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Introduction
After assembling and before starting to calibrate a tracking system, you must make sure they are connected properly to your PC and that Aximmetry receives native data from them. This short article will help you through this process.
Basic Settings
Setting up the Communication Protocol in Aximmetry
Open Aximmetry Composer.
Go to the Edit menu, then Manage Devices...
NOTE: When launching Aximmetry Composer, you can also access the Manage Devices... menu from the bottom of the Startup Configuration window.
You can find professional camera tracking systems and object tracking systems in the Camera Tracking menu. If you are using other tracking systems that are made mainly for games, look for them in the Game menu.
Click on the Add... button to set up your tracking device. The procedure may vary based on protocols. At the end, click OK to confirm your settings.
You can browse these documents for specific information about different tracking systems:
Setting Up Specific Tracking Systems
Checking the Tracking Data Flow
Ensure the communication and data flow between the tracking system and Aximmetry is stable.
Tracking Systems
Create a new compound and insert a Camera Tracking module.
In the module's Pin Values, define the tracking device in the Device menu. If you did everything well until this point you must see your tracking device in the dropdown list.
Click on the 3 brackets to see the extended pin list. If then you peek at the Native Transf pin, you can observe the raw, uncalibrated transformation and rotation data received by Aximmetry.
NOTE: With a properly working tracking system, you must see the tracking data values the tracking device sends.
NOTE: The Native Transf is raw, uncalibrated tracking data coming straight from the tracking system. The calibrated tracking data will be received on the Cam Transform pin.
NOTE: Most tracking protocols can show the unprocessed binary data received from the network in the Raw Packet pin. It allows examining the network packets using the BytesToText module, either in hex or text format.
NOTE: If your tracking system has lens encoders, you can peek at the Zoom Sensor and Focus Sensor pins to check if lens data flows in.
Lens Encoders
Lens encoders can be found in the Zoom Encoder menu in Manage Devices.
Click on the Add... button to set up your lens encoders. The procedure may vary based on protocols. At the end, click OK to confirm your settings.
You can browse these documents for specific information about different tracking systems:
Setting Up Specific Tracking Systems
Set up the zoom device in the Zoom Device menu.
NOTE: In some special cases, you may need to specify the same device here as the tracking device. More on this later.
To see lens encoder data, peek at the Zoom Sensor pin if the encoder is on the lens's Zoom ring, or the Focus Sensor pin if it's on the Focus ring.
NOTE: With a properly working lens encoder, you must see the lens data values the encoder device sends.
NOTE: The Zoom Sensor and Focus Sensor are raw, uncalibrated lens data coming straight from the tracking system/encoders. The calibrated lens data will be received on the Zoom Factor and Focus Distance pins.
NOTE: Most Zoom Encoder protocols can show the unprocessed binary data received from the network in the Zoom Raw Packet pin. It allows examining the network packets using the BytesToText module, either in hex or text format.
Special Cases
Aximmetry is capable of combining the tracking data input of two different tracking systems in order to track a single camera. It is also capable of specifying individual delay values for the tracking data and zoom data of a single tracking system. For both of these use-case scenarios the same parameter, called Zoom Device, is used.
The Zoom Device is essentially a secondary tracking device that provides additional tracking data in combination with the tracking Device. There are three use cases for this parameter:
- specifying third-party zoom encoder devices to receive additional lens data,
- specifying PTZ cameras' tracking data stream when PTZ cameras are tracked with additional tracking devices to determine their position,
- specifying the same tracking device specified at the Tracking Device parameter to be able to independently adjust the Tracking Delay and Zoom Delay parameters for it.
Continue to the Calibration
After setting up the tracking system in Aximmetry, you can start its calibration process. Please refer to the following documents to learn more about calibration:
