| Photography Forum: Panoramic Photography Forum: |
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Q. Hello. Panorama stitching programs???
Asked by Brendan Barry
(K=35) on 8/21/2006
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Hello there everybody. I'm a young photographer and I've been taking 360 degree panoramic photos for a few years now, whilst at and since leaving university. I've always worked with film, scanning the negs and stitching the photo's manually in photoshop, and I've really enjoyed working in this way up to now. However I've recently bought a digital camera and I'm interested in using some of the programs available to create panoramas, and virtual reality tours, automatically. (It was just getting to expensive and time consuming). I've downloaded a few trials; Panoweaver, but this only accepts a fisheye lens I believe, which I don't have. I don't know a lot about Panotools + PT mac etc.. Realviz seems ok? Anyway, basically I was wondering if anyone can offer me a bit of advice. I would just like to know a little about which programs other photographers use, and maybe which ones might suit me. I have a basic panoramic tripod head at the moment but I am saving for a Manfrotto 303 SPH head so I will be able to take the multi-row panoramas, which I think I right in saying create cubic VR photos?? I tend to shoot at an 18mm focal length and mainly landscapes, although I also do a lot of panoramas with people in them, at festivals etc... As you can probably tell, I'm fairly new to all this, at least to the technical side of things, so any advise on which programs work best would be greatly appreciated. (Also, I often make large prints of my photos, is any quality/resolution lost in the automatic stitching process?). Thank you for taking the time to read this and for any thoughts you might have to offer. All the best, brendan
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Roger Williams
(K=86139) - Comment Date 8/21/2006
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You should definitely try PTgui. This started out as a GUI for the Panotools suite of, er, tools that got this whole panorama movement rolling. You mention PT mac, so I wonder if you are a MAC user? If so, PTgui for MAC is still in beta, but it might be stable enough to experiment with now. The cost is very reasonable and although simple to operate in "Wizard" mode it has immense sophistication under the hood if you decide you want to do more tweaking. I think by cubic VR you may mean QuickTime cubes...? These can be created either by multirow shooting or by far fewer shots with fisheye lenses. Note that although circular fisheye lenses are ideal for creating 360 degree panoramas with the fewest shots (say three or four around), they are not much use for general photography. More useful are the full-frame fisheyes. These generally require six shots arount, spaced 60 degrees apart, and one each pointing straight up and down. I use the excellent Nikkor 10.5mm FF fisheye now, although I used the Peleng 8mm circular fisheye when I was shooting full size film negatives.
If you want to make large prints, then stitching more shots, each one covering a smaller FOV, is the way to go. The stitching process itself does not necessarily have to degrade quality. PTgui, for instance, leaves ALL the changes (warping, matching color, blending, etc. for one final stage of processing, so there is no repeated saving and re-reading involved. It will also work with lossless TIFF files, which is better than JPEGs, of course.
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Brendan Barry
(K=35) - Comment Date 8/24/2006
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Thanks for your quick reply Roger, i'm sorry i wasn't quicker getting back to you, I've been working away for the last few days. I'll have a go with PTgui for Mac (you were right I am a mac user) and see how i get on. Maybe I'll get back to you later with some more questions if you don't mind. All the best, brendan
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Roger Williams
(K=86139) - Comment Date 8/25/2006
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No problem, Brendan. Hope you like PTgui. If you run into any problems, there is a very fine Yahoo Group called PanotoolsNG ("NG" for "new generation"). There are many experts there, a friendly helpful atmosphere, and great archives where MOST questions ever asked have been answered. Oh, there's also a Wiki at www.panotools.org, which you might find interesting/helpful. Of course I will be willing to help all I can...
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Brendan Barry
(K=35) - Comment Date 8/27/2006
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Hello again Roger. I'm having trouble!!! I downloaded PTMac and, guided by the Wizard, I tried to create a panorama. I got to the setting control points stage and then through the optomizing option, when it lead me on to the 'create panorama' page, here it would not let me do anything, the 'create panorama' tab was not active. I have not been able to install Panotools and I am asuming that this is one of the, many, reasons things are not working for me. I do apologise for my ineptitude in this matter, the technical language is all very new to me and is rather confusing at times. I have applied to join the Yahoo Group you suggested, where I hope to find more help, (I am just waiting to find out if I have been accepted) but I was just wondering really if there was some kind of idiot's guide to installing and using Panotools and PTMac that you knew of, or if you had any more helpfull tips and adivice about how to get this all up and running. Thanks once agin for all your help so far, kind regards, Brendan
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Roger Williams
(K=86139) - Comment Date 8/28/2006
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Brendan: I know nothing of PTMac, my own choice has long been the originally Windows-only PTgui (now available in a MAC beta version that is fairly stable). I do know the guy who makes/sells PTMac and he is very good about responding to queries. I would drop him an E-mail. PanotoolsNG has been bothered by a sleazy net denizen recently, and we (I am one of the moderators) are putting applications for membership on hold for two or three days. Nothing personal! So don't despair if you don't get on immediately. Quickest way to get on is to express a clear interest in panoramas in your application (you could even mention I recommended you): that should get you through PDQ.
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Brendan Barry
(K=35) - Comment Date 8/29/2006
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Hi there Roger, I was accepted into PanotoolsNG, so many thanks if you played any part in that. I'm going to keep trying by myself, try to find out exactly where I am going wrong, and then if/when I run into more trouble I will look for some advice there. Just a quickie in the mean time if you don't mind. I have a bunch of panoramas that I took recently at a friend wedding, I was just wondering if you new of any quick and easy software that would allow me turn some flat already stitched 360 degree photos into QuickTime VR movies, that I could then possibly email. All the best
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Roger Williams
(K=86139) - Comment Date 8/29/2006
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Glad to hear it. It's a fantastic group. As for quick conversion to QTVR, I use Pano2QTVR, which has a free version that will do exactly what you want and an inexpensive "pro" version with lots of additional functions. I am not sure if there is a MAC version. If not, make this your first question to PanotoolsNG! I do KNOW there is a MAC program that will do this, just had no cause to remember it.
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David Shaw
(K=24) - Comment Date 12/15/2009
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David
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David Shaw
(K=24) - Comment Date 12/15/2009
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David
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pano2009 Watson
(K=10) - Comment Date 3/2/2010
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Maybe it's a little bit late, but a good news, Panoweaver now supports almost all kinds of images, not only fisheye ones.;)
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Roger Williams
(K=86139) - Comment Date 3/2/2010
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Better late than never. The great advantage of fisheye images for stitching panoramas is they cover of the scene so much you don't need to stitch so many. Fewer seams means fewer problems.
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