Overview

Vismetrix adds a main Vismetrix panel to Blender’s Scene properties and a Vismetrix Referencing panel to the Movie Clip Editor. It is built around importing image or movie clips, assigning cameras and calibration profiles, referencing matching 2D tracks across clips, and solving camera poses, lens calibration, and 3D reconstruction data.

The extension supports a licensed editing/solving mode and a viewer mode. When Vismetrix is not unlocked, solving and editing controls are disabled, while status and viewing workflows remain available.

Main Workflows

• Clip import: import still images or movies as Blender movie clips and create or reuse matching scene cameras.
• Calibration management: create calibration profiles, assign them to clips, edit lens and distortion values, and choose which parameters are solved.
• Single-camera solve: run a quick solve for the active camera on the current frame.
• Video solve: solve the active camera across the scene frame range and keyframe successful location and rotation results.
• Bundle adjustment: solve multiple cameras and repeated 2D track names together, with optional camera calibration optimization.
• Post-alignment: align solved bundles to a target origin, scale distance, and primary/secondary world axes.
• Dense reconstruction: export a COLMAP workspace and optionally run COLMAP dense reconstruction from known poses.
• Ray reconstruction: store rays through the 3D cursor and solve their best-fit 3D intersection.
• Object fitting: fit an active object from 2D marker data for one frame or across video.

Panels and Tabs

Clips and Calibrations

Shows imported clips with thumbnails, clip selection controls, solve-state controls, timing settings for videos, and calibration profile assignment. This tab also includes calibration creation/removal and detailed lens/distortion editing.

Solver

Contains quick solve, video solve, bundle adjustment, post-alignment, COLMAP dense reconstruction, pixel aspect application, object fitting, ray reconstruction, and status/results controls.

UI

Controls synchronization between 2D and 3D markers, 3D overlays, 2D overlays, timeline RMS overlays, image overlay settings, viewport capture, referencing mode, edge mode, and helper actions for active objects.

Movie Clip Editor: Vismetrix Referencing

Provides referencing guidance and surface projection controls while tracking clips in the Movie Clip Editor.

Major Features

• Imports image and movie files as Vismetrix clips.
• Reads still-image EXIF focal length and sensor information when available.
• Creates individual or shared calibration profiles during import.
• Supports Brown-Conrady and polynomial distortion models.
• Solves camera location, rotation, focal length, principal point, pixel aspect, and distortion terms depending on profile settings.
• Offers robust least-squares loss choices, including linear, soft L1, Huber, Cauchy, and arctan.
• Provides regularization, finite-difference, and parameter-scale controls for advanced solves.
• Shows residuals, points, point names, edges, image overlays, and timeline RMS/marker-data overlays.
• Supports referencing mode for reusing track names across clips and edge mode for storing track-to-track edges.
• Projects selected Movie Clip tracks through solved cameras onto assigned mesh surfaces.
• Captures the viewport as a single frame or animation.
• Includes companion export workflows for Metashape, Blocks Exchange XML, undistorted media, and COLMAP.

Basic Usage

1. Install and enable the extension.
2. Open Scene Properties > Vismetrix.
3. Enter the subscription serial number in the add-on preferences and click Register if solving/editing features are needed.
4. Use the Clips and Calibrations tab to import images or movies.
5. Create or assign calibration profiles for the imported clips.
6. Track or reference matching 2D markers in the Movie Clip Editor.
7. Run Quick Solve, Quick Solve Video, or Full Solve from the panel.
8. Use residual overlays and status output to inspect solve quality.
9. Export cameras, undistorted images, Blocks Exchange XML, or a COLMAP workspace as needed.

Import and Export

Import Clips

Imports image or movie files, creates/reuses cameras, initializes clip timing, and optionally applies EXIF intrinsics.

Cameras for Metashape

Exports solved cameras as FBX camera objects prepared for Metashape workflows.

Blocks Exchange XML

Exports camera, tie point, and measurement data to Blocks Exchange XML, with configurable image extension and relative paths.

Undistorted Images

Exports undistorted still images as PNG, JPEG, TIFF, or OpenEXR. Video clips are exported as undistorted frame sequences.

COLMAP Workspace

Exports a known-pose COLMAP workspace, including selected or all valid clips, and can clear/rebuild the workspace.

Run COLMAP Dense Reconstruction

Runs COLMAP dense reconstruction using the configured COLMAP executable and workspace settings.

Calibration and Undistortion

Calibration profiles store lens and distortion settings, solve toggles, and undistortion options. Parameters include focal length, pixel aspect, principal point coordinates, radial distortion terms K1, K2, K3, and Brown-Conrady tangential terms P1 and P2.

Presets are available for pose-only solving and full calibration solving. Undistortion settings include scale, undistorted focal length, and output region width/height.

Menus and Shortcuts

• File > Export > Vismetrix: exports Metashape cameras, Blocks Exchange XML, undistorted images, and COLMAP workspaces.
• Movie Clip Editor > Vismetrix: includes point renaming tools.
• 3D View > Vismetrix: includes point renaming tools.
• Semicolon: toggles active camera background images.
• Quote: toggles the Vismetrix image overlay.
• Movie Clip Editor left click: used by referencing and edge modes when those modes are enabled.
• Escape: exits referencing or edge mode interactions.

Licensing

Vismetrix is free to use for reviewing existing work.

Purchasing a license grants access to the cloud-compute server used for camera solutions and unlocks editing tools.

Permissions

Files

Import and export clips, cameras, images, and workspaces.

Network

Check license status and send solve requests to the cloud-compute sever.

Notes

• NumPy, SciPy, and Pillow are required for the full extension workflow; Pillow and SciPy wheels are bundled by platform.
• COLMAP dense reconstruction requires a COLMAP executable, either on PATH or configured in the Solver tab.