Making the best even better! Meet mTracker Surface 1.1
We always aim higher — learn how an improved mTracker Surface can elevate your editing!
One thing to know about us is that we’re always looking for new solutions to expand your creative possibilities in Final Cut Pro. By the end of 2023, we’d released two new pro plugins designed to change the game: mRotoAI and mTracker Surface — and we succeeded! mTracker Surface has rocked the boat with its extreme precision and astonishingly accurate results. And you guys loved it, which we couldn’t be happier about!
But it’s really not our style to sit back and relax. We kept looking for ways to improve, and guess what? We did it again!
It is our pleasure to introduce you to mTracker Surface 1.1 — and in this article, we’ll tell you a little bit about how we made great even better!
What’s mTracker Surface?
First things first: If you haven’t used our newest plugins yet, here is a little rundown: mTracker Surface is an all-surface tracking solution for Final Cut Pro. It offers an intuitive workflow for tracking both planar and irregular surfaces and uses this data to place graphic elements and videos on them. In this article, we will discuss planar tracking, so let’s quickly go over what it means.
The planar tracker lets you robustly track objects’ 2D position, rotation, and scale, commonly used for adding elements such as callouts or pointers. It also allows you to track actual flat surfaces with varying perspectives, such as walls or monitors, allowing you to replace screens, add posters, and much more.
Incentive for improvement
We had a solid solution, so what has pushed us to improve it? We found a study that set out to establish a planar object tracking benchmark. The authors argued that the tracking solutions lack a standardized benchmark to test against, so they established a set of 210 videos of 30 planar objects sampled in the natural environment, such as street signs, street ads, posters, etc. For each object, they shot seven videos involving various challenging factors, namely scale change, rotation, perspective distortion, motion blur, occlusion, out-of-view, and unconstrained.
Of course, we wanted to see how our tracker would perform against the benchmark, and guess what: it turned out we could do better — so we did!
What’s new with mTracker Surface 1.1?
It’s worth noting that our initial version did really well; for example, it was the best of all tested algorithms in terms of tracking rotation. But it struggled a bit with blurry images that occur with rapid movement. With that in mind, our team implemented a brand new system that makes sure the tracking of fast-moving objects is rock solid! We also made improvements in scale changes and perspective distortion, and ensured you’ll always get exact results while tracking occluding or partially out-of-screen surfaces.
All the changes helped us achieve up to two times more precise tracking compared to the first version of the tool, and we surpassed other leading planar tracking solutions for video editing and VFX by up to 1.7 times!
In short — nothing can stop you from bringing your vision to the surface (pun intended)!
The same intuitive and fast workflow will now grant you a brand new standard of planar tracking.
One solution — more updates!
That’s not where the good news ends! With the new solution on hand, we updated 12 trackable element packs. All your favorite callouts, HUDs, notifications & pointers are now equipped with a new, better, and more precise solution. If you have any of these products, a free update awaits you in mInstaller. And if not — definitely check them out; they are some seriously cool products, and now they’re even better!
The other tool that benefits from the new tracker is the bestselling mFlare2. You can check out those organic flare effects for free via the CineStudio trial, and if you already use and love it — an update is waiting for you.
Keep creating further!
We constantly push ourselves to try and be the best because if we are the best, you can achieve the best results with our tools. If you’re, like us, never satisfied with “just okay,” make sure to check out the newest version of mTracker Surface and our other top, ever-evolving products in CineStudio! There’s lots of good stuff to explore — and you can do that for free, with a 2-week trial period. And, of course, if you’re already a CineStudio user, the newest updates are already waiting for you in mInstaller.
