ZEISS CinCraft Scenario 2.0 adds pre-calibrated lens templates, the Lens Template Finetuner and CinCraft Export 1.0, increasing flexibility, saving time and preparing tracking data for post.
ZEISS has further developed the ZEISS CinCraft Scenario camera tracking system. With software release 2.0, the system can now also be used for tracking with a wider selection of lenses from most commonly used cinema and broadcast lens brands. “Up to this point, only productions working with ZEISS and ARRI/ZEISS lenses have been able to use CinCraft Scenario,” said Christophe Casenave, responsible for Cinematography Products at ZEISS. “With this release, we make our camera tracking system available to many more users including broadcasters.”
CinCraft Scenario real-time camera tracking system works indoors and outdoors, on film sets, with green and blue screens and in LED volumes. It uses natural markers, reflective markers and digital markers on LED screens, and outputs camera tracking data for real-time use and records it for post-production. The system has distinct operating modes that are optimised to work in different environments. Users choose the mode that is best suited for their project.
Most important, it integrates lens characteristics, making lengthy lens calibration processes unnecessary. With version 2.0, filmmakers can now utilise templates for over 90 lenses from more than 10 lens series that allow them to skip the recording of lens distortion by makingpre-calibrated lens characteristics available.
With the new Lens Template Finetuner, users only need to match generic lens templates to specific real characteristics of the lenses used in the respective project. The software wizard guides users through the finetuning process step-by-step. This eliminates the complexity often associated with lens calibration and cuts lens preparation time in half. Finetuned templates can then be saved. In addition, CinCraft Scenario 2.0 allows users to load and finetune lens calibrations previously created with Ncam Reality, further enhancing their production flexibility.
ZEISS also releases CinCraft Export 1.0, a standalone software for Windows PCs. Users can export their recorded tracking data to the standard file format FBX, as well as OpenEXR lens distortion STMaps. This makes it easy for a user to re-apply their live tracking data for post-production applications such as post-visualisation.
“We’re happy to make CinCraft Scenario available to more projects – not only through extending support to more lens brands – but also by maintaining the recorded tracking data for post-production. We will continue to expand the number of supported lenses gradually over the months to come and look forward to offering full manual lens calibration later this year, making CinCraft Scenario usable with every cine and broadcast lens available,” Christophe Casenave said. cincraft.zeiss.com
