Through-the-lens camera control

In this paper we introduce through-the-lens camera control, a body of techniques that permit a user to manipulate a virtual camera by controlling and constraining features in the image seen through its lens. Rather than solving for camera parameters directly, constrained optimization is used to compute their time derivatives based on desired changes in user-defined controls. This effectively permits new controls to be defined independent of the underlying parameterization. The controls can also serve as constraints, maintaining their values as others are changed. We describe the techniques in general and work through a detailed example of a specific camera model. Our implementation demonstrates a gallery of useful controls and constraints and provides some examples of how these may be used in composing images and animations.

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