A versatile camera position measurement system for virtual reality TV production

A key component of any virtual production system is a means of measuring the precise position and orientation of each studio camera, so that the virtual scene can be rendered from the appropriate viewpoint. There are a number of systems already available that provide camera position data, but none fully address the requirements of a hand-held camera operating in a very large studio. A system designed specifically for this application is therefore being developed. The system works optically, using a number of markers in known positions. The markers may either be placed in the scene and viewed by the main camera, or placed out of shot (for example, on the ceiling) and viewed by a separate camera mounted on the main one. The computational requirements are not excessive, making the system amenable to real-time implementation using either a general-purpose workstation with a frame-grabber, or a small amount of dedicated hardware.