Feature request: transparent heat map

[Nigel Stanford]

Ok, here's another one... :innocent:

I love the idea of the false color / heat map feature, but I don't use it much:
The current one is something like this:

The current version is cool, it's not something that can be left on all day, unless you're taking powerful drugs...
What would be really useful is a heat map where only portions of the image that are clipping or approaching black get colored. A transparent heat map would look like this:

You really only care about the areas of the image that are clipping, or approaching black.

For other cameras, I have created a 10 bit LUT where anything over 1022 gets colored, and anything under 120 gets colored. The lower end number depends on your definition of acceptable noise. Ideally the user could adjust the threshold.

You can use it to judge exposure, basically open up until it's just about to clip. It's better than a waveform monitor because you can see exactly the part of the image that is clipping or in shadow, and it's right there in your face.

I leave it on all the time. In the day, if a cloud pops out of nowhere and is clipping, it's immediately obvious. I can just tweak the iris and it's gone. I also know that if I do so, I'm not going to underexpose - I can always make a judgement call on which part of the image is more important to preserve.

At night, I would make sure that a decent percentage of the frame was not colored, because I know that there's not a lot of usable detail in there. The amount of shots I've seen coming through post where nothing is over 20% on the waveform gives me chills. If the crew had had this tool on at all times, they might have thought twice about throwing a light in there

 

[Michael Lindsay]

Zebras! or am I confused?

 

[Nigel Stanford]

zebras for the black

black and white zebras!

 

[Nigel Stanford]

A better illustration. In the post above, the exposure is fine. The only highlighted parts of the image are parts that should be black.

If it looked like the image below, I'd know I had a problem and would need to think about increasing the exposure - cause if I wanted to bring it up in the grade, it's going to be noisy:

 

[Shawn Booth]

I like where your head's at. The question is, how feasible is it to make a reality?

 

[Corrado Silveri]

Great idea.

 

[Jeff Brue]

it could be easiliy created once user uploadable LUTs are enabled... then its just a matter of switching back and forth from a standard view LUT to this. heck you could do it with a decklink HD pro right now, if you trust the HD-SDI out.

 

[Zakaree Sandberg]

i use false color like no other.. my exposures are always dead on

 

[Nigel Stanford]

it could be easiliy created once user uploadable LUTs are enabled... then its just a matter of switching back and forth from a standard view LUT to this. heck you could do it with a decklink HD pro right now, if you trust the HD-SDI out.

I've got an HDlink on one of my monitors, I think it loads, LUTs, but if someone adjusts the ISO or anything, you're screwed. Would be better if it was looking at the data straight off the chip prior to any processing.