Panorama Applications -- what to choose

Another +1 for Hugin. Only minor but you can't export in raw only Jpeg or TIFF.

I export in TIFF then convert to PNG in PS elements so I can see/develop the file in Lightroom.

Ok, I gave Hugin another chance to prove itself.

This time after I installed it, I tested with the same stitch that I tried earlier that turned out miserable.

The results were completely different this time. It worked straight up, no fussin, but result were that I found that it sometimes does not cleanup after itself, and the stitch that I did, used up 30+GB of HDD space in temp files. Easy enough to delete though, but if you use the same folder for the project as the source files, that could be a trap for late night pano's stitch as you could inadvertantly delete the source files along with the temp files if not careful.

Compared Hugin, PTGui and Photomerge on the same stitch project.
All three goofed on the same spot. Basically says to me that it might be a nodal point issue on that area as it was a chest high hand rail, that stitched the rail to its shadow, close to the camera, fixable by cropping in all three. Photomerge however, goofed on a lightning conductor on top of a building at some distance, not fixable by cropping. But the rest of the image was fine. PTGui got the reset of the image fine without any additional faults. Hugin, had a straight line stitch in the clouds and goofed on the hand rail and upright post further along the footpath, could be cropped out, but most of the river reflections cut off, that Photomerge and PTGui got right.

So what changed from the time of the first install of Hugin and the second install. Well apart from completely uninstalling and removal of all Hugin files and registry entries, I purchased PTGui (The misses said just buy it, so we did), and I did another download of Hugin and install.

My guess is that the initial download of Hugin was slightly corrupted, and as windows does not necessarily do a checksum prior to attempting to install, I'm guessing that it was not a fully functional install of Hugin and had a corrupted file.

So if you find that you install Hugin and your initial stitches turn out like 60mph puke, uninstall it, remove all registry entries and files, download it again and reinstall and try again. Pretty good chances that its a corrupt install.

Summary, Will I keep Hugin installed, I probably will. Will it by my primary software for stitching, No, I dont think so, however I will keep it just in case I have issues with Photomerge and PTGui not being able to do the stitch and Hugin is able to pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Just my opinion as a tech and photographer.

Regards,
Craig

Not sure what type of TIFF they're writing but I write all my PS files as TIFF that are automatically imported to LR.

I'm using AutopanoPro 2.6 x64 on my HP Z800 (quad, 3.6) workstation.
I tried a lot of pano software, but this is only one witch can make panorama in industrial environment. I have a lot of pipes to connect. I'm using A900 with 16/2.8 fish eye and Manfrotto 3D panoramic head. Eight pictures for 360 x 160 degrees or 16 for full ball. Camera and lens are in it's database. Program allows from full atomatic to full manual movement and control point definition.

I made 270 panoamas in my company and it's virtual walk through the power plant.

On Z800, this 8, 25Mpix pictures become a panorama under minute. On my home machine (dual core 3.6) it takes 3 hours.

Edited by zbozic - 30 March 2012 at 20:27

Microsoft ICE

Easy to use, free and does a great job. Gets my vote

I'm another ICE fan.
It assembled a 2.4Gigapixel pano in about 20 minutes. I left CS5 running at it for over 24 hours, and eventually closed the application. I tried Hugin a few years back on a different pano, and didn't care for the interface. I'm sure it's fine, but I like ICE better.