PSU Thermal

From RepRap
Revision as of 22:04, 13 March 2012 by Filmgineer (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to: navigation, search

This page gives information about the footage created from the DRS Tamarisk Thermal Camera, specifically the one used in the Thermal 3D Printing Video. For those of you looking to try to edit footage from this camera, there are a few important things to note.

Problems with Native Thermal Footage

First of all, video footage from any camera is normally shot at 29.97fps (frames per second). The footage from the DRS Tamarisk Thermal Camera is natively shot at 20fps. This difference in frame rate is extremely important, as the thermal footage, if just placed next to the video footage captured from a normal video camera shot at 29.98fps, will appear slower.

Second, the thermal camera exports its footage as .avi. It is easier to edit footage in Final Cut Pro as a .mov file, and to keep quality high and file size small, in the Thermal 3D Printing Video, a H.264 codec was used.

The dimensions of the footage are shot natively at 800x600.

Therefore, the three big factors that make editing thermal footage difficult in Final Cut Pro are:

  • Frame Rate
  • Dimensions
  • AVI File

Making Thermal Footage Workable

The easiest way to convert your thermal footage into something that you can work with is sending the footage through Compressor. The settings that were used in the Thermal 3D Printing Video were H.264 (located in the video format settings under Apple -> Formats -> Quicktime -> H.264). This will help make your .avi file into a workable .mov file, solving the AVI File problem.

In the Compressor software, you have to then make sure to go to Inspector and under the Encoder tab, make sure you click Video Settings and change the frame rate from Current to 29.97. This will solve the Frame Rate problem.

There is no audio in the thermal footage so you don't need to worry about that. The resolution is also different from the thermal footage to the normal footage (the thermal footage captures natively at 800x600) and you can change these settings in the Geometry tab under Dimensions. This will solve the Dimensions problem.

With the above steps completed, you can continue to tweak the footage to how you desire, but for the most part, you are ready to submit the job to Compressor to make workable footage (a .mov with a H.264 codec at 29.97fps at whatever dimension matches your normal video footage).


State College RepRap Users Group
PSURUGQR.png
S.C.R.U.G. Main · The Make Space · Intercollegiate Future Society · Wiki Help
Herringbone glowing2.jpg