CamPlan: A Camera Planning Agent

Smart Graphics

Volume

Smart Graphics

Contents

Camera planning agents address the problem of positioning a camera within a world, such that the resulting image has some predefined set of visual properties. We are developing a graphical presentation planning system which incorporates CAMPLAN, a camera planning subsystem for polygonal graphics. The motivations for CAMPLAN are outlined and a set of shot properties has been established and implemented from which the user can select communicative goals. CAMPLAN uses a genetic algorithm to optimise the camera with respect to the specified set of image objectives. An informal evaluation of the system is presented in which we show how successfully more restrictive objectives can impose stylistic regularity in a graphical scene and demonstrate other features of declarative camera planning using CAMPLAN. We conclude with a discussion of our current work and outline future directions for graphical presentation planning.