gus Graphical Interface Tutorial – Individual Step-by-step instructions with companion videos

This series of tutorials takes you through each of the six programs to demonstrate their individual functionalities. We suggest you download the tutorial data (~350 megabytes) so you can follow along on your computer. You should also read the full manual either before or after going through the tutorials since the tutorials are fairly direct and step-by-step and may not give you a complete sense of what each Argus tool accomplishes or why it needs to be done.

Jump to: Dwarp | Sync | Patterns | Calibrate | Clicker | Wand | Argus for Design

DWarp

1. Open Argus.
2. Open DWarp by pressing the leftmost button labeled ‘DWarp’.
3. Click the ‘Open’ button directly under the title towards the top of the window.
4. Browse to find ‘dwarp-tutorial.mp4’ included in the tutorial files directory and select it.
5. Change the ‘Camera Model’ drop down in the ‘Lens Parameters’ section to ‘GoPro Hero4 Black’.
6. Change the neighboring ‘Shooting Mode’ drop down to ‘1080p-30fps-wide (Fisheye)’.
7. Observe the entry boxes in the Lens Parameter section grey out. This is because we have chosen an omnidirectional distortion profile, better for wide modes, and pinhole distortion coefficients do not apply.
8. Click the ‘Specify’ button at the bottom of the window and browse for the directory you’d like to write the undistorted test video to. Type the name in as ‘dwarp_test_output.mp4’ or any other file name ending in ‘.mp4’.
9. Watch as your video is undistorted and written to the specified location.

A embedded video tutorial for Dwarp

Sync

1. Open Argus.
2. Open Sync by pressing the button labeled ‘Sync’.
3. Click the ‘+’ button and browse for ‘alpha.mp4’ included in the Argus test files directory. Select this file. Notice it has been added to the list toward the top of the window.
4. Do the above step for ‘beta.mp4’ and ‘sigma.mp4’.
5. Click the ‘Show waves’ button directly below the list, and wait for the audio to be ripped from the three videos.
6. Viewing the three wave files in the window which appears, notice that the beeps appear the best in the time window from 0.03 to 0.21 minutes.
7. Go back to the main window.
8. In the entry field labeled ‘Start:’ enter ‘0.03’.
9. In the entry field labeled ‘End:’ enter ‘0.21’.
10. Click the ‘Go’ and wait for the offsets to be found.

An embedded video tutorial for Sync

Patterns

1. Open Argus.
2. Open Patterns by clicking the button labeled ‘Patterns’
3. Click the ‘Open’ button directly below the title.
4. Browse for ‘patterns-tutorial.mp4’ included in the Argus test directory and select it.
5. The defaults in the entry boxes are those for the test video and the printout we include with this suite i.e. 12 row, 9 columns, and a spacing of 0.2 between grid points.
6. Click the ‘Specify’ button towards the bottom of the window.
7. Click the ‘Go’ button and watch as the patterns are found frame by frame. Some patterns will fail to be found even in our test video. This is normal.

An embedded video tutorial for Patterns

Calibrate

1. Open Argus.
2. Open Calibrate by choosing the right-most button labeled ‘Calibrate’.
3. Click the ‘Open’ button towards the top of the window.
4. Browse for ‘patterns-tutorial.pkl’ included in the Argus test data directory and select it.
5. In the ‘Options’ section, change the entry box labeled ‘Number of replications’ from 100 to 10.
6. Check the box labeled ‘Invert grid coordinates’.
7. Now click the ‘Specify’ button and choose a directory where you’d like to save your calibrations csv file. Name the file ‘test.csv’ or any other name ending with ‘.csv’.
8. Click ‘Go’ and wait as the 10 replications are finished.
9. After the process, you can take the distortion parameters you obtained and plug them into DWarp to test them. However, the parameters may not be very accurate after just 10 replications.

An embedded video tutorial for Calibrate

Clicker

1. Open Argus.
2. Click the second most right button labeled Clicker.
3. Click the plus button on the right and navigate to the video ‘alpha.mp4’ in the Argus tutorial folder. Put the offset as 0.
4. Repeat step 3 for ‘beta.mp4’ and ‘sigma.mp4’. Both of these videos also have an offset of 0.
5. Leave the resolution as the default and click ‘Go’.
6. Go to frame 10 by hitting the ‘G’ key and typing 10 into the popup window.
7. Press X to sync the windows to the same frame. Press it again to turn off sync.
8. Track one side of the visible wand for at least a hundred frames in all three videos. This can be accomplished by clicker the center of the wand for all the frames or clicking on the center of the wand in the first frame and hitting ‘A’ to use the auto-tracker. Auto-tracking can be improved by first growing your view finder at the bottom right using 7, Y, U, and I keys (in arrow configuration). You can view how well the auto-tracker is doing in the view-finder window.
9. Hit ‘O’ to bring up the options dialog.
10. Click the button labeled ‘Add track’. This track will be for the other side of the
wand.
11. Click ‘Ok’ to go back to the video windows.
12. Repeat step 8 for the other side of the wand.
14. Once your done, hit the ‘S’ button to bring up a save dialog. Pick a location and type a tag like ‘tutorial’.

An embedded video tutorial for Clicker

Wand

1. Open Argus.
2. Click on the right-most button labeled ‘Wand’.
3. Click the first button labeled ‘Open’ beside ‘Open cameras: ‘. This button allows you to navigate for a Camera Profile .TXT file explained in detail in the run-through section. Select ‘tutorial_cam.txt’ in the Argus-Wand tutorial folder.
4. Clicker second button labeled ‘Open’ beside ‘Open Paired points: ‘. This allows you to browse for a paired points .CSV file. Select ‘tutorial-wand-xypts.csv’ in the Argus-Wand tutorial folder.
5. Set the scale as ‘0.2’.
6. Leave the optimization drop-down menus as their defaults of ‘Optimize none’.
7. Hit ‘Specify’ at the bottom and type ‘tutorial’ and pick a place on your hard drive to save the results.
8. Click ‘Go’ to see Wand reconstruct a 3D scene out of the pixel-coordinates and camera profile you provided. Notice that the reprojection errors printed last in the log window are quite high. You can improve these by adding more pixel correspondences in Clicker.

An embedded video tutorial for Wand

Argus for design

This tutorial takes you through the steps necessary to intrinsically calibrate your camera and shooting mode (i.e. figure out its distortion profile) and then remove lens distortion from your videos. The videos will be written to an MP4 with the original dimensions, frame rate, sound track, etc. While Argus-DWarp works well for most shooting modes and cameras, very wide angle videos may not fully undistort. These videos can be undistorted but you’ll lose a lot of the field of view when cropping down.

1. Print the dot grid located in the folder ‘Extras’ in the Argus package.

2. Film the dot grid for a short amount of time (anywhere from a minute to a few minutes) from various different angles and orientations in the desired shooting mode. Try your best to film the grid from various vantages while keeping the entire grid in view.

3. Upload your video to your computer.

4. Open Argus-Patterns.

3. Navigate to your video by clicking the button labeled ‘Open’.

4. Depending on how you oriented the grid relative to the camera, you may have to switch the rows and columns. The spacing between grid points should be the same as the default setting.

3. Specify a filename for the outputted Pickle file (.pkl) or simply click ‘Go’ and the filename and location will be the same as the input file.

4. Wait for Patterns to locate the grids in the video you provided.

5. After Patterns has finished, open up Argus-Calibrate.

6. Click ‘Open’ and navigate to the Pickle file you just created.

7. Specify a filename and location or again simply hit ‘Go’.

8. If you see messages about high RMSEs, stop the process and check the box that says ‘Invert grid coordinates’.

9. Wait for Argus-Calibrate to finish.

10. In the CSV file that Argus-Calibrate writes are the distortion coefficients and camera intrinsics (i.e. the distortion profile). You can plug these directly into the entry boxes of Argus-DWarp, or create a new CSV similar to the ones included in the ‘calibrations’ folder within Argus that DWarp will read upon every startup. Once you’ve plugged in these distortion coefficients, focal length, optical center, etc., use DWarp as usual to undistort your videos. Check the box labeled ‘Crop to undistorted region’ to make the video only display portions which are undistorted. This is probably the most desirable setting for those using Argus simply to remove lens distortion.
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http://www.argus.ru/home/~/media/9f17c79237664a8e86806542857a6be4.ashx

Last Updated: september 2013
The most up-to-date Argus Global Compliance Policy is available on www.argusmedia.com
argUs gLobaL CompLianCe poLiCy
argUs gLobaL CompLianCe poLiCy
www.argusmedia.com
Contents:
Context
2
Best practice
2
Compliance policies
3
Corporate structure and governance
3
Ethics policy
3
Staff 4
Data and data security
4
Price reporting
4
Corrections policy
4
Methodology and compliance
5
External audit
5
Consultation and communication
5
Business continuity
5
Argus complaints handling procedure
6
Background
6
Formal complaints handling procedure
6
Queries 6
19 January 2005
September 2013
www.argusmedia.com
2
ArGuS GlobAl ComPliAnCe PoliCy
Context
Argus provides global information on the energy markets.
Argus is one of two global energy market reporting agen
-
cies. It was founded in 1970 and today has more than 100
publications and over 500 employees. It is privately held
by the founder’s family and employees. It is one of the
fastest growing UK private companies. Argus first received
an “Investors in People” Award in 2000, and has received
two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise (in 2002 and 2009).
Argus provides independent price assessments for a
range of energy commodities. The main published prices
reflect the value of the spot markets, and therefore the
marginal clearing price in an open market. These prices
are used by energy companies, financial services and
governments as price references or price benchmarks.
These benchmarks underpin term trade, market analysis,
internal transfer pricing, taxation, performance measures,
risk management tools and capital investment decisions.
The reported prices allow the energy sector to operate
efficiently and effectively to the benefit of consumers and
producers. Argus strives to perform this task responsibly
and diligently.
Argus sets high standards internally for editorial com-
pliance and for business ethics. The purpose of this
document is to set out the global policy framework for
compliance and ethical behaviour by all employees in
Argus. The publication of energy prices provides access
to information to all participants in the market and acts
to level the playing field between them. And the energy
industry, regulators and government expect Argus to do
all that it can to ensure the accuracy of the information it
provides.
To support the maintenance of high standards, this
document seeks to set out the basics of operation and
conduct that form the backbone of Argus’ corporate
and compliance standards. It covers Argus’ corporate
governance approach, staff policy frameworks, as well its
overall approach on compliance with its price reporting
methodologies. Argus’ clients expect to be able to rely
on Argus’ high journalistic standards, and compliance
with its stated methodologies. Argus has a compliance
programme that seeks to do this, overseen by its global
compliance officer.
This global framework is implemented locally via regional
employee manuals and editorial policy handbooks, which
reflect local variations in business conduct and employ
-
ment conditions. But they have the same objective of
ensuring compliance with the stated standards of Argus.
Best practice
Argus has an important role in the proper functioning of
the energy markets. Confidence in the prices published
by Argus creates confidence in the markets themselves,
which in turn encourages liquidity, effective clearing of
trades, accurate price identification and overall market
transparency.
Argus recognises that its clients and other industry stake
-
holders expect it to meet the highest standards in the field
of price reporting, and to value principles that support
its important role. Argus has a published ethics policy to
ensure objectivity. Argus is an independent firm, with a
clear corporate governance and compliance programme.
Argus also respects transparency and disclosure by mak
-
ing its processes public, and by providing market infor
-
mation openly. Argus ensures that it has the resources to
achieve these values, by hiring and retaining qualified and
experienced staff, and regularly training employees. Argus
maintains its credibility as a price reporting agency by con-
sistently applying its methodologies for price identification,
and thus maintaining its high and long standing reputation.
Argus employees are expected to abide by strict guide
-
lines in order to maintain confidence in Argus, for the good
of its clients and the markets as a whole.
Argus expects its staff to hold its work up to standards of
good practice, in order to produce prices that are reliable,
accurate, and representative. Argus holds the following as
desirable attributes of the price identification process:
Representative: Argus price assessments are in accord
-
ance with the published Argus methodologies.
Accountable: Argus ensures that its price assessments
will be in accordance with its published methodologies
through its management and the oversight of its global
compliance officer.
Auditable: Transaction data provided by market partici
-
pants are traceable and verifiable throughout the price
identification process. Methodological practice is also
audited to ensure that it coincides with the published
methodology
.
Consistent: Timelines and process for data submission
by market participants is openly available and consistent.
Methodology and prices specifications are changed after
consultation with industry and opportunity to comment.
Prices are published at a pre-announced frequency and
schedule, without delays or interruptions.
Transparent: Methodologies are well documented, publicly
available, and clear
.