Virtual cinematography using optimization and temporal smoothing

We propose an automatic virtual cinematography method that takes a continuous optimization approach. A suitable camera pose or path is determined automatically by computing the minima of an objective function to obtain some desired parameters, such as those common in live action photography or cinematography. Multiple objective functions can be combined into a single optimizable function, which can be extended to model the smoothness of the optimal camera path using an active contour model. Our virtual cinematography technique can be used to find camera paths in either scripted or unscripted scenes, both with and without smoothing, at a relatively low computational cost.