Unless we are setting up a trackless (billboard) type camera, we are going to need a camera tracking device. Reality uses the information provided by the tracking device, in order to calculate the virtual camera position, look at direction, field of view and focal depth every frame (fields in interlaced productions).
There are mainly 2 types of camera tracking technologies for virtual studio applications:
Mechanical tracking
Optical tracking
Also, there are other tracking methods, which uses a fusion of several different tracking methods. For example, “Mo-Sys StarTracker” can use a fusion of optical tracking and IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit). There are even other tracking solutions, where mechanical tracking data can be used in combination with optical tracking.
Some of the tracking devices also provide lens calibration data, while some of them only provide zoom and focus encoder data.