ILM's multitrack: a new visual tracking framework for high-end VFX production

Tracking 2D features on film footage is the starting point for several applications in a VFX pipeline such as camera calibration, match-moving, photomodeling, vision-based motion capture and object tracking. The diversity of captured footage and the accuracy requirements make the feature tracking problem very challenging. For instance, typical background footage exhibits drastic changes in lighting, motion blur, occlusions, and is usually corrupted with environment effects such as smoke or explosions. Tracking features on hero characters such as a human faces is equally challenging, especially near the eyes and lips, where the textures change continuously.