The Pixel Farm releases PFTrack 2015
The Pixel Farm has released PFTrack 2015, the latest update to its camera-tracking and matchmoving package, adding new photogrammetry capabilities and support for GPU acceleration and Alembic import/export.
(Actually the update shipped a few weeks back, but we’ve only just spotted it. Apologies, Pixel Farm.)
Turn photographic reference stills into point clouds or 3D geometry
Top of the feature list in PFTrack 2015 is its new photogrammetry capabilities, in the shape of the new Photo Mesh node, used to reconstruct 3D geometry from photographic reference stills.
In addition, the old Image Match node has been replaced with Photo Survey, which also generates 3D point clouds from photographic images, but also now supports aerial photographs.
If you use Windows or Linux, key effects are now GPU-accelerated (support for the Mac Pro is “pending”). Both CUDA and OpenCL are supported, so you can use any manufacturer’s GPU and still get the benefit.
And if you’re a Linux user, you can also now import geometry or export geometry and point cloud data in Alembic format – again, Windows and OS X support will follow.
Pricing and availability
PFTrack is available now for Windows, Linux and Mac OS X. A node-locked licence costs $1,649.