I have searched everywhere on the Internet and Autodesk forums for how to use Helper Images with MatchMover to introduce parallax into a video sequence. Most of the links lead to old RealViz documents that describe how 'simple, useful, and convenient' Helper Images are, but fail to give a working example of them.
Here is what I am currently doing:
1) I load a "Sequence" of the main video footage which is a simple pan shot across a picnic area at a local park.
2) Next, I load an "Image" which contains a still shot of the same scene from another angle. (When I try to load two helper images at the same time as the RealViz documentation suggests, MM loads them both at the same frame number which puts them on top of each other and renders them useless). The single frame that I load in this explanation appears under the Images Sequences folder in the project with a different icon, and shows on the timeline at the next available frame number as expected.
3) Finally, I place 8 trackers at the same points in both the main sequence and the helper image sequence. The 8 trackers define two planes, and two arbitrary points in the scene which do not exist in either of the two planes.
4) When I solve for the camera, MatchMover ignores the helper frame, and the camera solve is awful as a result.
Here are my 4 questions:
1) Does the Helper Image functionality of MatchMover work, or has it ever worked since AutoDesk took over the product?
2) What critical step is required to cause MatchMover to view the Helper Image as a simple extension of the original video sequence for the purpose of introducing parallax?
3) Why does the File/Load Image functionality exist if MM ignores additional images?
4) Who is responsible for MatchMover? How are bugs reported for the product since there is no "Report Bug" menu option like there is in Maya? I have a list of 15 easily reproducible bugs in MM that I give to my students every semester.
While searching for the appropriate forum in which to post this, I actually came across a request of my own from 3 years ago asking for a MM forum. Really AutoDesk...really? 3 years?