Blob Track TOP Persistence

I’d just like to know if anyone has any general thoughts on how to go about solving my issue. I’m building a system for a show at my theatre.

Our show has 6 TD triggered, Arduino mesh network controlled, servo driven projection screens built into two-story moving tower set pieces. All of that part of my project is built and working (Touchdesigner is insanely good). I’ve installed 24 IR LEDs in the corners of each screen, which are relatively close together in the corners, when the towers are next to each other. The Blob Track TOP picks everything up well as is.

The problem is, TD doesn’t seem to have a way to apply persistence or memory to the IDs and locations. If a cast member crosses an LED, that ID disappears/reappears/increments, and while the values for x/y come back, the cell location in the Table is off. Thus, my Corner Pin TOP expressions tied to the Table values of the blob can’t apply consistently.

I’ve thought about masking off my camera feed, separating it into six panels, tracking only four blobs in each, then reassembling them. But if one of the LEDs crosses over into another panel, that, too, will cause issues.

Am I missing something, or are there any advanced techniques I am not thinking of that would allow me to achieve this? If I am unable to come up with anything, I will probably just keep all the LEDs off, and then right before the projections come up, flash sets of four LEDs so TD can track the location of just that one screen at a time.

Could you feedback the camera a little so the input image to blob track top is slightly persistent? Would reduce responsiveness and only cover brief occlusion of the leds but might be worth a shot.

bLackburst, excellent idea. I’m at a point where I found a workaround, out of necessity, since I ran out of time. I’ll try it next time around. Thanks!

I have funded this on my pro support hours and it should be available 2017.11640. I currently don’t have an 099 license so let me know how it goes.

Hello Nick,

I’m dealing with this problem right now, would you care to share your workarounds?

Thank you

Hi Rui,
I’ve seen your post on the Touchdesigner Facebook help group,
Did you get this works? The ID rows keep switching after old blobs come out and new blobs come out

Hello! well it’s been a while now, but bottom line is, the ID persistence is a very hard problem, and I ended up discarding the need of persistent ID’s using a different approach to the logic (simpler one).

good luck!