Matching SynthEyes Distortion in After Effects

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‌Matching SynthEyes Distortion in After Effects

If SynthEyes calculates a solve that contains distortion, the 3D solve and footage will match only if a corrected version of the original footage is generated. Often that means outputting the source footage from the image preprocessor to produce a linearized (corrected) version, using one of the Lens Distortion workflows.

However, it is possible to do that correction on the fly, within After Effects, which makes the workflow simpler. SynthEyes includes special effects plugins that largely reproduce the lens distortion functionality of the SynthEyes image preprocessor within After Effects.

Usage of plugins by others. SynthEyes demo licensing is for non- commercial use. As a specific exemption, we permit someone who does not own a SynthEyes license to use the After Effects plugins from SynthEyes commercially for the sole purpose of working with AE files exported by a commercial SynthEyes license owner. You may not distribute the plugins yourself.

The SynthEyes Advanced Lens distortion effect can be used with any of the SynthEyes lens distortion models: radial-4 th, anamorphic-6th, radial+squash, and the previous Classic model.

If the distortion is set up using an image distortion map in the image preprocessor, or the image preprocessor settings have manually been modified, the distortion can be exported using the SynthEyes-provided Image Mapping plugin, which uses image distortion (STMaps) to specify the distortion. The export will configure that setup automatically to the extent permitted by After Effects, though some color-bypass settings must be set by hand within After Effects. The export will automatically select floating-point channels, as that is required for use with image maps. (You can manually change that to 16 bits, but 16-bit is not very accurate for 6K+ image resolutions.)

Important: When delivering shots that use image distortion maps (STmaps), ie due to usage of advanced lens models, you must be sure to include the lens distortion map images in your delivery package! Otherwise, the down- stream client will not have the necessary distortion data.

The SynthEyes Advanced Distortion effect is a much better choice than trying to use an AE distortion filter: it offers an exact match to the computed distortion, offers better image-quality filtering options, and it integrates cleanly into proper lens-distortion workflows.

Lens Distortion for After Effects Image Mapper Installation for After Effects CC.

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