SLAPSHOT’s New AI Camera Tracking Tool Delivers 3D-Ready Results in Minutes

SLAPSHOT, the AI-powered VFX toolkit from Hotspring, has officially launched its most ambitious update yet: a professional-grade AI Camera Tracking tool that generates accurate camera solves and detailed point clouds in just minutes—slashing a process that typically takes hours, if not days.

If you work in 2D compositing, this is a total game changer. The new tool finally delivers what so many artists have been waiting for: precise camera tracking that’s fast, easy to use, and ready for production. “A track that might’ve taken a full day or more to do by hand can now be finished in under ten minutes,” says SLAPSHOT Co-Founder and CEO Jon Mason.

Camera Tracking Made Simple for Every Artist

The tool was built with accessibility in mind—whether you’re a VFX pro or someone who doesn’t work with 3D on a daily basis. Mason explains: “For people who don’t regularly work in 3D, camera tracking can feel overwhelming. It’s a super technical space, so it was crucial for us to make it as simple yet powerful as possible.”

All you have to do is click “Solve Camera” and let the AI handle the rest automatically—no camera data required. Or, if you already have camera information, you can input it, and the system will use it smartly. Either way, you get a high-quality, production-ready track.

Outputs include .abc and .glb camera files, .exr STMaps, undistorted .jpg plates, and a .mov playblast—all compatible with major 3D and compositing tools.

The system excels at the kinds of shots that make up most compositing work—background replacements, screen comps, sky swaps, and clean-ups—where precision matters, but speed matters even more.

“This isn’t meant to replace expert tracking for heavy CG sequences,” Mason adds. “But for those medium-difficulty shots where a 2D track just won’t cut it, this will save artists hours, if not days, on every project. The speed-to-quality ratio is unlike anything else out there.”

Who It’s For

Compositors and 2D leads working on commercials, music videos, and episodic projects.

Mid-size studios or freelancers without large CG departments.

Artists tackling background replacements, cleanups, screen comps—anywhere camera tracking slows down their workflow.

People who’ve wasted time on slow matchmoves or had to redo comps because the final track came in too late.

Behind the Scenes of a Breakthrough

Getting here wasn’t easy. “There’s no off-the-shelf solution for something like this,” says Mason. “We were building something no one else had done before, so it meant collaborating and contributing at the highest level of the open-source AI community to pull it off.”

Now, Camera Tracking joins SLAPSHOT’s growing suite of AI-powered VFX tools, all designed to remove friction from the creative process and boost output quality across commercials, films, and episodic projects.

By making high-quality camera solves possible even on tight timelines and budgets, SLAPSHOT lets artists deliver faster results without sacrificing quality.

The SLAPSHOT Suite

Here’s the full lineup of SLAPSHOT’s AI-powered VFX tools:

Camera Tracking: Generates dimensionally accurate point clouds and precise camera solves in just minutes, compatible with all major 3D tools.

AI Rotoscoping: Streamlines the traditionally labor-heavy task of isolating elements. Users can export results as EXR, JPG, or MOV files in hard or soft mattes—perfect for speeding up compositing pipelines.

Generative Retiming: Predicts and creates new frames to extend footage by up to 200%, no artifacts or visual glitches included. Just upload a clip, set the target length, and export.

Video Depth Maps: Produces stable depth predictions for creative or technical use—from depth-of-field effects to advanced grading.

All SLAPSHOT tools are securely hosted on AWS, independently audited, and support resolutions up to 8K—meaning artists can work at high fidelity without investing in expensive local hardware.

Together, these tools create a new kind of creative infrastructure—a smarter, faster generation of visual effects workflows.

SLAPSHOT runs on a fast, efficient, and secure web interface, powered by robust cloud infrastructure compatible with the latest AI models. It supports resolutions up to 8K and eliminates the need for local high-end hardware.

A Toolkit Built by the Team Behind Hotspring

SLAPSHOT was created by the same team that built Hotspring, a globally trusted VFX outsourcing platform used by studios around the world. Co-founders Jon Mason and Varun Parange, along with Managing Director Ben Stallard, bring experience from high-end projects across Oscar-, Emmy-, and VES-winning productions.

Drawing on that background, they built SLAPSHOT to tackle the bottlenecks artists face every day—delivering tools that are production-tested and artist-approved.

It’s an approach that’s getting attention: SLAPSHOT has been shortlisted for two 2025 Broadcast Tech Awards—Best AI Innovation (Workflow) and Standout Tech of the Year (Post-Production)—recognizing its fresh take on automating and speeding up complex VFX tasks.

“Our users have always been really interested in a camera tracking solution,” Mason says. “It was always just slightly out of reach. But once the research advanced across a few different areas, we realized we could finally put it all together. The stars aligned, and the result is something truly one-of-a-kind—no one has ever built anything like this before.”

Hotspring Managing Director Ben Stallard adds, “We built SLAPSHOT to solve the real-world problems artists deal with every day—the tasks that eat into creative time and production budgets. Camera Tracking continues that mission by turning a complex process into a ten-minute task.”