Tracking overview
Tracking mode is Kitly's matchmove and 2D tracking toolset. It solves camera moves from footage, tracks objects and points, corner-pins images onto surfaces, and exports the results to After Effects and Blender.
Sessions
Work is organized into sessions, listed on the left. Each session pairs a source (footage or a still) with a tracker type. You pick the type when you create the session and it can't change afterward, so choose for the job at hand.
| Type | Badge | What it's for |
|---|---|---|
| Camera Scene | cam | Solving the camera move from a shot, for set extensions, CG integration, and matchmove. Full 3D solve, blockout, and GLB export. |
| Single Point | 1pt | Manual 2D point tracks: screen inserts, stabilization references, tracking data for a comp. No 3D solve. |
| Planar | plane | Tracking a flat surface (a screen, a poster, a wall) and corner-pinning an image onto it. |
| Object | obj | Detecting and following subjects (people, cars, whatever the model knows) with automatic detection boxes. |
Sources
A session starts from one of three source types:
- A video asset. Tracking works on individual frames, so Kitly first extracts them from the video at an fps you choose. Click Extract frames and it runs as a job. Extraction needs FFmpeg installed, see Set up FFmpeg.
- An image sequence already in your project ("New session from image sequence"). No extraction needed, it starts instantly. Tip: the player's "Image Sequence..." tool renders png sequences that feed Tracking directly, see Video tools.
- A still image ("New calibration from image"), for camera calibration only: recover a camera from a single photo, fSpy-style. See Calibration.
The tabs
The center tabs depend on the session type:
- Camera Scene: Frame, Curves, 3D, Calibrate
- Single Point, Object, Planar: Frame, Curves
- Still image: Calibrate, 3D
Frame shows the current frame with tracking overlays. Zoom with the mouse wheel toward the cursor (0.25x to 16x), pan with Space plus drag or the middle mouse button, and refit with F or the zoom percentage button. A scrub slider, previous and next frame buttons, and play round out the transport.
Curves plots values over frame number: per-point position and confidence for point trackers, camera position, rotation, and reprojection error after a solve, one confidence curve per plane or target for planar and object sessions. The playhead stays synced with the Frame tab, so a dip in a curve is one click from the frame that caused it.
Choosing a session type
- Need CG in the shot, matched to the camera? Camera Scene. See Camera tracking.
- Need to replace a phone screen or a billboard? Planar. See Planar and point tracking.
- Need to follow actors or vehicles, or blur and mask moving subjects? Object. See Object tracking.
- Need a couple of clean 2D tracks to paste into After Effects? Single Point. See Planar and point tracking.
- Have a photo and need its camera angle and lens? A still-image calibration session. See Calibration.
When you're done, Exporting tracks covers getting data out.