DNG ramper, stabelizer, and (rough) rendering engine

Started by chadat23, February 04, 2020, 10:20:00 PM

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chadat23

Here's an app that I'm writing for deflickering, ramping, and stabilizing DNG files that are part of a timelapse. It does this by editing embedded Lightroom data.

The app has a similar workflow to LRTimelapse but with a few key differences. Instead of working with Lightroom sidecar files, it directly edits the xmp data that's in the DNG files (like what Lightroom does). Also, instead of relying on an exteral app to render each image, the app does it internally with its own custom DNG read/write/render engine. This lets me do things like only render the parts of each pic that I care about when deflickering (which speeds up the process), not have to rerender between deflickering runs that continue to reference the same portion of the image, and more interestingly, it lets me stabilize shaky image sequences by adjusting crops after comparing rendered images.

Additionally, while it's not presently a main priority, I'm most of the way to being able to do things like creating DNGs with reduiced noise from comparing other DNGs, or automatically removing flying birds or bugs from timelapses.

You can find it at https://www.brilliantimagery.org/

While it's still rough in some regards, I'm pretty happy with the results. Here's something I made with an earlier version.

Edit: I should throw out that I'm expecting to expand it to work with other editing software that works with DNG files, whether they store edit info internally, or to sidecar files. When and what I work on will largely just be a function of what people are interested in and what sounds interesting.



I've gotten a lot from this community and hope to give a little back!

Chad

IDA_ML

Absolutely fantastic work clearly demonstrating what Magic Lantern is up to!  Thanks for sharing.

domasa

It looks like nice free alternative for expensive LRTimelapse.
Are you planning create some lightroom preset for rendering video from Lightroom?

chadat23

Thanks! Are you referring to JPG export presets (I'm still on LR6 and haven't used LRT in forever so maybe I'm just missing something)? I haven't put too much thought into some of that stuff since setting up a User Preset is relatively easy and different people have different needs (resolutions, quality, aspect ratio, etc). That said, I'm open to suggestions if people want particular features, changes, accompanying tools, or even just recommendations.

Similarly, I have another tool that's still very rough but, with a simple little user interface moves files from an SD card to a user-selected destination and converts everything with Adobe DNG Converter in one step (including dual-iso images after it processes them with the cr2hdr converter), and does a much better job of using all CPU cores than Lightroom so it makes for a relatively painless ingestion process. That's something else that I'd be happy to share if people are interested.

Chad

IDA_ML

Chadat23,

Have you tried filming timelapses as normal video at low fps and high resolution and compared the results with your LR workflow?  In my experience, low-fps timelapses are very smooth and the workflow is greatly simplified as all the processing is done in MLVApp directly.

domasa

@chadat23
I think export to .mov/.mp4. Something like presset from LRTimelapse but without limitations..
I have Ligthroom 6.

@IDA_ML
MLVApp does not offer edit options like Lightroom.

masc

5D3.113 | EOSM.202

chadat23

IDA_ML,
I've never tried that. I have a 6d which can't handle high resolutions and "normal" frame rates so I've just never really thought about it. But that seems like it could be a good option.

Domasa,
I forgot that LRT has a custom export preset that opens an additional video rendering tool. Using my tool, I've always just exported high-quality JPGs and then imported the image sequence into my video editor de jour but I have actually been considering rendering individual sequences before trying to turn them into a final video with multiple sequences and music and stuff since video editors tend to choke a bit on image sequences.
A long term goal has been to make a tool that works for most cameras (not just Canons) and more than just LR so I'm a bit reluctant to tie it to LR even more than it already is. That said, I can imagine having a tool in BrilliantImagery where you point it at the folder where you're exporting from LR (or some other photo editer using normal user presets) so that once it sees that all of the photos have been exported, it renders them into a single video. Would that accomplish what you're looking for?

domasa

@chadat23
Yes, that will be good. LR pressed is not necessary.

chadat23

@domasa
That sounds good, I'm hopefull that adding that won't be too bad.

sahrenity

It looks like a very good alternative for LRTimelapse. I personally use https://www.movavi.com/videoconvertermac/ for all video-related work. I'm not a professional video editor, so that's exactly what I need. Maybe later, when I'll become a full-time video creator, I use your software. But now I'm satisfied with movavi.

domasa

@chadat23
Are you planning an update?
It was promising alternative..