2d3 has begun shipping boujou three, the third-generation of its award-winning professional 3D camera matchmoving software. boujou three is designed for specialist tracking departments working on the most challenging shots, and complements boujou bullet, 2d3s easy-to-use volume tracking solution.
boujou three is built around a range of new technologies and features including: * A completely new feature-tracking engine that delivers 10 times the performance increase and tracks features with greater accuracy, especially in adverse conditions. The tracker picks up hundreds of features in each frame of a shot, even when frames are affected by temporary occlusions, extreme lighting or radical camera moves. The new feature tracker works effectively with difficult-to-track material such as sand, snow or sky shots where there is very little detail to track, with fur and hair, and with shots with highly repetitive structures or patterns.* An additional new camera tracker geared to producing a very fast and accurate solution based on a given focal length, when information about the camera is available. The new camera tracker also includes an elegant automated solution for tracking free-move zoom shots. * Survey point constraints, allowing users to lock the camera solution to surveyed positional data. With exact data, boujou can create a 3D structure of precise dimensions, but even approximate data about the location of a few points can be useful in solving low-parallax shots.* Non-consecutive frame matching, letting users continue to track temporarily occluded features and objects that go out of, and then back into, the shot.* A completely redesigned user interface for tighter integration into high-end production pipelines. A new timeline design with a rich status display makes it easy to work with combinations of expert tools such as Target Tracks and Gold Tracks, survey points and non-consecutive matching. Interactivity is boosted with the use of image proxies to give faster replays and more responsive performance especially when working with 4K film plates.
Although boujou three is aimed at the dedicated specialist tracking department, it features the user-guidance wizard and troubleshooting system first introduced with boujou bullet. Distilling years of expert know-how, this interactive system can be called up to walk users through straightforward and more difficult tracking scenarios, offering training and advice on using the more advanced features and dealing with difficult shots.
boujou three also includes Shake node export and a lens distortion plug-in for Shake, allowing users to bring boujou data direct into Shake and deal with lens distortion as part of the compositing process. boujou three supports a wide range of bit depths and file formats, including Maya IFF.
boujou three is available for Windows, Mac OSX and Linux.With a choice of flexible licensing schemes to suit different facility structures, boujou three and boujou bullet can be purchased online at www.2d3.com for $10,000 and $2,500, respectively, per license. Network licensing is available for larger facilities wanting to install multiple seats of boujou bullet or mix boujou bullet and boujou three licenses.
Launched in 2001, boujou (boo-zhoo) was the first fully automated camera calibration and tracking system. Using advanced adaptive algorithms developed from vision science research, the application removes previous limitations on what is achievable in effects production by allowing 3D professionals to derive complex camera tracks and calibration data from film and video material automatically without the need for manual tracking input. boujou has made a major contribution to high-profile television and film productions, music videos and commercials by facilitating the creation of visual effects that seamlessly combine live action and 3D. In 2002, 2d3 was awarded with a Primetime Emmy Engineering Award for boujou, which is also used for games development, architectural visualization and industrial design projects.
2d3 (www.2d3.com) was established in 1999 as a wholly owned subsidiary of OMG Plc. 2d3 offer automatic software solutions for the visual media industries; the first product, boujou, has won numerous awards, including the 2002 Prime Time Emmy for Technical Achievement. 2d3's sister company develops, manufactures and distributes the Vicon motion capture system.
Bill Desowitz, former editor of VFXWorld, is currently the Crafts Editor of IndieWire.
