Shotcut (or other) : some auto tracking insteaf of manual? which oss/unix software to use for free?

[hd99]

Hi

I have videos, and PNG images ; Im looking for a way to track a PNG image regarding a specific moving point on a video. I saw how to do some manual tracking on shotcut, but it have two disadvantages :
it requires to be very patient, and it looks like a certain late where some other software does this since over fifteen years
it is made handly, and for moving objects Im very bad to hook them to a point of a video, and to make it follow that point on several images… it’s very shaking, not accurate at all with my little hand/fingers…

Id like to know how to do some autotracking easily with oss software, running unix (and more), as possible?

I thank you vm!

[Elusien]

This is on Shotcut’s roadmap, but there is no timeframe:

• add motion tracking via OpenCV

Shotcut - Road Map

[MusicalBox]

Hi @hd99
Until montion tracking is available in Shotcut, here are a few tips that can help when you do manual motion tracking.

Don’t use a small PNG file as the object that follows a point on your video.
Instead integrate this small PNG on a transparent background the size of your project.
Use an image editor to do this (like Photoshop, Gimp or Photopea for example).
In the image editor, create a transparent image the size of your project (1920x1080 for example), drag your PNG image in the center and export as a new 1920x1080 PNG with transparency.

As a result, in Shotcut, instead of this:

you will work with this:

No rectangle (or square) border in the way. I agree this is not a huge advantage, but in some situations, it helps.

Also, you can temporarily add an opacity filter to your PNG image. Set it to around 50% or 60% and you get this:

It help a lot to position your PNG on the same spot at each keyframe.

Two examples of motion tracking done manually, and quickly, using these tips:

[david.lyon]

I’m working on an OpenCV tracking system for Shotcut. Because of other commitments I can only work on it a few hours per week.

I’m hoping to get it finished and released by the end of the year.