Finally concede that I need a nodal slide (and 360 virtual tours)

[Asher Kelman]

Proper technique will also open up the possibilities of focus stacking, especially useful when using longer focal lengths for increased resolution stitching.

Not well in AutoPano Giga yet, it seems, (according to some folks who prepare the stacks first in an HDR program). However, with your new experience with SNS HDR from our Polish programmer wizard friend, this may be made much easier. So how easy is t?

Asher

 

[Alain Briot]

"Alain,

As you know, advocate and teach, marketing is the one of the important considerations in linking one's own passion in photography to putting bread on the table, a car in the garage and money in the bank! "


You forgot buying real estate. I have 3 house and 200 acres of land as of now.

 

[Alain Briot]

The only issue I can't fix is extreme lens distortions when turning the camera from right to left when using a wide angle. Software is "lost" then and can't do the stitch. Maybe in the future it will be able to?
No, not if you need (like in most architecture shots) to use a rectilinear projection (just like on flat film or sensors), it's inescapable physics. You can use a different projection method, but then straight lines will no longer be represented as straight lines (usually a disaster in architecture). With stitches of landscapes, one can often get away with alternative projections, e.g. cylindrical will often do just fine. For other scenes on may be able to use anamorphic distortion to mitigate the effect of a simulated extreme wide angle lens.

Cheers,
Bart

The problem with CS5 Photomerge is that it does auto-aligning. If it can do it (can't align the images automatically) then it can complete the stitch. That's the only problem I'm having with it.

 

[Valentin Arfire]

hi Alain
the stitching programs - of which you may choose from Autopano, PTGUI or hugin have proper algorithms and some even appropriate lenses libraries. After setting up a system camera/lense, after determiningf the non paralax point and defining the lense in the stitching program , the programs will manage to create the panorama;
unfortunately the Adobe or Microsoft products in this branch are left behind (when it comes to spherical panoramas) so as a pro photographer you shouldn't waste time on them.

I don't know Autopano but as I have tryed it a few years ago, there was a problem defining vertical/horizontal lines, so I have stucked with PTGUI (payed) or hugin (open source) stitching programs

my 2 ¢

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Not well in AutoPano Giga yet, it seems, (according to some folks who prepare the stacks first in an HDR program). However, with your new experience with SNS HDR from our Polish programmer wizard friend, this may be made much easier. So how easy is t?

Hi Asher,

There are several routes one could follow. One is by letting the Stitching application's functionality handle lighting and or focus stacking, another is to use dedicated software for dedicated parts of the project. IMHO there is no simple answer, because it all depends on things like time restraints versus ultimate quality, and output size requirements, so it can vary by project.

Having said that, I currently prefer to handle (HDR) lighting issues with SNS-HDR, because it offers a very natural looking result. That also means that each tile in a panorama is first tonemapped with SNS-HDR. Then the tiles are stitched and blended. If there is a need for focus stacking, one can either do that per tile, prior to the tonemapping, or on different versions of the stitched panorama. Doing it first seems to offer more control.

What would be ideal of course is a potent stitcher that reads EXR files, and writes an EXR stitched panorama. That would still allow to use one's favorite tools for tonemapping, and the focus stacking could ideally be done as part of the construction of the EXR tiles. Sofar, we'll have to do it the hard way.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Would it not be possible to ask a program to stitch two or more sets of files (the dark and the bright) using exactly the same parameters so that you would be able to layer them perfectly on top of each other when stitched? You could then use your HDR program of preference or indeed your own personal reciepe in PS just as you would regular bracketed images. It would seem to offer the simplest solution. I've no idea if it's possible however to ask a program to replicate the stitching pattern exactly on a different set of images however.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Would it not be possible to ask a program to stitch two or more sets of files (the dark and the bright) using exactly the same parameters so that you would be able to layer them perfectly on top of each other when stitched?

Hi Ben,

Absolutely, it's possible. The only drawback is that the HDR tonemapping, which can be very processing intensive, would need to be done on relatively large files.

A benefit of doing it per tile, and I already use that, is that I tend to use different exposure settings for each tile and let the blending engine transition from exposure area to exposure area. I occasionally even vary the colorbalance per tile. Also when first tonemapping individual tiles, the stitcher program's blending function (which can take quite a bit of time) only has to blend once, and not multiple times for each exposure layer. Of course for small size output, blending is much faster, so one could use the exposure layer panos as input for the HDR tonemapping stage.

You could then use your HDR program of preference or indeed your own personal reciepe in PS just as you would regular bracketed images. It would seem to offer the simplest solution. I've no idea if it's possible however to ask a program to replicate the stitching pattern exactly on a different set of images however.

It should, I know it's possible with PTassembler, and so I assume also with PTGUI, by just omitting the optimization steps, using the prior optimization settings and just warp and blend straight away with the next set of files.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Asher Kelman]

Would it not be possible to ask a program to stitch two or more sets of files (the dark and the bright) using exactly the same parameters so that you would be able to layer them perfectly on top of each other when stitched? You could then use your HDR program of preference or indeed your own personal reciepe in PS just as you would regular bracketed images. It would seem to offer the simplest solution. I've no idea if it's possible however to ask a program to replicate the stitching pattern exactly on a different set of images however.

One can have Autopano Giga use just one layer for all the links and also blend each stack. However, it does not also give a series of stacked stitches. That's something we could request.

Asher

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi folks,

Gave the first few virtual tours to the clients, they're complaining about the shimmer along some of the straight edges as it pans round automatically. I can see what they mean. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or is it just the nature of the beast?

www.studio-beni.net/pano1.html (I know about the misalignment there, I've got it fixed in a later version).

 

[Asher Kelman]

Moiré in Stitched Panos

Hi folks,

Gave the first few virtual tours to the clients, they're complaining about the shimmer along some of the straight edges as it pans round automatically. I can see what they mean. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or is it just the nature of the beast?

www.studio-beni.net/pano1.html (I know about the misalignment there, I've got it fixed in a later version).

Congratulations, Ben! I'm so happy you are making these virtual tours. This is so interesting as it provides a means for folks to explore. The glimmer, I believe is just moiré. It's so noticeable as we are moving and so the pattern changes.

Bart Van Der Wolf or Valentn are the best guys to help here.

Asher

 

[Valentin Arfire]

Hi Ben, what I recommend is trying to get a underexpose version with the biggest richness of details from each raw; then an overexposed one (of course the SAME degree of exposure on every over/under exposed raw); you'll have to either do the stitching again with all the pictures or "fuse" the pictures and then re-stitch the results; this way the beauty of the chambers and the halls will not decrease with such areas where information is missed.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

The information is there, there is no clipping whatsoever in the files. It's this moire that's troubling.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hi folks,

Gave the first few virtual tours to the clients, they're complaining about the shimmer along some of the straight edges as it pans round automatically. I can see what they mean. Can anyone tell me what I'm doing wrong or is it just the nature of the beast?

Hi Ben,

As usual there is a bit of a learning curve, but most issues that will pop up can be dealt with (although some are harder than others).

What is showing is the quality of the downsampling method used by the Flash viewer on screen, and the limitations of the interaction between Flash and the display card. The KRPANO viewer can produce great output on screen, but it may require encoding the display quality parameters in XML to get a higher quality, especially while moving the image around. KRPANO is very capable, but it has a much steeper learning curve than some alternatives.

Personally I'm quite fond of the much easier to use Pano2VR application which can send the right parameters to the flash viewer to keep the quality as high as possible. Some shimmering/aliasing is inevitable, but should be reduced by not dropping the image quality while moving.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

I'm using the Autopano Tour program, is there anything there that can be done for higher quality output?

 

[Asher Kelman]

Ben,

Try stitching in PTGUI. Waiting for Valentin and Bart! They know more than I, LOL!

Asher

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Again, nothing wrong with the stitch, it's free of any issues, it's the program making that stitch into the virtual tour which is where the problem appears.

 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I'm using the Autopano Tour program, is there anything there that can be done for higher quality output?

Hi Ben,

The Autopano Tour program only has limited support for the many KRPano capabilities. If you like, I could do a conversion from Equirectangular to Flash for you with Pano2VR to see if it does any better. In that case just PM me for the file location and I'll send you the conversion.

Cheers,
Bart

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Uploading it now Bart,

www.studio-beni.net/pano1_4.jpg

Apologies, it's a big file. The white bar at the bottom is specifically just to raise the panning horizon in autopano tour which defaults to the horizon of the picture without the option to change. Feel free to crop it out.

Many thanks and looking forward!

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Tried it in Pano2VR, it had far less waviness due to moire but the actual tour was horribly distorted.

Trying in Autopano Tour beta 1.1 (11), slightly better, trick seems to be to limit the 'partial panorama width' but even so, looks like I'll have to buy the KRpano add in to get the full functionality out of AP Tour. Without it you are seriously crippled.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Many thanks for Bart for his version!

I've uploaded a new one here: www.studio-beni.net/pano1_4.html

Opinions on it compared to the first one* please..

*www.studio-beni.net/pano1.html

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Yesterday I did just some walk around shoot stuff happening work in the college. One of my 5D's had committed suicide the day before while shooting in the college (was resurrected today with a new shutter) and I wasn't in the mood for anything too difficult. I spent the morning there and it was a very relaxed experience. For one as unacademic as myself there is nothing better than wandering around classrooms, lecture rooms and study halls with not a single exam, essay, etc to trouble my mind!

This guy is Sam. He's a Londoner actually, how he ended here I don't begin to want to ask. He's very rough and ready with the build and hands of a manual labourer. His eyes show a history and there is a tension underlying his fun attitude, you can see the pain still close to the surface. I bumped into him while shooting there the day before, he's the only english speaker on the campus. I came that morning straight after the morning prayers and saw him there still with his tallit (prayer shawl) totally immersed in his studies, completely unaware of his surroundings. I got this photo and then he looked up and a smile broke across his face as he realised that I'd been standing there the whole time. I've invited Sam for a meal over at my place, I hope he takes me up on the offer!

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Here is the final collection, 12 seperate panoramics in this virtual tour. Please pardon the quality, about as good as it gets for my first time plus no pano head (for the most) plus beta software.

www.studio-beni.net/final.html

A special thanks to all those who helped so very much with equipment, advice and making sure I had someone to talk to when I was hitting my head against the wall!

Please forgive the titles on the arrows are in hebrew for the clientele.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Here is the final collection, 12 seperate panoramics in this virtual tour. Please pardon the quality, about as good as it gets for my first time plus no pano head (for the most) plus beta software.

www.studio-beni.net/final.html

A special thanks to all those who helped so very much with equipment, advice and making sure I had someone to talk to when I was hitting my head against the wall!

Please forgive the titles on the arrows are in hebrew for the clientele.

Ben,

This is such good news. It would be great to add English to, or a version with English. Also could you explain what software you used and the workflow you chose. This will be so helpful to the other folks here too!

Again, congrats. I'd like to know what feedback you have from the college?

Asher

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi Asher,

I finished it tonight so no feedback as yet.

All the shooting was done with a Canon 5D and 16-35L on an RRS pano head. Certainly far from ideal as without nodal slides it made the work very very hard. Looking forward to the Panosorous when I can get the (&%$%*& customs here to release it from captivity. My new 8mm fisheye will also be a lifesaver which I hope to use this week and the next and will post up the results!

Software was Autopano, PTGUI and Autopano Tour beta (without the KR plugin). I assume that I will be able to standarise more when I start shooting properly, i.e. without workarounds due to having used the wrong equipment.

I sent the link to the college this evening, I'm shooting a couple of events there later this week so I hope to have feedback. The 'titles' on the arrows are just the names in Hebrew of the various buildings or rooms, nothing exciting and probably wrong, I'm expecting them to correct most of my titles.

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi,

Sorry with the delay in updates on this project, having a baby kinda put a hold on stuff for a bit!

www.studio-beni.net/final.html

Here is an updated (almost, arrows need work) final copy of the virtual tour, the difference being the new 'main' pano which it starts with taken with my new Sigma 8mm!

I got it wrong, I shot with the lens in horizontal rather than vertical so the pano isn't quite 180 degrees vertically, I've also discovered that although you can do it with just 3 frames, 5 is better! Moving subjects are a problem with such a wide frame of view, there is almost always something moving somewhere in a frame which won't be moving in the overlapping frame in an outdoor scene. Autopano however is magic and that plus exporting as a layered PSD makes it all easy.

However! Firstly it's incredibly sharp, far sharper than any fisheye lens using only half the frame deserves to be, couldn't believe it when I zoomed in. It is so incredibly fast to work with, the same pano done previously with the 16-35L took a lot longer, far more frames and was much harder to stitch. This fisheye is going to make my life incredibly easy for stitching. The final 360 degree stitch is around 20 megapixels or in other words far more than enough for web use even at full screen. The lens also seems to compress DR strangely, no idea how or why but it does make the inability to use a grad filter or polarizer far more palatable when there is so much DR!

In other words, incredibly happy to have this lens and to my anonymous benefactor, thank you so very much again, when I get the hang of using it I will be making it sing!

I'm still getting shimmering/moire on sharp edges of the pano's even though I've dropped the field of sharp view down in Autopano Tour to 2000 to mitigate the worst, it does give somewhat more blurred edges to the tour but the overall result is far superior.

I was also using my new Hoya Pro 1 Digital polarizer for other images on the shoot, I'd had a B+W polarizer but only in 77mm and my 16-35 is a huge 82mm filter size. I finally sold the B+W and bought the Hoya. It's very well made, very smooth and easy to use (much easier to rotate than the B+W) and the image quality is very good (cheap polarizers look awful). It made my life so much easier when trying to hold blue skies without resorting to a nasty HDR look and it was most welcome, I'll post some pictures when I finish them.

 

[Asher Kelman]

Hi,

Sorry with the delay in updates on this project, having a baby kinda put a hold on stuff for a bit!

www.studio-beni.net/final.html

Here is an updated (almost, arrows need work) final copy of the virtual tour, the difference being the new 'main' pano which it starts with taken with my new Sigma 8mm!

I got it wrong, I shot with the lens in horizontal rather than vertical so the pano isn't quite 180 degrees vertically, I've also discovered that although you can do it with just 3 frames, 5 is better! Moving subjects are a problem with such a wide frame of view, there is almost always something moving somewhere in a frame which won't be moving in the overlapping frame in an outdoor scene. Autopano however is magic and that plus exporting as a layered PSD makes it all easy.

However! Firstly it's incredibly sharp, far sharper than any fisheye lens using only half the frame deserves to be, couldn't believe it when I zoomed in. It is so incredibly fast to work with, the same pano done previously with the 16-35L took a lot longer, far more frames and was much harder to stitch. This fisheye is going to make my life incredibly easy for stitching. The final 360 degree stitch is around 20 megapixels or in other words far more than enough for web use even at full screen. The lens also seems to compress DR strangely, no idea how or why but it does make the inability to use a grad filter or polarizer far more palatable when there is so much DR!

In other words, incredibly happy to have this lens and to my anonymous benefactor, thank you so very much again, when I get the hang of using it I will be making it sing!

I'm still getting shimmering/moire on sharp edges of the pano's even though I've dropped the field of sharp view down in Autopano Tour to 2000 to mitigate the worst, it does give somewhat more blurred edges to the tour but the overall result is far superior.

I was also using my new Hoya Pro 1 Digital polarizer for other images on the shoot, I'd had a B+W polarizer but only in 77mm and my 16-35 is a huge 82mm filter size. I finally sold the B+W and bought the Hoya. It's very well made, very smooth and easy to use (much easier to rotate than the B+W) and the image quality is very good (cheap polarizers look awful). It made my life so much easier when trying to hold blue skies without resorting to a nasty HDR look and it was most welcome, I'll post some pictures when I finish them.

What a great job. Try having the labels in English too, although I worked things out, even the music room. I do like the presentation software and especially that the 360 degree pano doesn't swing over the nadir or zenith and so make one crazy. Did you have to limit range of movement or is that just the way it is? How large is the Hoya? Is there one which will fit into a frame that can go infront of the 8mm Sigma. That would be huge but amazing!

Asher

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Ben,

...I was also using my new Hoya Pro 1 Digital polarizer for other images on the shoot, I'd had a B+W polarizer but only in 77mm and my 16-35 is a huge 82mm filter size. I finally sold the B+W and bought the Hoya. It's very well made, very smooth and easy to use (much easier to rotate than the B+W) and the image quality is very good (cheap polarizers look awful). It made my life so much easier when trying to hold blue skies without resorting to a nasty HDR look and it was most welcome, I'll post some pictures when I finish them.

Interesting to read this. In my experience using an polarizer in a pano showing skies is best to be avoided. The polarization filter is most effective in an area of around 90 degrees to the sun. When you stitch the pano, you will have huge variations across the sky from left to right (or vice-versa). Just my 0.02.

Cheers,

 

[Ben Rubinstein]

The pano is for the client, I could make a whole bunch of English tags but it would only be for showing here and it's quite a bit of work.

Cem, I wasn't stitching the shots using the polarizer, they were straight wide angle shots. I would say however that uneven polarization is still better than a fully blown white sky..

 

[Cem_Usakligil]

Hi Ben,

...Cem, I wasn't stitching the shots using the polarizer, they were straight wide angle shots. I would say however that uneven polarization is still better than a fully blown white sky..

Yes, that makes sense.

Cheers,