Time Line window

The Time Line appears at the bottom of the screen between the Track window and the Status bar and gives a graphic display of the current time and helps you to navigate through your image sequence.

Work Area start frame
Selected area start frame
Work Area begin marker
Work Area
Time range
Current selected frame
Slider
Work Area end marker
Work Area end frame
Selected area end frame
Current selected frame
Frame rate

The Work Area defines the beginning and the end of the sub section of the sequence that you work with. Frames outside the Work Area are ignored for tracking and playing purposes. If a Work Area has not been defined previously, begin and end markers are positioned at the first and last frames.
When you load a sequence, the Slider, a red pointer, shows the current frame position with the corresponding frame number. The first frame is always 0 and the total number of frames appears on the far right of the sliders.
The Numeric Fields show the Work Area start and end frames, the selected area start and end frames, the number of the current frame, and the current output frame rate in frames per second.
A fourth element, not present at all times, is the Time Range, shown in yellow. See Running the automatic 2D tracking.
The Time Range is used for one-shot operations such as clearing points in several frames, or defining the span of a camera constraint.

When you create a bookmark for a frame, a check in the Time Line indicates its position. See Placing a bookmark.

Double-click the edge of the time line to undock it. Once undocked, click and drag on its edge to reposition it within the interface.

To close the Time Line, click the and restore it by using Window > Time Line Window.

Changing the current time using the Slider

Click within the Slider to change the current time. The blue pointer now points to the new current time with the current time frame number shown above the pointer.

If you load several image sequences, a black vertical bar shows the position of the start frame for each sequence.

Changing the current frame using the Numeric Field

Click inside the Numeric Field.
Enter the current frame number to change to and press Return/Tab to validate.

MatchMover moves the pointer to point to the required frame.

Defining a Work Area

Before running the automatic tracking process, you can specify a section of the sequence to track, defined by the Work Area. The Work Area is an interval of frames in a sequence to which you can selectively apply the automatic tracking operation. If you don’t specify a Work Area, the entire active sequence matching the current time will be processed. If there are other sequences loaded, they will be ignored.

NoteAll frames in the Work Area must belong to the same sequence; otherwise, autotracking is disabled. Therefore, MatchMover cannot process scenes with helper frames automatically. However, you can automatically track the main sequence, then edit the helpers before solving the scene.

To define a Work Area:

Position the pointer at the frame where you want to begin the Work Area and do one of the following:
- Select Sequence > Begin Work Area.
- Right-click in the Track View and select Set Current Frame > Begin Work Area from the pop-up menu.
- Edit the gray Work Area start frame box. For a description of the Time Line, see Time Line window.
The begin marker is set to the current frame.

NoteIf a Work Area has not been defined previously, begin and end markers are positioned at the first and last frames.
Position the pointer at the frame where you want to end the Work Area and do one of the following:
- Select Sequence > End Work Area.
- Right-click in the Track View and select Set Current Frame > End Work Area from the pop-up menu.
- Edit the gray Work Area end frame box. For a description of the Time Line, see Time Line window.
The end marker is set to the current frame.

The background changes color indicating the time range. For a description of the Work Area, see Time Line window.

Alternatively, you can define the Work Area by dragging the Work Area marker.

Resetting the Work Area

To reset the Work Area.

Position the pointer in the Track window select Sequence > Reset Work Area.

MatchMover moves the begin and end markers to the first and last frames, respectively.