General

Pixotope can be used in a:

  • single-camera production
  • multi-camera production

Every Pixotope production needs:

  • 1 Data hub
    • Can be run on any machine in the Data hub network
  • 1 or more Camera Tracking Servers (CTS)
    • Can be run on any machine in the Data hub network

  • 1 machine per camera

The Director is installed on all Pixotope machines. We recommend choosing 1 main Director installation to do the setup and to control all your machines from.

  • This can be the Director from any machine in the Data hub network

    Learn more about the Director workflow.

Best practices

The following best practices are recommendations. However, a different setup might fit your specific production better.

Let us know about your setup via feedback.pixotope.com.

Single-camera production

Single-camera, single-machine setup

A single-camera, single-machine setup looks like this:


Single-camera, multi-machine setup

For redundancy reasons, a second machine with the same camera, tracking and Ref inputs can be set up. It is also possible to set up a separate Data hub and/or main Director machine.

Multi-camera production

For multi-machine setups there are 2 ways to work:

Separate setup and central control (recommended)

The camera setups are done separately for each machine. This way they can even be done in parallel to speed up the setup.

  1. Choose which computer should run the Data hub
  • Can be a completely separate machine
  • Run a separate Camera Tracking Server for every camera system on the relevant machine
  • Do the setup (configuration and calibration of each camera system) separately on each machine
  • Choose a main Director to control the production from

  • Optionally: Import the setups from the different machines into the main Director

    Learn more about how to import a setup. 

  • Control the production from the main Director

Central setup and control

  1. Choose a main Director

  • This is the Director you would use to do the setup (configuration and calibration of camera systems)

  • Choose which computer should run the Data hub
  • Does not need to be the computer that is running the main Director
  • Can be a completely separate machine
  • Choose Camera Tracking Server(s)
    • Run a separate Camera Tracking Server for every camera system on the relevant machine
  • Do the setup (configuration and calibration of each camera system) from the main Director
  • Control the production from the main Director

Projects have to be manually synced between machines. This can be done using a version control system such as Perforce.

Multi-camera setup with a separate tracking data network

This is a multi-camera setup with:

  • a main Director, chosen from one of the render machines
  • a Data hub, running on one of the render machines
  • 1 Camera Tracking Server per tracked camera, running on the relevant machine
  • 1 network for Data hub/Director communication
  • 1 network for camera tracking data


Multi-camera setup with a separate Director/Data hub machine

This is a multi-camera setup with:

  • the main Director and Data hub, running on a separate machine (Remote license)
  • 1 Camera Tracking Server per tracked camera, running on the relevant machine
  • 1 shared network for Data hub/Director communication and camera tracking data


 

Multi-camera setup with tracking on the same network

This is a multi-camera setup with:

  • a main Director, chosen from one of the render machines
  • a Data hub, running on one of the render machines
  • 1 Camera Tracking Server per tracked camera, running on the relevant machine
  • 1 shared network for Data hub/Director communication and camera tracking data