Technology - Realistic camera motion for stop motion animation

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Realistic camera motion for stop motion animation

A method of performing a hand-held camera motion with a real camera and translating the performance into stop-motion animation

Technology Overview:

The animation process:

A camera person moves the camera (or a camera like object) with his/her/its body freely in space or with any of the preexisting rigs for maneuvering a camera. This could be in a performance space or directly on the set of a stop-motion animation.
The rotation and position of the camera is captured through preexisting motion capture or camera extraction technologies.
The motion capture measurements are then scaled and manipulated virtually in Cartesian space to match the scale of a physical 3D set. If there is no scale shift then this step only involves registration of the recorded movement with the robotic movement in the following step.
A motion control rig moves a camera around a stop-motion set, in small frame-by-frame increments, allowing an animator to execute a stop-motion animation in front of a camera that seems to be held and manipulated by a human.

Camera movement is limited in stop-motion animation because motion control systems are limited in the design of the human control interfaces.
Existing methods require a premeditated concept for camera movement, and do not rely on the expressive qualities human gesture and performance.
The method of performing a hand-held camera motion gesture for a stop-motion performance allows the cinematographer to perform as an expressive and responsive character in the resulting film.
This method allows direct control of camera movement and results in a more expressive performance of the camera than existing methods of using human control interfaces.

Demonstrated in Jeu de Paume

U.S. Patent Application No. 14/617,771 filed 2/9/2015