Hybrid Tours: A Clip-based System for Authoring Long-take Touring Shots

Abstract: Long-take touring (LTT) shots are characterized by smooth camera motion over a long distance that seamlessly connects different views of the captured scene. These shots offer a compelling way to visualize 3D spaces. However, filming LTT shots directly is very difficult, and rendering them based on a virtual reconstruction of a scene is resource-intensive and prone to many visual artifacts. We propose Hybrid Tours, a hybrid approach to creating LTT shots that combines the capture of short clips representing potential tour segments with a custom interactive application that lets users filter and combine these segments into longer camera trajectories. We show that Hybrid Tours makes capturing LTT shots much easier than the traditional single-take approach, and that clip-based authoring and reconstruction leads to higher-fidelity results at a lower cost than common image-based rendering workflows.

Paper | Website