Andersson Technologies unveils SynthEyes 1208
Andersson Technologies has announced SynthEyes 1208, the latest update to its camera-tracking system.
The release brings new features such as Phases, a node-based system for controlling solves; automatic compensation for the rolling shutter on RED and similar cameras; corner auto-tracking; and a revamped UI.
New editions, new release schedule
However, perhaps equally significantly, the company has split the product into Intro and Pro editions, and shifted to a “two-track rapid release cycle”.
The new Intro version, which is aimed at students and hobbyists, costs $399: the price of the old 32-bit edition.
It has a range of limitations, such as not supporting stereo shots or the new Phases system, but it’s essentially a fully functional HD edition of the software.
The new Pro edition costs $599, same as the old 64-bit edition. Andersson Technologies has also released a new cross-platform version, which runs on Windows or Mac OS X and costs $699.
Faster releases, but more complex pre-orders
According to the developer, the new release schedule will eliminate separate ‘major’ and ‘minor’ releases:
“New versions arrive first on the Advance track, then move to the Release track. Both are available to all in-support users. This way, significant new features can reach and assist customers even more rapidly.”
This two-track system makes for quite a complex pre-order process for SynthEyes 1208: details here. And that unusual version number? We presume it signifies ‘August 2012’, and marks the new accelerated schedule.
SynthEyes 1208 will be on show next week at Siggraph 2012.
PRESS RELEASE (Excerpts)
Andersson Technologies LLC, the developer of the SynthEyes 3D Tracking application for Windows and OSX, is pleased to announce a number of new developments at SIGGRAPH Booth 905, August 7-9, in Los Angeles.
The latest version, SynthEyes 1208, will be demonstrated, which includes a node-based “Phase” system for controlling the solver, new survey-shot workflow features, rolling shutter compensation in solves, corner auto-tracking, and a user-interface revamp. Over 40 phase types are present, including a number that permit new kinds of coordinate system setups, such as Set Horizon, and novel ways to adjust the relative scale of shots with both moving cameras and objects.
New Intro and Pro versions replace the previous 32- and 64-bit versions. (Some features, such as Phases, are not available in the Intro version.) Both Intro and Pro are available in 32- or 64-bit form. And, a new cross-platform option is available to users with both Windows and Mac OS X computers.
More about SynthEyes
SynthEyes handles camera tracking, object tracking, object tracking from reference meshes, survey shots, multi-camera and -object tracking, tripod (nodal, 2.5-D) tracking, mixed tripod and translating shots, stereoscopic shots, nodal stereoscopic shots, zooms, lens distortion, rolling-shutter shots, controllable stabilization, motion capture, and light solving. A keyer simplifies and speeds tracking for green-screen shots. The image preprocessor helps remove grain, compression artifacts, off-centering, and varying lighting. Textures can be extracted for a mesh from the image sequence, producing higher resolution and lower noise than any individual image.
SynthEyes offers complete control over the tracking process for challenging shots, including an efficient workflow for supervised trackers, combined automated/supervised tracking, offset tracking, incremental solving, multi-phase solving, hard and soft path locking, distance constraints for low-perspective shots, and cross-camera constraints for stereo. You can set up a coordinate system with tracker constraints, camera constraints, an automated ground-plane-finding tool, by aligning to a mesh, a line-based single-frame alignment system, manually, or with some cool new phase techniques.
SynthEyes exports to about 25 common animation and compositing packages, all included standard. A multi-export tool can output any number of formats in one step.
Pricing and Availability
SynthEyes 1208 is available now for Windows and OS X. SynthEyes Pro is 599 USD; the entry-level SynthEyes Intro version is 399 USD. The cross-platform version is 699 USD. Upgrade pricing varies based on old and new versions, for example, a SynthEyes 2011 64-bit license upgrade to SynthEyes 1208 Pro is 149 USD.
Read a full list of features in SynthEyes 1208