Normal Vectors of Cameras

[reperry]

I am interested in scripting based on the camera angles. Specifically, I would like the cameras' normal vectors in the chunk coordinate system. These normals would be parallel or anti-parallel to the sticks displayed coming out of the blue rectangles.

How can I calculate these camera normal vectors?

I know the cameras each have chunk.cameras[0].transform.rotation(), but how do I go from this rotation matrix to a normal vector?

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated!

[reperry]

I am working with a turntable capture. I have a stack of four cameras, each tilted down different amounts. I have aligned my chunk so that the rings of cameras are parallel to the x-z plane and y is up through the center of the rings (see attached picture). I want to know how far each camera is tilted away from parallel to the y-axis.

Here is my failed attempt -- the script runs, but the results don't make sense:

Code: [Select]

import math
import PhotoScan

def getTilt(chunknum=0):
    chunk = PhotoScan.app.document.chunks[chunknum]
   
    for camera in chunk.cameras:
        if camera.transform is not None:
            rot = camera.transform.rotation()
       
            #y-axis unit vector
            v0 = [0.0,1.0,0.0]
            #y-axis rotated by the camera rotation matrix
            v1 = rot*PhotoScan.Vector(v0)

            #normalize y-vector just in case
            v1length = (v1[0]**2+v1[1]**2+v1[2]**2)**(1/2.)
            v1 = [v/v1length for v in v1]

            #determine angle between y-axis and rotated y-axis with dot product
            theta = math.acos(v1[0]*v0[0]+v1[1]*v0[1]+v1[2]*v0[2])
            print('angle: {} im: {}'.format(theta*180/math.pi,camera.label[0:]))

if __name__ == "__main__":
    getTilt(0)

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello reperry,

If you need the orientation of the camera direction vector in the internal coordinate system, I can suggest to try the following:

Code: [Select]

camera.transform.mulv(PhotoScan.Vector([0,0,1]))


[reperry]

It is the chunk coordinate system that I am interested in obtaining the camera vectors for. The coordinate system indicated by the x-y-z axes in my screenshot. The vectors for the bottom ring of cameras should have normal vectors with almost zero y-component. The other rings should all have negative y-components.

[Alexey Pasumansky]

Hello reperry,

Then you need to apply chunk transform matrix from the left to the vector in the internal system:

Code: [Select]

v_int = camera.transform.mulv(PhotoScan.Vector([0,0,1]))
v_chunk = chunk.transform.matrix.mulv(v_int)
Can you please check that?

[reperry]

Yes!!!! Perfect! Thank you!!!!

That works and makes sense. Thank you so much for the help.

For the cameras in the lowest loop, I now get the following angles between the camera vectors and my chunk y-axis:

2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.46877907090001
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.46147001199684
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.51786905965345
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.55225732294619
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.60681993768857
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.59428129535009
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.56908584035449
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.56522374789431
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.53343429406974
2017-03-27 11:52:17 angle: 91.61503578078066

which is exactly what i have been looking to see! This makes my day.