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Panorama Applications -- what to choose

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utcreeper View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote utcreeper Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Topic: Panorama Applications -- what to choose
    Posted: 05 July 2012 at 20:03
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.
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Bob Maddison View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Bob Maddison Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 July 2012 at 17:20
I use AutoStitch. It's free; it works; and, once you are familiar with it, it allows a lot of control. For instance, it allows some control over vignetting, but it does like to have all the photos with a similar exposure/brightness. You can control the output file size (jpeg) and this does affect the time taken. I have even used it with photos taken with different cameras and different lens focal lengths and it somehow seems to be able to incorporate all the photos.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Pirate Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 05 July 2012 at 16:18
Microsoft ICE

Easy to use, free and does a great job. Gets my vote
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Grubeater Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 31 March 2012 at 02:43
Another Hugin fan.
I use Hugin, as it is an open source project it has improved through the years. Using this relative cheap panohead A700 and Zenitar 16/2.8 fisheye I've made this panorama of my living room in Hugin.


If you think that's messy, look at my former student room.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote zbozic Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 March 2012 at 20:24
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
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Post Options Post Options   Quote hopelessOne Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 March 2012 at 11:54
I've tried most of the panorama applications out there and the only one I keep coming back to is AutopanoPro. Hugin (and derivatives like PTGUI) have never worked well for me* and I find the control points to be a pain in the neck. AutopanoPro is based more on the autostitch model and, although there are control points under the covers, I've never needed to modify them. The stitching is generally perfect and the blending non-obvious. Sometime I have a problem with horizon curvature that isn't easily fixed in Autopano but it's the best one I've found (so far). My only other complaint is that I'd like an integrated Lightroom plugin that made managing the panorama components and final images a bit easier.

* I generally shoot telephoto panoramas which should be the easiest to stitch but I don't have a pano-head and often shoot them handheld.
 



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Octupi View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Octupi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 30 March 2012 at 01:18
Not sure what type of TIFF they're writing but I write all my PS files as TIFF that are automatically imported to LR.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote neillp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 16:05
Originally posted by Octupi Octupi wrote:

Originally posted by neillp neillp wrote:

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.


LR will read TIFF files, so why do you convert to png?


Do I need to change a setting to make LR read TIFF files?

It certainly will not recognise the TIFF file produced by Hugin.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote horizon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 13:45
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
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Octupi View Drop Down
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Post Options Post Options   Quote Octupi Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 13:12
Originally posted by neillp neillp wrote:

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.


LR will read TIFF files, so why do you convert to png?
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Post Options Post Options   Quote neillp Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 12:12
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.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote horizon Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 08:39
G'day jkp1,

I did try every setting there was, and most of the time it was trying to stitch basically, was displaying that it could not find control points, even when I went through and identified them, the result was terrible.

I'm personally not one for knocking Opensource software, I personally think it's a great alternative, but for me, this one didnt work.

I wont say here what the preview result looked like, as I dont want to give people the impression that Opensource software is no good. Maybe I came on a little strong in my previous post, and I will retract my statement, but I'm usually pretty good at figuring these things out in a very short time as I've done this type of testing on other software for 15 years. But I was getting no joy with it no matter what I tried. It basically went from bad to worse with the image I was trying to stitch that photomerge and PTGui could. Maybe I was a bit unfair on it but not trying it on other stitch attempts. But in my I.T work, if a piece of software was not successfully able to do something that other industry software can, then for me, it's not fully functional.

However, I will give it another go and see if I can make it work on other stitches that I have done. I suppose I most likely had my I.T hat on when I did my testing with Hugin, as for me, if the software wont work correctly for me while evaluating it, it's gone.

On the up side of my afternoon, PTGui was able to stitch a pano that photomerge was completely failing to stitch as it kept failing on one image, but PTGui, just did it.

I dont mind if I can get Hugin to work correctly for me, as it would give me another alternative should the stitch not work in another application and then I could still get it to work.

So I will give it another try, with other stitches and the same attempt to give it a more than a fair try.
Please dont edit my photo's
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Post Options Post Options   Quote brettania Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 08:35
Have you tried the mode dial on an a900?

I have just had a long look through the specs and it does not mention a pano setting. However with the available resolution you would still get an excellent "original" if you cropped the pic.
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Post Options Post Options   Quote jkp1 Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 29 March 2012 at 07:48
Why not turn the mode dial to panorama setting ? It actually works....
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