CinCraft Mapper is a digital service that provides frame-accurate lens distortion and shading data for post-production – fast and easy. All lens data are based on your shot metadata, you don’t have to worry about missing or sloppy lens grids anymore. No matter if you prefer working with a GUI or a command line interface, if you use Linux, Windows, or macOS, CinCraft Mapper is the right choice - available 24/7.
Productions rely on the recording of lens grids which reflects their current point of truth. This process is very error prone due to misaligned or uneven grids. In addition, grids get lost, forgotten or the recording conditions allow only a few focus distances to be recorded. The inaccuracy increases with each circumstance. Manual work to correct errors and process the lens effect information is very time-consuming.
CinCraft Mapper allows the VFX department to get accurate lens characteristics for a wide range of cinema lenses. Distortion characteristics are provided in form of ST Maps for each requested lens setting and specifically for your recording conditions. After local generation, ST Maps can be used by the majority of matchmoving and compositing software easily.
Lens shading expressed through exposure fall-off characteristics contributes to a more realistic image impression. Applying or matching the effect on CG material is mostly based on eyeballing. The exact elimination of the effect can become a serious problem.
You can get shading characteristics in a first step for eXtended Data lenses in the form of Multiply Maps for each requested lens setting and specifically for your recording conditions. After local generation, these can be easily applied by using standard multiply nodes of your favorite compositing software. Save time and achieve a more realistic comp result with your new workflow.
Import your shot into the CinCraft Mapper client. The software automatically extracts embedded camera and lens metadata.
Verify the metadata. Missing metadata can be reconfigured manually. Manual entry of all data is also possible.
Select ST Maps and/or Multiply Maps, confirm the purchase and trigger the local generation.
Use the maps in your favorite compositing or matchmoving software.
ZEISS CinCraft Mapper only transmits encrypted text-based metadata via https protocol to CinCraft’s Lens Data Vault. The transfer of pixel data is explicitly avoided, as lens characteristics only depend on camera and lens settings.
Mapper extracts the camera and lens setting from the OpenEXR header, ZLCF file or CSV file. Based on your transmitted data, the Lens Data Vault responds with the matching lens characteristics for Mapper. The generation of maps then takes place on your local computer.
Our Mapper offers you lens distortion data for the following cinema lens series:
Lens shading data are provided for all eXtended Data and Compact Prime CP.2 lenses:
We also provide test footage of supported lenses for you to download.
We’re here to help. If you have any further questions, please get in touch with us.
Yes, we also allow you to enter metadata manually and configure an entire shot individually. Most of the time you have the data on a sheet, but not embedded in the file. This is no longer a problem with our Mapper.
Comparing lens grids shot at different focusing distances shows how much the distortion of a lens varies from close focus to infinity. This emphasizes the importance of getting accurate lens distortion and shading data for every single frame of a shot, which CinCraft Mapper provides.
Yes, you cannot use our service without an internet connection. The advantage of the connection is that it is always up to date. You will always receive the latest data from us. That way you won't miss any news.
You can use CinCraft Mapper on the following operating systems:
Hardware requirements:
In addition to the GUI version of the Mapper, we also offer a command line interface. You can generate a personal access token for it in MyCinCraft account management.
Automatic metadata extraction works with the following input formats:
A joined import allows to add missing metadata by using two matching metadata sources:
Read the Whitepapers for detailed information on data acquisition and processing.
CinCraft Mapper generates ST Maps as 32-bit OpenEXR images. You are able to select between standard OpenEXR compressions. Multiply Maps are also provided as 32-bit OpenEXR images. Both map types can be processed with common ST Map nodes or Multiply nodes.