Camera Tracking & Solving
PFTrack’s solver is the core of the application, an iterative optimisation engine that refines camera position, orientation, focal length, and lens distortion parameters until the 3D solution converges to sub-pixel accuracy.
Auto Track with ML-accelerated feature matching
User Track for manual precision
Camera and Survey Solver
Object tracking
Automatically detect and track hundreds of features across a shot. The machine-learning feature matching engine, introduced in the 2024 releases, adapts to motion blur, low contrast, fast camera movement, and partial occlusion more robustly than traditional correlation-based trackers. A new Localised Motion Prediction algorithm adapts to different motion types within the same shot.
When automation isn’t enough, reflective surfaces, extreme motion blur, or shots with very few trackable features, PFTrack’s manual tracking tools give the artist direct control. Updated editing tools in the Cinema workspace allow track grouping, direct adjustment, and per-point refinement without leaving the viewport.
PFTrack’s Camera Solver takes tracked features and computes the 3D camera path, scene point cloud, and lens parameters simultaneously. The Survey Solver adds known real-world measurements and constraints for higher accuracy. Both solvers now include a parameter refinement toolset giving direct control over which camera and lens parameters are adjusted during convergence, essential for complex multi-pass solves on difficult shots.
Track rigid and deformable objects moving within the shot. Geometry-based object tracking uses a 3D model to lock onto a moving element, producing accurate motion data for downstream roto, FX attachment, and CG replacement workflows.
Hero Cloud
When reference photography wasn’t shot.
Every matchmove team has the moment: the plates arrive, reference photography wasn’t captured, and a set extension brief is on your desk. PFTrack’s photogrammetry workflow reconstructs a measured 3D point cloud directly from the plate you’ve already tracked, giving you useful scene information without requiring dedicated reference photography. Use it for set extensions, CG integration and lighting reference, train Gaussian splats in Postshot, or create a textured mesh with Photo Mesh, now available to Solo users as well as Studio and Enterprise.
Precision Lens Distortion Calibration
Accurate lens distortion is essential for convincing VFX. Even a well-tracked CG element can look wrong if it doesn’t follow the subtle optical characteristics of the original lens. PFTrack gives you the tools to analyse, model and deliver distortion accurately, from standard spherical lenses to complex anamorphic workflows.
Advanced anamorphic models
Automatic distortion calibration
Robust grid detection
Flexible ST-map workflows
Handle the complex optical behaviour of anamorphic lenses, including non-uniform distortion that varies across the image. PFTrack’s advanced anamorphic model generates accurate presets for a wide range of lenses, helping you achieve reliable results without building a model from scratch.
Let PFTrack determine the most appropriate distortion model for your footage. Smart distortion calibration analyses your grid shots and selects the best-fitting model automatically, reducing trial and error while giving you a reliable starting point for production work.
Getting clean distortion data starts with a reliable grid solve. PFTrack’s grid detection algorithm handles a wide range of single- and multi-level grid shots, including grids from different sources, making calibration faster and more dependable when your reference footage isn’t perfectly uniform.
Move easily between distorted and undistorted image space with bidirectional ST-map workflows. Generate maps for compositing, move between applications without losing your lens model, and maintain consistent distortion throughout the VFX pipeline.
Production-ready lens data
Accurate camera and sensor calibration
Keep lens information organised and ready for the rest of your pipeline. PFTrack’s Lens Management system lets you export distortion data directly to supported applications such as Nuke and Maya, reducing manual setup and helping ensure every department is working from the same lens information.
Lens distortion is only part of accurate camera calibration. PFTrack’s Camera Sensor Database provides verified sensor metadata for thousands of camera models, helping establish the correct physical camera parameters from the beginning and reducing the risk of scale, focal length and distortion mismatches later in the shot.
Photogrammetry & Scene Reconstruction
Turn tracked footage and reference imagery into a measured 3D representation of the real world. PFTrack combines camera tracking, photogrammetry, surveying and scene reconstruction in a single node-based workflow, letting you recover spatial data without moving between separate applications. Build dense point clouds, textured meshes and accurately solved cameras for set extensions, environment reconstruction, CG integration and lighting.
Photo Survey
Reconstruct complex environments from hundreds of photographs or video frames using ML-accelerated feature matching. PFTrack produces dense, accurate point clouds while efficiently handling large datasets, giving you a detailed 3D foundation from stills, handheld footage or aerial imagery. Reconstruct from the imagery you have, without requiring a dedicated survey workflow.
Hero Cloud
Reconstruct useful 3D scene information directly from the plate you have already tracked, even when no reference photography or LiDAR was captured. Hero Cloud generates a measured point cloud from the camera move, providing scene geometry for set extensions, CG integration and lighting reference, with further options for Gaussian splat and textured reconstruction workflows.
LiDAR-Aided Camera Solving
Combine image-based tracking with measured survey data for precise camera and scene alignment. Import LiDAR scans, align them to your tracked camera and use real-world geometry to validate the solve, giving you an accurate spatial foundation when CG, environments and virtual cameras need to match the physical world.
Production-Ready Spatial Data
Use your reconstruction as more than an export. Point clouds and geometry can solve additional cameras into the same scene, keeping multiple shots aligned to a common spatial reference. Build textured geometry and export cameras and scene data in USD, FBX, OBJ, Alembic and PLY for Maya, Nuke, Houdini, Blender, Cinema 4D and Unreal Engine.
Who Uses PFTrack Data in the VFX Pipeline
PFTrack sits at the start of the VFX pipeline, but its output feeds every department downstream. Understanding who consumes PFTrack’s spatial data, and how, is key to understanding why it matters to the entire facility, not just the matchmove team:
Matchmove artists
Compositors
Environment and lighting artists
Layout and previs teams
The primary operators, building tracking setups in PFTrack’s node graph, solving cameras, and delivering camera data and scene geometry to the pipeline. PFTrack’s node-based workflow, ML-accelerated tracking, and solver precision are designed to make this work faster and more accurate.
Receive tracked cameras, lens distortion models, and undistorted plates from PFTrack. Accurate camera data is the foundation of every CG integration shot, if the track is wrong, nothing downstream can be right. PFTrack’s lens distortion pipeline (including ST-map workflows and the Lens Management export system) delivers distortion data directly into Nuke and other compositing tools.
Use PFTrack’s photogrammetry and scene reconstruction output as the basis for digital set extensions, matte paintings, and lighting reference. Dense point clouds and textured meshes from PFTrack provide accurate scene geometry and real-world surface data that inform light placement, shadow direction, and reflection setup.
Use PFTrack’s solved cameras and scene geometry to build accurate 3D representations of live-action plates. This enables CG element placement, virtual camera planning, and sequence previews that match the physical shoot precisely, long before final compositing begins.
VFX supervisors
Pipeline TDs
Rely on PFTrack at a strategic level: ensuring tracking data is consistent across a show, verifying that on-set data (LiDAR, witness cameras, metadata) aligns with post-production solves, and using PFTrack’s photogrammetry for set surveys and reference capture. The node-based workflow provides an audit trail that supervisors can review and approve.
Integrate PFTrack into the studio’s production pipeline using the Python API, CLI, and macro scripting. Automated shot setup, batch solve submission, export to shot management systems (ShotGrid, ftrack), and standardised node graph templates ensure tracking workflows are consistent and scalable across hundreds of shots.
PFTrack for an Artist, a Team or a Facility
Start by downloading Solo. If you manage a team and need licences to move between computers, explore PFTrack Studio. If you have security, network, offline, infrastructure or multi-site requirements, click to understand more about PFTrack Enterprise.
PFTrack Solo
For an individual
One artist on one computer at a time, licensed online directly in application. Buy a week, a month, or own it outright.
Common Questions
No. Camera tracking is a core capability, but PFTrack combines tracking with lens calibration, reconstruction, photogrammetry, scene geometry and other spatial workflows in one node-based application.
Yes. Solo is the individual-user creative PFTrack deployment. With access to the complete Photogrammetry pipeline.
Choose Studio when licences need to move between team members or authorised workstations, or when command-line and pipeline automation are required.
Choose Enterprise when licensing must operate inside facility infrastructure, particularly for offline, air-gapped, multi-site or PFBucket deployments.