Stabilization

The IMU data accompanying Ember clips can be used to stabilize the image using the Stabilize tool. Load a clip to be stabilized and check Enable. The progress bar should complete indicating the IMU metadata has been imported from the clip. Set the Focal length to the lens focal length. With the View set to HUD an artificial horizon overlay should be visible, and playing the clip should show the horizon following the camera movement appropriately.

To set up for stabilisation set the Zoom parameter according to the degree of cropping that is acceptable. Higher zoom values will allow the stabilizer to apply greater smoothing. Set the Max smoothing parameter to the desired maximum smoothing time constant (3-10 is typical). Set the Modifier window to control the speed at which smoothing is modified (can usually be left at the default of 1). Press Stabilize and wait for the progress bar to complete. Switch the View to Stabilization to see the results of the stabilization run.

Some of the internal computations of the stabilization algorithm can be viewed by checking Show metrics which charts the applied smoothing and how close the virtual gimbal is to hitting the bump stops. Show crop can also be used to help visualize the movement of the zoomed viewport within the overall field of view.

Fixed target is mainly for debugging, and forces the virtual gimbal of the stabilizer to face a fixed point.

If a lens calibration file is available this can be loaded with Load Cal. The lens distortion coefficients will be applied and the focal length extracted from the saved parameters. The focal length can be trimmed manually if required without disturbing the applied lens distortion. If the trimmed value provides a better result then a new calibration can be saved by pressing Re-save Cal.