Silhouette Tracking

Silhouette tracking works by separating the object's foreground from the background based on visual appearance. It's the most general-purpose modality and works with any object that has a visible outline.

When to Use

Works well for:

• Objects with a distinct color/appearance against the background
• Curved objects with smooth outlines
• Large objects that fill a significant portion of the frame
• Fast camera or object movement — silhouette is the most resilient modality to motion

Struggles with:

• Objects that blend into the background (similar color/texture)
• Very thin or wire-like objects with minimal silhouette area
• Highly cluttered scenes where background is visually similar to the object

Configuration

On the TrackedBody component:

• Tracking Method — Select Silhouette to enable

Model Generation (Required)

Silhouette tracking requires a pre-generated tracking model that precomputes how the object looks from different viewpoints. Without it, silhouette tracking cannot start.

1. In the TrackedBody inspector, find the Model section
2. Click Generate Silhouette Model
3. Adjust Viewpoint Coverage settings if needed (see Model Preparation)

Quality Metrics

Silhouette tracking provides two quality indicators:

• Tracking Quality — How well the object stands out from the background. Higher = better visual separation.
• Shape Quality — How consistently the tracked contour matches the expected shape. Higher = tighter fit.

Both are smoothed over time for stability.

Tips

• Ensure the object has some visual contrast with its surroundings
• Avoid backgrounds that match the object's dominant colors
• Larger objects track more reliably — more of the object boundary is visible
• Combine with Depth Tracking for improved robustness in challenging backgrounds