maxon, or re-created by another 3rd party developer (hint hint, all you clever programmers out there!)

Edited March 9, 2016 by jeremylondon