Setting up 24 FLEX V100 R2's

[Ghost_Train]

We're rearranging the studio and mocap cameras over the next few days. We're using a 24 FLEX V100 R2 setup. I was wondering what the best setup would be and what to avoid, etc. How far apart should the cameras be both vertical and horizontal.

[Seth Steiling]

What are the dimensions of your room? How tall of a vertical volume do you want to achieve?

[Ghost_Train]

Well, the room is huge. It's sort of an industrial garage. Way more than enough space either direction. I think the poles we currently have the cameras connected to(3 each) are roughly 10 ft high. We were thinking of moving the area to a corner in the room so 2 sides of the volume would possibly be mounted to the walls. The other sides would still use the poles. We've been using sort of a rectangle shape for the capture area.

[Seth Steiling]

What kind of actions are you looking to capture? How tall of a volume would you like to have? (More volume height comes with a tradeoff of less horizontal volume.)

[Ghost_Train]

What kind of actions?...all kinds?
I need enough room to run about 4 steps
I need enough height to jump 6-8 ft in the air
I need to capture low enough that I can fall on the ground (Ground is tough, I know. Covering dots on the back, hip or legs and it all explodes)

Previously our cameras where setup 25ft(L) by 22ft(W) by 10ft(H)
That gave us a capture volume of roughly 15ft by 10ft by 8ft
Since it was long it had a couple holes where it could not capture.

The cameras positioning was not exactly setup "correctly". \
They were kind of put where ever we could fit them.
Not measured distance between each pole.

So this time around we want to know how to do it right.
So any and all advise for getting it setup would be great.
We've got a lot of capturing to do for our next project.

[Seth Steiling]

I would recommend a 24' x 24' setup, if you have the room for it. The general rule of thumb would be to mount the cameras at the height you want as your max volume height, and then aim straight across. So something like this:



A standard setup would be four cameras in the corners, with the rest mounted equidistant from each other around the sides. The simplest aiming would be to point all toward the center, but a more optimized aiming would be:

- four corner cameras aimed toward the center
- each middle side camera looks straight ahead
- the remaining side cameras are "interpolated" between the center and corner cameras... each one moving away from the corner aimed a little more straight ahead

(If the aiming concept doesn't make sense, let me know and I'll sketch it up for you.)

Something else to consider, if you want more capture volume out of that setup--the 3.5mm lenses, when used with that high of a camera count, can pretty significantly improve your volume size. They are field-swappable, so you could experiment with those lenses alongside a new camera arrangement for the largest possible volume.

[Ghost_Train]

Wow thanks. That's some helpful info.
I will talk to my superiors about considering those other lenses.
It would definitely help and be greatly appreciated if you would sketch up that concept too. I just want to make sure we all understand what you're describing.

Thanks again.

[Seth Steiling]

If you wanted to go with 24 high, I would recommend something like:



If you wanted to go 12 high and 12 low (which might yield a slightly larger volume for this particular camera, due to the R2's relatively low FOV), I would recommend a two tier (top at 10' and bottom at 3' - 5') arrangement like this:

[Ghost_Train]

Oh awesome. Thanks for writing it out for us.
I'm going to

[Ghost_Train]

We have the 4.5mm lenses right now. Would it really be worth it to get the 3.5mm lenses for a 24 x 24 setup?