A - Camera Tracking and Lens Calibration

Unless we are setting up a trackless (billboard) type camera, we will need a camera tracking device. Reality uses the information provided by the tracking device to calculate the virtual camera position, look at the direction, the field of view, and the focal depth of every frame (fields in interlaced productions). There are mainly two types of camera tracking technologies for virtual studio applications:

• Mechanical tracking
• Optical tracking

Also, there are other tracking methods, which use a fusion of several different tracking methods. For example, “Mo-Sys StarTracker” can use optical tracking and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit). There are even other tracking solutions where mechanical tracking data can be used in combination with optical tracking. Some tracking devices also provide lens calibration data, while others only offer zoom and focus encoder data.