Lining up a development site in over drone image

[whetherington]

Hello,

I am currently working on an animation where I lay over a 2D development site over ariel image. I have successfully done this in the past with 'Mesh Warp' (as you can see in the images I have attached below.

The issue I am having is we are getting a lot of request for these kinds of jobs and Mesh Warp takes a lot of time to line up and make work correctly. Is there any better ways do line up multiple points on a 2D image, with points you assign on an ariel Image?

Cheers, Wes

[Mylenium]

You could just learn about 3D tracking and bolster your portfolio with suitable 3D-ish plug-ins like Element 3D and Mettle Freeform Pro.

Mylenium

[whetherington]

Thanks for the response Mylenium. I did have a similar approach, but the issue I am having is not the 3D tracking. It is the time-consuming process to do to place the layout into the 3D space and making sure everything lines up correctly. I was hoping there was a way assign multiple points on a 2D layer to my own points in the 3D Camera image so I don't have to do the manual mesh warping. Those plugins didn't seem to have that option. Do you know if it does?

[Mylenium]

The only halfway reasonable method to replicate your drawings directly in AE I can imagine, would be to use Plexus and rebuild the graphic elements by defining (3D tracked) Nulls and masks which then the plug-in can connect with lines, but even that has its limitations. Everything else would really require a 3D program, but even then you can't avoid a lot of fiddling even if you have a DEM and other geo data. It's simply inherent in the process. You could possibly improve your process of course by placing some reference markers across the scene for better tracking results in both 2D and 3D, but that's about it.

Mylenium

[brian704]

You may be able to create a plane in Cinema and create a rough approximation of the terrain and then projection map your graphics on that.

[Rick Gerard · Accepted solution]

If the folks that did the illustration used a cad program and they have topographic data from a server to create a grayscale topographic map of the area then you are home free if you are willing to buy or have Forge Freeform Pro. If the illustration is topographically correct then all you have to do is to set an origin and ground plane with you camera track that is located at the center point of the graphic, then apply Forge Freeform to the graphic and use the grayscale topographic map for a displacement map for the drawing. I've done this several times and it works great.

If you have access to the drone or the drone pilot another option would be for the pilot to use something like Drone Deploy to create a 3D model of the area. You can then use the illustration as a texture on the 3D model and use that textured model in your project. I've also done this a few times. The trick is to do the camera track, set an origin and ground plane at a recognizable point on the ground, and then add a solid and a camera to the scene using Camera Tracking. When you have done that you export the comp as a C4D project and then just line up the 3D model with the footage. It's pretty easy to do for most jobs, but on occasion you'll have to add another solid through camera tracking to help you get things lined up.

If you have any other questions or problems let us know.