Request help for extreme newbie

H
Posted By
hlm1249
Nov 21, 2003
Views
401
Replies
5
Status
Closed
I’ve been told that Photoshop will solve my problem, but before I buy it I’d like to find out the opinion of you expert users.
I want to click on successive video frames and save the pixel coordinates corresponding to the position of the cursor.
Is this possible with Photoshop? How difficult is it to do for a non-programmer?

How to Improve Photoshop Performance

Learn how to optimize Photoshop for maximum speed, troubleshoot common issues, and keep your projects organized so that you can work faster than ever before!

PH
Photo_Help
Nov 21, 2003
Could you be a little more descriptive. Based on what you have said I would say the answer is Probably not. And very difficult.

Photoshop will display pixel coordinates under info for a single image while you are working on it. But it sounds like you want to run some sort of batch job with a great deal of automation.

My guess is that you are tracking the movement of something. It sounds like you would be better off with video editing software that has some sort of motion tracking capabilities that can export the tracking data as well.
H
hlm1249
Nov 21, 2003
You are correct. I have DV video of a device that is undergoing a fairly complex motion, and would like to track its position frame by frame. If I can get a pixel output from each frame, I can process the data to generate velocity and acceleration of the object.
I have been totally unsuccessful in finding any software that can do this. I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions.
PH
Photo_Help
Nov 21, 2003
hlm1249,

Unfortunately I don’t know what software would work best for you. There are several 3D modeling\Animation programs that I am familiar with that track motion. unfortunately they all use the tracking data to make sure the virtual camera matched the position of the original camera or to aid in animating other objects.

I did a quick search using google and found Itronix <http://www.itronx.com/>. Take a look at page 3 here <http://www.itronx.com/pdf/midas_2.0.pdf>.

Here <http://www.channld.com/spid.html> is another site, but it looks like they only have Mac versions available so you would have to run an emulator if you don’t have access to a Mac.

Hopefully this will help you to find something that will work for you. You may even try contacting a few college Physics professors that may already be using software like this.
M
Mr3
Nov 21, 2003
If you are tracking a single point…

Use the X,Y as the file name.

in depth <<<<<<<<<<

Open a series of frames – say the first 30 frames

Go to frame one
Locate your point of interest with the cursor set to Precise (toggle Caps Lock)
Read the X,Y to whatever precision is useful
Shift+Control+S (File Save As) Type in the X,Y
Control+W (File Close)
Repeat with frame two….

When done you will have your X,Y points available as a directory list

If you are in the Windows environment…

Open a DOS Window
Navigate to your X,Y files directory
execute the following DIR command

dir /on /b > xy.txt

This command will create a text file named xy.txt that contains a sorted list of xy file names.

From here you have several options…
Import into Excel, clip the file extension, parse the remaining into X and Y, run your calcs or export X,Y data for use by another program.

or

Open in Word,
Search and Replace file extension with "", (deletes the extension) Search and Replace "," (comma) with ^t (tab)
Save as X,Y.TXT for use by another program as Tab Delimited data. or
Search and Replace file extension with "",
Save as X,Y.CSV for use by another program as Comma Separated Values data.

Hope this workaround is useful

Mr3

wrote in message
You are correct. I have DV video of a device that is undergoing a fairly
complex motion, and would like to track its position frame by frame. If I can get a pixel output from each frame, I can process the data to generate velocity and acceleration of the object.
I have been totally unsuccessful in finding any software that can do this.
I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions.
JS
John_Slate
Nov 21, 2003
Well, the info palette in Photoshop does show you the coordinates of your cursor relative to the top left of the file in pixels or inches or whatever.

As far as saving those values and manipulating them to perform any type of calculations, that’s another thing.

Master Retouching Hair

Learn how to rescue details, remove flyaways, add volume, and enhance the definition of hair in any photo. We break down every tool and technique in Photoshop to get picture-perfect hair, every time.

Related Discussion Topics

Nice and short text about related topics in discussion sections