I have always thought about this, and wondered what yall thought. When I do a movie I thought about getting a motion tracking kit to track the movement of my camera rather than having to use some kind of camera tracking software. How well do you think this would be?
What do You mean with “motion tracking kit” ?
A 2D motion tracker ?
If yes, then it really depends on the element You want to comp into Your live footage whether You use a 2D motion tracker or a 3D camera tracker.
I am meaning the rig of cameras in real life, with the balls or patches that, get the position of the different balls in a 3d space.
So sorry what I meant to say was Camera Tracking from Object Tracking… like this: http://www.naturalpoint.com/optitrack/index.html
And have the camera as the object that is being tracked…
Ok. I see.
What You mean is called Motion Capture.
I visited the link You posted and must say at the first glance it looks very promising because it seems to be very inexpensive and easy to use, but keep in mind that You have to write Your own software for it since they only deliver You the SDK and a very simple test software.
I dont know if You are a good programmer, but I think it is very difficult to write a good motion capture software for that system.
Also if You set up such a system, You have to calibrate that, and for an unexperienced person that also is very tricky and takes time.
We used a similar motion capture system for in a project a couple of years ago and there we had 3 specialized guys who were only there to operate the system.
If You only want to extract the camera motion, then it is absolutely no alternative to a 3D camera tracking software.
But I like Your idea of somehow capture the movement of a camera while shooting.
A much more economic way of approaching this would be to use a VR tracker which is mounted on top of the camera. I worked in a project, where we did this with a tracker which is normally used in a CAVE environment, but again someone had to write a software to convert the captured data and he was a very very good programmer.
If You are interested, here are some examples of such trackers:
These two are for orientation only:
http://www.cwonline.com/store/view_product.asp?Product=1209
http://www.polhemus.com/minuteman.htm
And this one is the real thing:
http://www.polhemus.com/libertylatus.htm
Thanks… yeah I forgot that it was motion capture. Also the link I gave, was nice, but was mostly just to show that it was motion capture… I am no where near a good programer… at least not at that level…
I mean, even if I bought an already set up system, with code and all… I thought blender already had a motion capture… so to say… in it??? does it?
My only other idea, and could even be used in combination with this, is to have a Motion Control Rig. I don’t have a site example, but in like star wars and other movies, it is used to do a camera sequence, and then be able to, somehow, have the rig repeat that exact same movement automatically. I don’t know if that data that it uses could be, like just downloaded onto a computer as the motion capture data… but it would be interesting to look into…
Also your links were pretty good too.
I always have just wanted to have like a GPS tracker on an object, and it store the movement data, without having to have the sensing cameras or software on a computer, but it to just know the position when you start and stop recording…
Even if You buy a complete system including all necessary software, You have to set the cameras up. That means You have to place the cameras, messure the exact distance and angle, correct the placement, measure again, correct the placement …
That takes time and experience.
By the way in this case a motion capture suit would be more practical than a optical motion capture system.
Check this out:
http://www.metamotion.com/gypsy/gypsy-motion-capture-system-mocap.htm
It would be more cheap to rent a mocap studio inclusive operators. So You dont need to care about anything.
Just sit there, drink coffee and tell the other people that they have to do. 
They then provide You a file with the stored motion capture data, which You can import into Blender.
I dont know if someone ever connected Blender to a motion capture system, so that You can capture the data directly into Blender.
But maybe someone somewhere did it !?
The other technique You mentioned is called Motion Control.
You can transfer data from the motion control into any 3D package and vice versa. For instance if You have a 3D camera in Blender, You can export the camera motion to the motion control, and it will do exactly the same movement in reality.
BUT !
Unless You are very rich, it will be too expensive for You.
The rent for the most simple motorized motion control rig is about 4000,- Euros or 5000,- Dollars PER DAY !
Your idea is good, but if it would be so easy, people would do it all around the world, no one would ever use a camera tracking software, but unfortunatelly a camera tracking software in most cases is the most easy way to get 3D camera movements.
If you only want to track the motion of your camera, motion tracking software is the way to go. If you want to capture human movement to use on a 3d character mo-cap is what you require.
Re tracking software http://www.digilab.uni-hannover.de/docs/manual.html
Its free!
Thanks for all the good info…
Luminansky: I will have to look more at the link you gave, but it looks good too.
Roy: The voodo camera tracker is good, but I have had problems with it sometimes, and also it is for non-commercial use…
I know of no free for commercial use camera trackers… now if yall know of any that would be great… or if blender will ever finally get a tracker built into it that would be better…
Yeah I have seen SynthEyes before it is very very impresive, and thought about getting it, but I do not really need it right now… so I am waiting to see if there will be any other free programs or if blender will come with the capability…
If not then I will probably get it…
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There’s a blender-brunch for real-time tracking: http://www.ai.fh-erfurt.de/mitarbeiter-innen/professorinnen/dr-paul-grimm/gdv/ar-blender/ i installed it once and did the tutorial, but never used it for any serious work. i don’t know how usefull it would be for your goals, but it’s hopefully worth the link. happy blending!
yeah I saw arblender, but could never goto the page…I could now… I will have to try it and see how it does…