By Version 2 Image Clarification Tool for Avid Editing Systems Part of the dtective suite of forensic video analysis tools from Ocean Systems User Guide www.oceansystems.com www.dtectivesystem.com
Page 2 Information in this document is subject to change without notice. This software and manual are protected by all applicable copyright laws worldwide. No part of this documentation may be copied or reproduced in any form without prior consent of CLEAReffect. Software and Manual Copyright 2000 by CLEAReffect. All Rights Reserved. All product names mentioned herein are trademarks of thier respective owners. Copyright Information
Table of Contents Page 3 1. INSTALLATION INSTRUCTIONS Loading dveloper 4 Loading the tutorial media.5 Registering dveloper.. 6 2. TUTORIAL Using dveloper... 8 Understanding Frame Averaging....18 3. REFERENCE GUIDE.20 Table of Contents
Installation Instructions Loading dveloper Page 4 dveloper should have loaded into the correct place when you ran the dtective installer. If you do not see dveloper in your effect palette, you may need to manually install it. The dveloper AVX plug-in is located on your C drive, under CLEAReffect\dVeloper (The directories that were added when you double clicked on dveloper.exe). To load dveloper, you must place the dveloper.avx file into your AVX_plugins directory. If you don t know where your AVX-plugins directory is, do a search on your computer for it (Start>find>files or folders). Once dveloper is loaded, start Avid Xpress and look in your effect palette. You should see dveloper V2 in an effect category called CLEAReffect. Installation Instructions - Loading Tutorial Media and dveloper Plug-In
Installation Instructions Loading the Tutorial Media: Page 5 In order to get the tutorial footage on your system, you must import it into your Xpress system. To import the footage, open Xpress and open the dtective tutorials project. Open the dveloper bin and select File>import. Browse to your CLEAReffect/dVeloper directory on your C drive and select the file "dveloper demo sequence.omf". Make sure you import at 2:1 compression. Answer yes to the Master clip conflict found warning. Answering yes will link the Raw Footage master clip with the omf file you are importing. Drag and drop the Raw Footage clip to your timeline (this will create an untitled sequence). Answer yes to the Master clip conflict found warning message Installation Instructions - Loading Tutorial Media and dveloper Plug-In
Registering dveloper Page 6 By default, dveloper loads in demo mode. To unlock dveloper, open the effect palette (toos>effect palette). dveloper can be found in the CLEAReffect category. Next, with the effect palette open, drag the dveloper effect to the Tutorial Footage clip on your timeline, open the effect editor (tools>effect editor), and click the custom UI button. Custom UI Button Installation Instructions - Registering dveloper
Page 7 Now click Register. If you don t have your registration number, you will need to contact Ocean Systems at 1-800- 253-7516. Please have your eight digit Avid serial number ready before calling. The Avid serial number can be found on your Avid dongle. System Requirements In order to use dveloper, you need an Avid system that utilizes Avid s AVX plug in architecture. Installation Instructions - Registering dveloper and System Requirements
Page 8 Tutorial: Using dveloper dveloper is an easy-to-use, powerful AVX plug-in. How you use it depends on what you are trying to achieve. In the following example, we will clarify a shot from a surveillance camera of a truck on a rainy night. Our goal is to bring the detail out of the license plate. Here s the shot we will clarify: Setting up the project You should have already imported the dveloper bin and the footage into your project (see loading tutorial media if you haven t already done so). Drag the Raw Footage clip onto your timeline. dveloper Tutorial - Setting Up the Project
Page 9 Next, open the Effect Pallete (Tools>Effect Pallete), find the CLEAReffect group, and drag and drop dveloper onto your timeline. Your timeline should look like the image below. Next, open the effect editor (tools>effect editor), and click the custom UI button. Custom UI Button dveloper Tutorial - Setting Up the Project
Changing the Effect Mode Page 10 Once in the Custom User Interface, click the mode button. Select green. Selecting green puts your footage in a grayscale mode, and only effects the green channel of your footage. Select Green in the Color Mode drop down menu dveloper Tutorial - Changing the Effect Mode
Adjusting the Region of Interest (ROI) Page 11 Next, adjust the Region of Interest (ROI). Draw a bounding box around the license plate area by clicking and dragging on the image. You will see a red box appear that can be resized as you drag. To resize click the small handles and drag. The ROI box tells dveloper the area of the video you are interested in clarifying. dveloper Tutorial - Adjusting the Region of Interest
Using the Auto Button Page 12 Next, click the Auto button. With the Auto button, dveloper does the work for us and determines the best settings to clarify the video. Click the Save button to see a list of the settings dveloper has made. This list can be copied and pasted (as a.txt document, for example) for later reference. Click ok to exit the dveloper effect editor. dveloper Tutorial - Using the Auto Button
Adding Frame Averaging Page 13 Now that you are out of the dveloper editor and back into the first level dveloper Effect Editor, open the Frame Averaging drop down options. Our footage is 100 frames long, and we want to average all the frames in the footage, so change the Frame Averaging setting to 100. Your dveloper V2 effect editor should look like the image below: Note: you can highlight the slider and use your keyboard to input adjustments. For example, highlight the Frame Averaging slider and type in 100. dveloper Tutorial - Adding Frame Averaging
Previewing Your Effect Page 14 Does your image look like this? For a quick preview of your effect, Click ok in the dveloper editor, then use the arrow keys on your keyboard to advance your video. You may think you ve done something wrong, as your image now looks a whole lot worse! Don t worry, this is perfectly normal. With your Composer window selected, use the arrow keys on your keyboard to advance about 20 frames. Notice the changes taking place? These tools provide quick and very powerful results. You will notice detail showing up immediately by simply sliding the controls. dveloper Tutorial - Previewing Your Effect
Adding Sharpness and Saving Settings Page 15 You can further enhance your video using the Sharpen controls. Sharpen will bring further detail out of the edges of the pixels in your footage. In our example, we don t need to add any sharpness, so no changes are necessary. Your dveloper effect editor should look like the image below: Drag and drop the plug-in icon to your dveloper bin to save your settings That s all the settings we will need to adjust to clarify this image. If you like your settings, you can save them by dragging the plug-in icon to your dveloper bin. dveloper Tutorial - Adding Sharpness and Saving Settings
Rendering Your Effect Page 16 Click the render button. Once the effect is rendered, play your timeline. The last frame in your video should look like the image below: Five out of the Six digits on the license plate can now be read! WS-910 can clearly be made out. Here s a closeup of our enhanced license plate: dveloper Tutorial - Rendering Your Effect
Understanding dveloper s Settings Page 17 You will probably use the Auto button 90% of the time that you use dveloper, but it is still important to understand the various settings. First lets look at the Histogram. The Histogram looks at your footage and maps out all the values along a 0-255 tonal scale (where 0 is full black and 255 is full white). By adjusting any of the three sliders you can adjust the tonal values that dveloper will output when rendering. You will notice the histogram changes when you change your Region of Interest. Black Gray White Dragging the sliders will quickly adjust the tonal values dveloper will output when rendering To the right of the Histogram you will find more settings. The white, gray and black settings correlate directly to the histogram by giving you the actual numbered tonal values (0-255). These numbers can also be changed by highlighting and typing. Next, there is the Auto button and the Reset button. You ve already learned about the Auto button. The reset button will reset any changes you make to your histogram. Finally, there is the Gamma Tension adjuster. Gamma Tension correlates directly with the blue line that runs from left to right, bottom to top in the histogram. The blue line represents the tonal values that are being output by dveloper. If you drag any of the level sliders in the histogram and watch the blue line as you do so, you will notice that certain values are being clipped and removed from the output of the video. The Gamma Tension adjuster lets you bring those values and details back into the image. dveloper Tutorial - Understanding dveloper s Settings
Page 18 How Frame Averaging Works So how exactly does dveloper's frame averaging work? Unlike most other video effects which operate on a single frame of video at a time, dveloper combines the information from a user definable number of frames before the current frame and averages the pixel values together to generate an averaged frame. For example, As you begin to average the footage with a Frame Averaging setting of 3, Frame 1 will equal Frame 1. Frame 2 will equal Frames 1 and 2 combined (averaged). Frame 3 will equal Frames 1, 2, and 3 averaged. Frame 4 will equal Frames 2, 3, and 4 combined and so on. See the chart below for a graphical explanation. dveloper Tutorial - How Frame Averaging Works
Page 19 Frame Averaging is designed mainly for fairly steady shots. Mounted camera shots are ideal. For example, a suspect looks at the camera for a few seconds and you need to average out those frames to add detail. Applying Frame Averaging to footage with a lot of motion produces ghost images. The general rule is the steadier the footage, the more frames you can select to average. You can preview your effect by highlighting the Avid Composer Window and using the arrow keys on your keyboard. You will see the results of the averaging as you advance the position bar. You can select different points in your footage and use the arrow keys too. If you press the right arrow key, you will see the results of the averaging. If you press the left arrow key, the results are reset. If you like the results of a single frame, you can mark an in and out point, then export the image without having to render. If your footage involves a moving object you will want to set your Frame Averaging to a very low level. If your surveillance footage includes a static object, such as our license plate example, set Averaging to a very high level. Based on the results you have achieved in this tutorial, you can now use dveloper to enhance and clarify your own images. dveloper Tutorial - How Frame Averaging Works
dveloper Reference Guide Page 20 dveloper is an AVX plug-in for Avid nonlinear editing systems. The dveloper AVX plug-in is designed for forensic video analysis. dveloper provides the user with key image clarification and enhancement tools such as gamma correction, brightness, contrast, and several monochrome filters. Also, it allows the user to apply a process called image averaging to an entire segment of video. By averaging the values of a user-definable number of frames, video graininess and dropouts can often be nearly eliminated. This technique is very effective on video that was recorded in low light or with the use of night vision technology. Overview dveloper has several controls that can be used individually or in conjunction with one another to clean up your footage. The following is a quick overview of these controls. Frame Averaging Frame Averaging is a user-defined setting that tells dveloper how many frames to examine when averaging. This is how it works. For example, you have set the Frame Averaging slider bar to 5. Averaging works by looking at a set number of frames (in this case, 5) and doing an average of the pixel values of those five frames. The end result is footage with greatly enhanced detail. If you have a piece of video with a lot of motion, you will see ghosting. dveloper Reference Guide
Modes Page 21 dveloper allows you to adjust your footage in six different modes: RGB, Average, Luminance, Red, Green, and Blue. RGB is the full color mode. You can enhance your video while still keeping it in full color. This is the only mode that outputs color. Average is a grayscale conversion that looks at the RGB values and creates an average of the three values. For example, if you have a pixel with the values R=200, G=25, and B=50, the average value is 92. This value represents the level of gray where a value of 256 is full white. Luminance is a grayscale conversion that bases your adjustments on the luminance values of each pixel. Red, Green, and Blue is a grayscale conversion that converts either the R, G, or B value to a grayscale value. Working Inside the dveloper Effect Editor The dveloper Effect Editor is where you clarify your footage. Using the Region of Interest bounding box and the Auto button you can significantly clarify dark footage. Also found in the dveloper Effect Editor are settings for adjusting the white, gray and black values, as well as a histogram and a save button which lets you copy and paste the various settings for archival purposes. dveloper Reference Guide
Terminology Page 22 Reset ROI - Reset Region of Interest. If you are unhappy with your bounding box the Reset ROI button will restore the default ROI setting. Histogram - The Histogram looks at your footage and maps out all the values along a 0-255 tonal scale (where 0 is full black and 255 is full white). By adjusting any of the three sliders you can adjust the tonal values that dveloper will output when rendering. Auto - Pushing the Auto button tells dveloper you want it to automatically figure out the best settings for a section of video you have defined using your ROI bounding box. Gamma Tension - You can think about the "height" (Y-axis) in the histogram as representing the output level.. the value left to right (X-axis) as the input level. The line represents where each level is mapped. That is why the line is always at the bottom at the black marker, at the middle at the gray marker and at the top at the white marker. The line represents all those points and values in between. All levels to the left of the black marker are mapped to black and all levels above the white marker are mapped to white. Basically, these levels are "clipped" beyond the bounds of imaging and any detail that might have fallen within those brightness ranges will be lost in either an all black or all white area. By default the blue line in the histogram settings defaults to a smooth curve fit between 3 points, one at the bottom, one in the middle and one to the right. Since the gray marker always defaults to being in the middle between the white and black markers, these 3 points start-out describing a straight line, irregardless of the tension setting. Now, move the gray marker to the left. As you move the marker further and further to the left, you will see that the curve fit actually "tops out" and flattens to the right of the gray marker. This is indicating that those levels are being mapped to white and thus being clipped. Now, as you increase tension, you will see the two line segments (from black-gray and gray-white) flatten out and the area's that had clipped to white will decrease.. thus bringing the detail in those areas back into the image. dveloper Reference Guide
By Image Clarification Tool for Avid Editing Systems