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J
jakob270685
Participant
May 15, 2018
Answered

Exporting tracking data in excel-friendly format?

  • May 15, 2018
  • 4 replies
  • 4015 views

Hi,

I'm planning to record some footage of users interacting with a physical product (not software). The users are asked to hold the product fairly steady, but I need to track their movements (camera position and angle is fixed). I plan to put 3-4 small points on the product visible to a camera. I'm hoping After Effects can help track those points and export some usable information in eg. csv or some other excel friendly format. It could be the position of the points relative to each other or a fixed point in space, or the distance between the points. If I get the data I can calculate what I need from there.

My question is if this is even remotely possible in After Effects? The alternative is to find some other software to use (any ideas?). I'm new to After Effects but have worked with other Adobe products for many years, and have the CC suite available.

Thanks!

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Correct answer Rick Gerard

    This is what copied and pasted position keyframes look like when you copy and paste to excel:

    You will have to do each tracked property individually and AE's tracker puts a keyframe on every frame, then you'll have to edit the spreadsheets to get something that is easier to understand. Nothing to it but to turn that data into meaningful graphs you'll need some fairly decent EXCEL chops.

    That motion path is curved by the way and there was a bunch of easing applied to the path. None of that comes through when you copy and paste keyframes to s spreadsheet so a motion graph of that movement would generate a straight line between frames. The only way to get the curve if you don't have a keyframe on every frame is to add a simple expression. Just start an expression then type value. Then use the keyframe assistant to convert the expression to keyframes and you'll get a description of the curve in the spreadsheet.

    You can not get any usable data by copying and pasting mask or shape path keyframes.

    4 replies

    J
    jakob270685Author
    Participant
    May 16, 2018

    Thanks for all the great information!

    My goal is not to create a new video or any other digital output. It is solely to get some data on the angles and movement of the product. If I can get some numbers / position information from After Effects I can calculate what I need in Excel (I'm not concerned about my Excel skills in this regard). If I can get a set of keypoint data (e.g. X and Y coordinates for each tracking point) for each keyframe like Rick Gerard has shown here then I'm set! I don't want a curve or anything like it. Just the keyframe-by-keyframe coordinates. From that I think I can calculate what I need (reference distances, angles etc can be calculated based on this information).

    So if I record the video I can go in and add tracking to the four points and keyframes for e.g. every 5 frames, it can output something similar to Ricks spreadsheet with coordinates for each point at each keyframe? I don't know how to do it yet, but if I know it can be done I'm willing to dive into it and learn!

    Thank you!

    Mylenium
    Mylenium
    Legend
    May 15, 2018

    What Roland suggested - simply paste the keyframe data. If you need more extensive processing, consider buying mochaPro or another commercial tracking app like Syntheyes that offer way more custom export formats.

    Mylenium

    Roland Kahlenberg
    Roland Kahlenberg
    Legend
    May 15, 2018

    Any property's value(s) can be copied and pasted into a Word/Excel document.

    Very Advanced After Effects Training | Adaptive & Responsive Toolkits | Intelligent Design Assets (IDAs) | MoGraph Design System DEV
    R
    Community Expert
    Rick GerardCommunity ExpertCorrect answer
    Community Expert
    May 15, 2018

    This is what copied and pasted position keyframes look like when you copy and paste to excel:

    You will have to do each tracked property individually and AE's tracker puts a keyframe on every frame, then you'll have to edit the spreadsheets to get something that is easier to understand. Nothing to it but to turn that data into meaningful graphs you'll need some fairly decent EXCEL chops.

    That motion path is curved by the way and there was a bunch of easing applied to the path. None of that comes through when you copy and paste keyframes to s spreadsheet so a motion graph of that movement would generate a straight line between frames. The only way to get the curve if you don't have a keyframe on every frame is to add a simple expression. Just start an expression then type value. Then use the keyframe assistant to convert the expression to keyframes and you'll get a description of the curve in the spreadsheet.

    You can not get any usable data by copying and pasting mask or shape path keyframes.

      Dave_LaRonde
      Dave_LaRonde
      Inspiring
      May 15, 2018

      Normally tracking is done AND used within After Effects.  Short of using the tracking in a 3D application, I can't think of a reason to do what you want.

      Can you give details on what your ultimate use for this data would be?  We may be able to suggest easier alternatives.

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