CameraViewer: A lightweight tool for camera pose visualization

Visualize camera poses in seconds! A python tool that helps plot cameras for 3D computer vision research.

Installation

Create an environment with Python >= 3.9 (Recommend to use Anaconda or Miniconda)

conda create -n viewer python=3.9
conda activate viewer
pip install -r requirements.txt

Run Demo

1. Camera poses by positions in spherical coordinates (polar, azimuth, radius).

Cameras will look at the origin point, and their up directions will be +Z.

To read poses from a single JSON file (details), run the command:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_sph/

To read poses from a folder of pose files (details), run the command with --type sph to parse the files:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_sph/ --type sph

The plotted figure will be opened in your browser:

2. Camera poses by positions in cartesian coordinates (x, y, z).

Cameras will look at the origin point, and their up directions will be +Z.

To read poses from a single JSON file (details), run the command:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_xyz/

To read poses from a folder of pose files (details), run the command with --type xyz to parse the files:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_xyz/ --type xyz

3. Camera poses by eye (camera) positions, look-at positions, and up vectors.

To read poses from a single JSON file (details), run the command:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_elu/

To read poses from a folder of pose files (details), run the command with --type elu to parse the files:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_elu/ --type elu 

4. Camera poses by camera-to-world matrix.

To read poses from a single JSON file (details), run the command:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_c2w/

To read poses from a folder of pose files (details), run the command with --type c2w to parse the files:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_c2w/ --type c2w

5. Camera poses by world-to-camera matrix.

To read poses from a single JSON file (details), run the command:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_w2c/ --image_size 128

To read poses from a folder of pose files (details), run the command with --type w2c to parse the files:

python app.py --root inputs/quick/cam_w2c/ --type w2c --image_size 128

6. Camera poses in NeRF format.

Poses are read from transforms.json under --root folder.

python app.py --root inputs/nerf/lego/ --format nerf --scene_size 6

7. Camera poses in COLMAP format.

Poses are read from images.txt under --root folder.

python app.py --root inputs/colmap/scene0707/ --format colmap --scene_size 7

Prepare Cameras in Quick Format

There are two options to prepare camera poses: JSON or folder

1. Prepare JSON

Step 1: Create a folder containing poses.json and images/ (optional). For example:

mkdir -p inputs/obj/
touch inputs/obj/poses.json
mkdir -p inputs/obj/images/ #optional

Step 2: Prepare the poses.json file with the following structure:

{
    "type": "sph",
    "frames": [
        {
            "image_name": "0.png",
            "pose": [75, 0, 4]
        },
        {
            "image_name": "1.png",
            "pose": [75, 90, 4]
        },
        {
            "image_name": "2.png",
            "pose": [75, 180, 4]
        }
    ]
}

The value of "type" specifies the type of camera poses, which can be:

1. sph: A row vector of spherical coordinates: polar (degree), azimuth (degree), radius. Demo sph.
2. xyz: A row vector of cartesian coordinates: x, y, z. Demo xyz.
3. elu: A matrix including eye position (1st row), look-at position (2nd row), and up vector (3rd row). Demo elu.
4. c2w: A camera-to-world matrix. Demo cam2world.
5. w2c: A world-to-camera matrix. Demo world2cam.

Step 3 (Optional): Put the corresponding images under images/. For example:

inputs
├── obj
    ├── images
        ├── 0.png
        ├── 1.png
        ├── 2.png

The image files can be in PNG (.png) or JPEG (.jpg / .jpeg) format.

2. Prepare folder

Step 1: Create a folder containing poses/ and images/ (optional). For example:

mkdir -p inputs/obj/
mkdir -p inputs/obj/poses/
mkdir -p inputs/obj/images/ #optional

Step 2: Put camera pose files under poses/. For example:

inputs
├── obj
    ├── poses
        ├── 0.txt
        ├── 1.txt
        ├── 2.txt

The camera poses can be in the mentioned 5 types: sph, xyz, elu, c2w, w2c. The pose files can be in plain text (.txt) or Numpy (.npy).

Step 3 (Optional): Put the corresponding images under images/ with the same names to the pose files. For example:

inputs
├── obj
    ├── images
        ├── 0.png
        ├── 1.png
        ├── 2.png

The image files can be in PNG (.png) or JPEG (.jpg / .jpeg) format.

Known Issues

• Running the commands in PyCharm might not open the figures in your browser. Please use terminal if this issue occurred.

Acknowledgement

Part of the code is modified from:

• Zero-1-to-3
• Instant-NGP

Thanks to the maintainers of these projects!