Building a Camera Motion Control Rig

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Do you think static camera shots are boring, with the camera sat still on a tripod? Well, some KZbinrs have camera operators, which makes the footage look super fun, and they can interact with the KZbinr too. William Osman has a camera operator called Cameraman John. But who exactly is Cameraman John? I’d love to make my footage look super fun too, so today I’m going to build an AI-driven robot camera operator that can do lots of fun things, just like Cameraman John. I'm using an A.I. deep learning model on running on a Jetson Nano to track where I am in the shot and move a pan-tilt-zoom camera gimbal. There are also some other special features.
CAD and code: github.com/XRobots/CameraBot
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CAD and Code for my projects: github.com/XRobots
Huge thanks to my Patrons, without whom my standard of living would drastically decline. Like, inside out-Farm Foods bag decline. Plus a very special shoutout to Lulzbot, Inc who keep me in LulzBot 3D printers and support me via Patreon.
HARDWARE/SOFTWARE
Below you can also find a lot of the typical tools, equipment and supplies used in my projects:
Filament from: www.3dfuel.com/
Lulzbot 3D Printers: bit.ly/2Sj6nil
Bearings from: simplybearings.co.uk/
Lincoln Electric Welder: bit.ly/2Rqhqos
CNC Router: bit.ly/2QdsNjt
Ryobi Tools: bit.ly/2RhArcD
Axminster Micro Lathe: bit.ly/2Sj6eeN
3D Printer Filament: bit.ly/2PdcdUu
Soldering Iron: bit.ly/2DrNWDR
Vectric CNC Software: bit.ly/2zxpZqv

[@jamesbruton]

I started a Discord! discord.com/invite/fc6MedG7eW

[@pearcomputers]

How easy to give the bot a website so viewers can drive/remote view 1t James? #surrogate #ThePeriferal xx

[@BoHolbo]

Apparently, it is possible to balance an inverted pendulum on the X and Y axis using only ONE reaction wheel! And I was very surprised to learn that it is NOT done by changing the rotation angle. The only moving part is the reaction wheel’s rotation. 🤔 It’s called “The One-Wheel Cubli.” Here is the link to the video showing it: LM74EBbetGU

[@williamosman]

It's how cameraman John films when he's drunk!!!!

[@jamesbruton]

Yeah - there's still quite a bit of tuning to do I think. It gets worse when I wave my arms around - I probably need variable motion filtering depending on how much ENERGY I need!

[@CH4NNELZERO]

This is the most universally useful project you’ve built in a while. I hope to see this in use on all your future videos.

[@petejandrell4512]

This is the comment I would have made had you not already made it.

[@cheeriosaltcream]

@@petejandrell4512 Your comment commenting about his comment is the comment I would have made had you not already made it.

[@ThereIsOnly1ArcNinja]

@@cheeriosaltcream Your comment about someone commenting on a comment is a comment I would have done if you hadn't already posted that comment - keep commenting 🤪

[@andr_line]

@@ThereIsOnly1ArcNinja Your comment commenting about how we should keep commenting on a comment commenting on how a comment that is commented under the video is exactly the comment the commenter would have made, being that said comment would not have already been commented by another commenter is exactly what I would have commented under said comment, had the described comment not already been commented by another commenter that thought it would be funny to comment the same comment again, just in a slightly different style.

[@ImseetheArtist]

Our comment from a comment to a comment to comment made also many comment and me to to comment the same and im referesing the first commentator to this comment to have my comment also to comment lol to me ✌️peace from finland

[@PreownedQuasar]

This mimics most every youtube cameraman weirdly perfectly. Its motion is just slightly shakey and the movement speed is such that it really mimics a person holding a camera. you've done a lot of awesome projects, but this is weirdly the one I'm most enthralled by

[@jamesbruton]

Thanks!

[@CraftingCake]

I think it's even too smooth. Jon has usually more aggressive shot movements.

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

@@CraftingCake Agreed, most YT level camera people don't have really good motion smoothing gimble to correct for their walking around or, tripods/tracks to run the camera down so its much rougher than this, plus YT rewards short punchy video's it seems, so everything is FAST. Its not quite studio camera operator good, but darned impressive - better some live sports I've watched at following the target...

[@dh2032]

@@foldionepapyrus3441 shaky a bit off putting, but, as you say (mounting an off the shelf youtuber, gopro, one, and let that do the correction stuff, unless he feels like reinventing the wheel, ? but the shaking is really off puting, now where up to you normal video you do, not the worst by the standard KZbin videos out there, but a step down in the ones you, hope it not in all you video at the moment un till the shakey is sorted out (could be like tony starks fire extinguisher robot, when it working right?

[@dh2032]

and the photo bombing by Elmo the (the red robot toy), the made me smile, the robots are taking over 🙂

[@eg0zb]

Man, if you continue using this as your official cameraman, I would actually be sooo happy

[@IAmMisterD]

Gotta give the cameraman a name! lol Amazing work btw! :)

[@alantupper4106]

The MST3K fan in me really wants it to be CamBot.

[@diegeeleel]

I’m pretty sure most other KZbinrs if they produced this kind of content would stretch it out over about five videos. Amazing amount of work and skills, not to mention the experience and understanding required to produce something like this. All crammed into one short video. My head is spinning.

[@rosserobertolli]

I'm suspecting now he has multiple Johns in service to help him out designing and building cool projects at this pace

[@josuelservin]

And the speed! It's impressive how much content he can make and without a huge team

[@Wookei]

Yeah he is hands down the fastest maker on youtube. I can't wrap my head around how quickly he can materialize his ideas.

[@kwerk2011]

For a first iteration, it's remarkable how human like the outcome is. Amazing as usual, James.

[@Meoiswa]

Train it to recognize a "frame this" gesture where it points the camera exactly in the center of the rectangle shaped by your indexes and thumbs. that way you don't need to fiddle with the remote to set up the static framed shot!. Another idea I had is making it toggle between "wide framing (full body)" and "portrait framing (half body)" by recognizing the "T pose".

[@WeAreChecking]

These are genuinely fantastic ideas that would greatly improve the workflow of actually using this device, fantastic

[@omegaroguelp]

and maybe face recognition to prioritise keeping the face in frame over just keeping the body in frame

[@RAFMnBgaming]

@@omegaroguelp Or a similar hand recognition mode, given often what we're doing involves our hands.

[@RandStuffOfficial]

Also maybe detect when the body is oriented sideways and frame it accordingly in a 1/3 - 2/3 ratio (that would allow to see the computer at 10:32 for example).

[@Davedarko]

You had me at the demo already, loved the motion and how alive it all became, really felt like a second person filming it!

[@jamesbruton]

Thanks - there's still some tuning to do, but I plan to use it more in the future

[@StevenIngram]

@@jamesbruton I certainly would, I had nothing but the sense that this thing was amazingly useful during the whole demo of its operation.

[@StevenIngram]

Ps. The thumbs up was a master stroke. It really helped sell the illusion that the bot was contextually aware.

[@hippie-io7225]

@@jamesbruton I always admire your projects!! It would be nice to see a project you have created, being used all the time and making your life a little easier.

[@liambohl]

Would PID control be a viable way to keep you in frame while smoothing the camera movements?

[@benyed1636]

I hope this is a mainstay of the channel. The camerawork is actually pretty good and having a robotic cameraman is very on brand.

[@toomanymats9755]

Very cool project. You might be able to also track heads in order to make the response slightly faster if your head goes out of frame

[@andybrice2711]

Yes, I would prioritise the face tracking, and increase the exponent of the motion smoothing. This way the camera will move slowly and only whip-pan if you move near the edge of the frame. This is typically how commercial camera gimbals work. Extremely impressive though. I thought James would have all sorts of trouble with vibration. But it already looks good, and I can see this becoming a design which many people start using once it's refined.

[@turbo2ltr]

This is one of the coolest projects yet. You've just put thousands of cameramen out of the job. lol. It works so well. One of the foot switches should do this: hold the switch down and the jetson will start tracking your hand. You put your hand where you want the camera to look at (like a closeup of what you are working on) and let go of the pedal and it will stay there until you hit the pedal again where it will start tracking you again.

[@onyxtay7246]

This is cool. I wonder if the "seasickness" effect could be reduced by leaving it slightly zoomed out and then applying stabilization in software. I don't think it's quite to the point of an actual human, but it's still pretty good.

[@Jaco9307]

Yeah i think some sort of filtering to reduce the small adjustments would help a lot, like if James just moves a tiny bit to the right the camera doesnt really need to follow as long as he is still in frame. I definitely think the issue is the constant small adjustments And just in general, a small increase in tracking smoothing would be good, definitely feels a bit too delayed in following him when he moves

[@MartinRunesson]

Why not add another camera to the stand? Then you have the option not to show the movements all the time.

[@boonjabby]

I was thinking a second camera can be used for the algorithm where the main camera is for filming. The 2nd camera would keep tracking, distance, and position in mind and give more organic commands to the main camera

[@blutube9916]

Due to lenses, this can give shots a weird warped feel. Like some of the older youtube videos, where things looked like they were warping, as youtube had applied this kind of stabilisation. It would be better to try and eliminate it using the gimbal.

[@unknownhours]

I think a dead zone in the center would help

[@andrzejstepien85]

The most amazing part for me is that this one can actually move around, unlike similar projects on KZbin. What would be great is if it was programmed to follow some composition rules, like diagonals or simple thirds. In theory you could get transitions like from Stanley Kubrick's movie while you can focus on working on your project.

[@IanSlothieRolfe]

I'm genuinely impressed at how good the result is, considering you probably haven't devoted thousands of hours of software development to the tracking, its basically functional and adds a level of dynamic to the camera work which is more interesting than static shots. There are obviously lots of "user interface" options to explore to make the filming seamless and fit your video making style. It will be interesting to see if or how much you use this in the future.

[@MrSmoothvideos]

Absolutely amazing! One suggestion: A second wide angle camera (like a GoPro) could also be used, just so the robot can get an idea of where things out of frame are, just like how a human camera operator can using their own eyes

[@CodySchatzle]

You could absolutely mass produce this and sell it to KZbinrs.

[@DamagePerHour]

It's crazy how good that looks, genuinely looks like you have someone operating it

[@madeintexas3d442]

The fact that James continues to upload these amazing videos to KZbin is awesome. Someone with his talent could easily be working for some large company making good money but keeping his knowledge locked up. I'm glad he chooses to share everything with us. James's drive and ability to constantly deliver is truly something to admire.

[@thomasvnl]

You could automatically widen the view/zoom out when you are a certain distance away by adding a TOF sensor that is aiming at whatever the camera lens is aiming at and have these wider views that you now have to do by extending your arms, as an extensions to the foot pedals. But this camera man "john" works really good as-is already.

[@acidxero]

Cameraman John getting a tip of the cap from you makes me very happy. Cheers.

[@acidxero]

Follow up comment: this entire video is brilliant. I don't know why but I find it to be the most fun and possibly most practical creation of yours I've seen in ages. Fantastic work, James.

[@jamespray]

This is one of your best! Amazing application of so many things you've built for separate projects before. One suggestion: perhaps add a shock-mounted buffer ring around the upper part of the tower, so that when the inevitable happens, the crash won't destroy the camera 😮

[@matiaskuperman2890]

It is crazy how organic that looks! mad respect

[@EddieAdolf]

It does exactly what you wanted! It adds more of the human element to the viewing experience, and it feels like we're really there. Awesome! 👏

[@anthonyfn]

Wow!!! The foot pedals were a total game-changer.

[@MatchaMakesThings]

Holy shit that "jump" cut made me spit out my tea. Amazing! Thanks for making things the way you do James!

[@NeilABliss]

A cool but difficult trick is to drive in while zooming out... Or Vis versa ... Timed right it creates a cool compression effect. Would love to see you pull it off, on a foot switch

[@christophertnugent9100]

LISTEN, I'm blown away just imagining all the time and effort goes into designing the stuff that gets 3-D printed given how WELL everything connects together

[@awesomelyslowplastic]

This is honestly my favorite video you've done so far. Completely in awe of the work you put into every project you do. To then release the whole project start to finish in one video instead of stretching it over multiple, even better! Hats off to you James.

[@ArcanePath360]

Dude! This is so next level! Would love to have this. Your robotic skills are getting insane. Been following you since the Iron Man mask days, where things were so much simpler and easy for a novice to replicate. This thing needs to be taken to market. So many KZbinrs would buy it. You could make some serious money if you could patent it. Take from someone who is fed up with setting up multiple cameras, sound syncing all the footage and editing static shots in post with digital zooming. It's really tedious and not the best.

[@lightdark00]

You made you own cameraman friend. You're growing up so fast, soon you'll make yourself another friend.

[@tadhgd350]

Bros got an entire print farm just for these projects

[@FakeButt]

This is amazing! At many points in the video, I totally forgot it is a robot doing the camerawork :) I think a useful improvement would be to recognize your body rotation so if you are facing left or right to interact with something it can pan a little bit more and get the thing you are interacting with in frame. Like when you were typing on the computer, it does not feel natural to have only you in the shot but not the computer. I could see this becoming a real product - depending on how much you can get it to cost at the end. A lot of smaller KZbin channels can benefit from such an invention!

[@jordy_3d]

Robots and John? Skynet, coming soon!

[@arnabmusouwir9018]

This is one of your most useful projects after the opendog series

[@ADurXD]

Having watched these videos for about a year, it's lovely to see how much they've changed! You are so much more carefree and goody now, thanks for the fun, James!

[@CarlBugeja]

Awesome build! Love how organic the footage looks!

[@UntrackedEndorphins]

1:30 I love this kind of comedy

[@vannoo67]

Have you considered adding a feature that allows you to specify the point of interest interactively, say when you hold down one of the foot pedals, it tracks your hand until you release the pedal (then maintains the attitude until directed to go back into normal mode)?

[@akira5872]

Omg, this project is amazing. I would love to see more of the details on the project to build one myself ! Keep doing an awesome work man !

[@Azzameen99AZ]

Honestly, I like this better than most hand-held cam shots. Nobody's jostling the camera around with every breath, its steadyness depends on your movements or what switches you press. Also, no showing something awesome but not noticing that 95% of the awesomeness is out of frame.

[@odiogoponto]

2:22 An open dog with an aiming gun? That's great!

[@seanrobinson7464]

Honestly, with tuning, this seems incredibly useful. Great project.

[@sabrinazwolf]

This might just be the coolest one yet. The motion is so realistic of a cameraperson. Nice work James!

[@turrboenvy4612]

This looks so organic/human. I also loved the literal "jump cut" where you kept in the landing in the first jump and the takeoff in the second one. *chef's kiss* All I'd say is if it's possible increase the maximum speed. A person would move the camera faster (possibly even overshoot) to get the subject back in frame.

[@BrenoLuna]

9:27 For a fraction of a moment, it recognized James as a skateboard. This gentleman keeps pushing the bar up for cool and useful projects. Kudos!

[@boonjabby]

Cool idea! Quickly delivered content as always Jim. 👏

[@some______guy]

You are so competent it's almost criminal

[@NavyVeteran1776]

This is going to make your videos so much more dynamic. Great job sir.

[@toesandfingers]

I James about 6 months ago and have been loving binging the archives. This project really stands out though, it is so clever an as others have said feels really organic. I'll watch newer videos with interest now, to see if this is in use!

[@Dangineering]

WHOA, this is awesome and will DEFINTELY give your videos a bit more life in them. Absolutely Brilliant James.

[@loekpro2697]

I love the transition to the 3d printing montage

[@CharlesVanNoland]

This was very fun. It's clear you're really motivated about this project, and I can see why. Awesome.

[@Blutankalpha]

Very good! You have inspired me to make my own robots

[@acuteioa]

This is just amaaaaazing! This video deserves to go viral! Which youtuber would not like to have one of these? Thumbs up, James!

[@maeldorne5522]

Very interesting! It looks so good, makes the video more dynamic and fun, hopefully you keep using it even if you don't use the wheels. My favorite video in a while!

[@nickjones7437]

We actually have these in the land surveying industry! We carry around a prism and the robot somehow tracks where to move the laser so it stays on the prism. It can take measurements to the hundred thousandth of a foot

[@stevenmcneese8173]

This is one of the best projects you have posted. Very useful and practical application of AI

[@robertmeyer8221]

I was just thinking about a project like this. I see all these people on KZbin trying to film whatever they are working on one handed. Nice job!

[@project-hq]

This is amazing James!! Absolutely love it

[@v6contodo]

Your videos are great man, I love how much engineering you actually do and keep it super entertaining. And this one just might take the win!

[@4thfrom7]

I get so happy every time I see a new video from my favourite robot builder. 😁

[@MahBor]

This is gonna change your vids so much! Amazing build

[@slackius851]

12:38 "I found that I can manipulate the hand into quite a few different expressions that we could use in the future." *makes hand stick up middle finger*

[@Eisneim1]

this is super useful if you could make is more portable! really want to see you test this outside the workshop

[@bengelman2600]

Super impressed with the results on this one!

[@ankokuraven]

This is awesome and i hope you get alot of use out of it. It feels really organic

[@NoahZipin]

This is amazing!!! Use this for your videos from now on!

[@Banzai8th]

Really cool platform! I think you could do a lot of upgrades purely in software like intentionally leaving extra headroom to avoid cutting your dome off. Adding in some intentional jitter to replicate a handheld feel. Getting a parfocal lens would also help a lot. I don't know if the image recognition model is smart enough to detect when you're pointing at something and able to bring that area or object into frame too, but that'd be really cool.

[@spammy1tube]

YES! I really like this!!! Nice work James.

[@DJlegionuk]

I have wanted something like this but to keep what ever I have on my workbench in shot. Great video

[@Orofino6]

I look forward to the future videos and upgrades to this bot :)

[@reesesapphire267]

nice video, can't believe i missed it when it came out! your "jump cuts" were really entertaining btw

[@hippopotamus86]

Now that's working better than I thought it would.

[@navid9852]

Superb! One of the best inventors on KZbin ever

[@Ghostviperz]

Brilliant the whimsical nature of this is very charming and disarming I think this video will help inspire people that are normally intimated with robotics.

[@sergioa.1530]

This project is super useful, amazing job 👍🏼👍🏼

[@WistrelChianti]

It works surprisingly well!

[@makermelissa]

Great execution on this idea. I had a similar idea for a AI controlled camera dolly as well, but it wasn’t quite as elaborate as this. Very cool! Please do more projects like this in the future.

[@mrmb84]

I'm convinced, I can't tell that it's not a human...until the hand comes up! Makes me feel like I'm in the room, amazing stuff!

[@romanzatorski4743]

Honestly an actually useful project, amazing !

[@johandrewortley3388]

This is absolutely brilliant!

This is really cool, probably the most useful project so far. The next feature to add could be to add the ability to change the height of the camera.

[@moth.monster]

Honestly amazing, has a great style to it.

[@LeeAtkinson98]

Genuinely a really good project

[@Will_Huff]

oh boy! This is a great one! Great job James....I might have to build one for my channel!

[@zombierevival591]

This is awesome, this is such a useful robot. I'm Surprised you didn't make this earlier.

[@mattimotion]

That bit at 11:55 caught me completely off guard haha Amazing project!

[@michaeltripp1367]

Holy crap. Please revisit this one again in the future with more upgrades!

[@neilredelinghuys3263]

you always make cool stuff, but this is one of your best so far!! very cool

[@ipiqqyfpv]

i really enjoyed this more organic video style, amazing video as always!

[@robottinkeracademy]

Awesome, instead of the foot switch you can consider audio input for various states. The pedal forces you to be a certain location.

[@harkrits.nagpal6505]

6:00 That was hilarious 😂 the way you moved made me thing you were flipping me off before I realised what it was😂😂

[@narxic]

Great project. Thank you.

[@mumblety]

That's really clever. I hope to see it in your future videos!

[@eccentric-j]

Wow that’s really impressive! Very nice job

[@darkquail2003]

This is the greatest project you have ever done, i hope you actually use this and improve it over time.

[@lescarneiro]

This is REALLY COOL! Superb work! You're probably going to get a lot of requests from other YTbers, that's for sure

[@ahbushnell1]

maybe a dead band on the camera. When your not moving much it's still moving and sea sickness is not far away. Nice idea!!

[@TheMeditron]

You are always so impressive, Can't wait to see more videos shot by your robot and hat jokes!