The Define Target Templates Dialog is brought up by the Define Targets… tool. The dialog shows all target templates loaded in a project.
Note: This is an advanced tool and is not visible on the toolbar or menu until you customize your toolbars and add it manually (see Ribbon Toolbar Customization). The tool can be added to a toolbar from the Customize dialog by clicking the “Commands” tab, selecting the “Template Targets” category, then dragging the tool from the “Commands’ window onto a toolbar or into a menu. Once the tool has been added, close the Customize dialog and click it to add Templates to your project.
When this dialog is opened, no templates will appear until one or more templates are imported into a project. The Import Template dialog can be accessed by clicking “Import Template…” button. Once imported, templates are stored with the project and they do not need to be redefined or re-imported when the project is re-opened.
At the top of the dialog are the template images (note these images are resized for viewing purposes to be the same height within the viewing area). When a template is selected at the top, its parameters are shown below. First the file name and path of the bitmap file that defines the template is shown beside “Template Path”. The name of the template is listed next (this is the name the user picks when choosing which target type to mark in the drop lists). Next is the size of the template bitmap image in pixels. The box at the bottom shows some parameters for each template relating to how it is solved.
These parameters control how the marking algorithm adjusts or warps the template when matching a target in the photo:
• The Default Template setting controls whether the selected template is the default. The default template will be automatically selected in the Sub-Pixel Marking Mode sub-toolbar drop list, or the drop list in the Auto-marking dialog. Once a template is imported, it automatically becomes the default template, but a template’s default setting can be toggled on and off. If no template is set as the default, Circular Target [non-template] will be used automatically.
• The two “Shift” parameters control whether the template is shifted/moved in the X and Y directions within the target marking region;
• The two “Scale” parameters control whether the template is scaled/sized in the X and Y directions within the target marking region;
• The two “Shear” parameters control whether the template is skewed in the X and Y direction within the target marking region.
• Ideal Target – this indicates the target is defined as ‘ideal’ and during the marking process the amount of blur in the source target gets solved (this increases the accuracy significantly).
• Infinite Extent –this indicates the target is not to be sized and the border pixels repeat ad infinitum. Infinite Extent targets cannot be auto-marked or tracked in a motion project.
• The “Alternate Rotation” parameters control whether the template is rotated if a marking attempt fails (e.g. if marking fails, the template is rotated X degrees and a match is reattempted – this is repeated after each failure for each of the selected rotation parameters). This is useful in that it allows a single template to be used in any orientation (e.g. an edge could be left, right, up or down facing and still be marked using a single template).
Some target shapes do not need to solve for all parameters. For example the Infinite Edge does not solve for any parameters in the direction of the infinite shape (e.g. the Y direction on a non-rotated infinite vertical edge template) because its shape does not change if you adjust it (i.e. scale or shift) in the Y direction.
Note that these settings (other than Name and Filename) can be edited from within the program in the “Define Project Target Templates” dialog box. This is useful if you need to adjust a setting to help improve marking results.
The above parameters are optimally set for the targets that ship with the product. If you add your own template and are not sure which parameters are correct please contact Technical Support for assistance.