Ncam CHOP

Summary

Note: Only available in TouchDesigner Pro.

The Ncam CHOP receives camera tracking data from an external Ncam Reality system for use in virtual production. The data is received over a network using the TCP protocol and includes information on the camera's position, orientation and optical properties. This data can be used in a Camera COMP to render content from a virtual environment that is synced to the movement of a physical camera. An Ncam TOP can also be used to receive image data from the camera and to composite it with the rendered content.

For additional tracking solutions, see the Stype CHOP and FreeD CHOP.

ncamCHOP_Class

Parameters - Network Page

Active active - Turn off this parameter to stop receiving data from the Ncam system.

Protocol protocol - ⊞ -

• TCP tcp - The network protocol used to send data from the Ncam system to TouchDesigner. Only TCP is currently supported.

Network Address netaddress - The network address of the Ncam server that is sending the data.

Network Port port - The network port to connect to on the Ncam server.

Parameters - Channels Page

These parameters control how the data from the Ncam server is presented in CHOP channels.

Camera View cameraview - ⊞ - Select how the camera's orientation and position are outputted.

• Translation & Rotation (TR) trs -

• Matrix matrix -

• TR & Matrix both -

• Off off -

Camera Projection cameraproj - ⊞ - Select how the camera's projection settings are outputted.

• Field of View (FOV) fov -

• Matrix matrix -

• FOV & Matrix both -

• Off off -

Camera Properties cameraprops - ⊞ - Controls the output of additional camera properties like zoom and focus. These properties can either be normalized (0 to 1) or in their native physical units.

• Normalized normalized -

• Physical physical -

• Both both -

• Off off -

Timecode timecode - ⊞ - Select whether the embedded timecode is presented as a single counter or in separate hour, minute, second and frame channels.

• HH:MM::SS::FF on -

• Timecode timecode -

• Both both -

• Off off -

Parameters - Common Page

Time Slice timeslice - Turning this on forces the channels to be "Time Sliced". A Time Slice is the time between the last cook frame and the current cook frame.

Scope scope - To determine which channels get affected, some CHOPs use a Scope string on the Common page.

Sample Rate Match srselect - ⊞ - Handle cases where multiple input CHOPs' sample rates are different. When Resampling occurs, the curves are interpolated according to the Interpolation Method Option, or "Linear" if the Interpolate Options are not available.

• Resample At First Input's Rate first - Use rate of first input to resample others.

• Resample At Maximum Rate max - Resample to the highest sample rate.

• Resample At Minimum Rate min - Resample to the lowest sample rate.

• Error If Rates Differ err - Doesn't accept conflicting sample rates.

Export Method exportmethod - ⊞ - This will determine how to connect the CHOP channel to the parameter. Refer to the Export article for more information.

• DAT Table by Index datindex - Uses the docked DAT table and references the channel via the index of the channel in the CHOP.

• DAT Table by Name datname - Uses the docked DAT table and references the channel via the name of the channel in the CHOP.

• Channel Name is Path:Parameter autoname - The channel is the full destination of where to export to, such has geo1/transform1:tx.

Export Root autoexportroot - This path points to the root node where all of the paths that exporting by Channel Name is Path:Parameter are relative to.

Export Table exporttable - The DAT used to hold the export information when using the DAT Table Export Methods (See above).

An Operator Family which operate on Channels (a series of numbers) which are used for animation, audio, mathematics, simulation, logic, UI construction, and many other applications.

A Time Slice is the time from the last cook frame to the current cook frame. In CHOPs it is the set of short channels that only contain the CHOP channels' samples between the last and the current cook frame.

A parameter in most CHOPs that restricts which channels of that CHOP will be affected. Normally all channels of a CHOP are affected by the operator.

samples-per-second of a CHOP. Each CHOP in your network has a sample rate, whether it is used or not. The overall timeline has a "frame rate", which is the number of animation frames per second, generally your monitor display frequency.

Exporting is the connection of CHOP channels to parameters of operators. The output of each exporting CHOP is one or more channels, active only while the CHOP Viewer is on. The current value of a channel can be exported to a parameter of any operator, overriding that parameter's value. See Parameter.

An Operator Family that manipulates text strings: multi-line text or tables. Multi-line text is often a command Script, but can be any multi-line text. Tables are rows and columns of cells, each containing a text string.

The location of an operator within the TouchDesigner environment, for example, /geo1/circle1, a node called circle1 in a component called geo1. The path / is called Root. This path is displayed at the top of every Pane, showing which Component's network you are currently in. To refer instead to a filesystem folder, directory, disk file or http: address, see Folder.

Parameters in TouchDesigner are an operator's settings (numbers, menus, flags, strings, paths) which the user can alter. Parameters for any operator can be opened by right-clicking on the operator and selecting "Parameters..." A currently selected operator's parameters can be viewed in a Network Editor by pressing the keyboard shortcut 'p'.

TouchDesigner is a hierarchy of components. "root" is the top-most network in the hierarchy. The Path is simply /. A typical path is /project1/moviein1.