Project
Cartools — Perspective Tool
Services
Scripting, tool development
About the project
The Perspective Tool is part of the Cartools — a collection of MEL scripts I developed at Piqture GmbH for automotive CGI. The tool was an indispensable helper in many 3D projects and saved an enormous amount of time.
The idea grew out of the automotive photography workflow: photographers shot the locations without the cars. To find the perfect perspective for the CGI vehicles, special cube-shaped frames were placed on the street. As a 3D artist, I received these reference cubes along with a detailed table — containing dimensions, distances, camera height, focal length and many other camera parameters.
With the Perspective Tool, I could import this data directly into Maya and find the perfect perspective much faster, matching the CGI car rendering precisely to the photograph. The tool includes an integrated distance meter with automatic measurement lines, precise control of all camera parameters (height, distance, rotation, focal length, shift, offset) and a bookmark manager for saving and restoring camera positions across different scenes.
Tool in action
Brief demonstration of the Perspective Tool in Maya.
Tool interface & features
Main view of the Perspective Tool with automatically generated measurement lines in the Maya viewport.
Tool interface with distance meter, bookmark manager and camera control.
