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Pano stitcing software?

mjm6

Member
I've looked around a bit, but can't find a decent answer on the WWW...

I'm looking for an aftermarket stitching program to stitch images. The CS3 pano took works decently well for normal/easy images, but sometimes it really struggles. It has trouble with verticals especially. Also, images that have fewer easy common points (like water, or clouds) have a lot of failures in CS3.

I don't want to do 360 degree stitching, mostly just a series of 50mm or 35mm frames to produce a wide format image. I sometimes have to shot wider (24mm or even wider), and it would be nice to be able to stitch these as well, but things start getting weird when the FOV gets that wide. Maybe a better program can handle that better as well.


I'm looking for a robust stitching program that allows auto stitching but can also handle some of the more difficult stitching issues as well.

I have noticed that sometimes CS3's projection distortion is questionable as well, so something that would allow tweaking of this would be useful to make an image feel more correct and natural.

Has anyone seen a good review/writeup of what's out there right now? There's alot of information on the web, but most of it seems to be 5 years old now...

Or conversely, tell me what you think the best package is, and I'll look into it!


Thanks,


---Michael
 

Ebe

New member
Not an 'extreme wide lens' shooter, however have
had excellent results with Autopan Pro.
They also make a more advanced version called
Autopano Giga. Both have a 30-day trial download
You should test it with a couple of your problem sets.
Let us know your pick after testing the current crop of softwares.

Have not tested stitching software for about 2 years. At that time
I liked Autopan the best. Software improves every year, however
testing takes a lot of time. Good Luck and let us know !!

Web: http://www.kolor.com
 

neilvan

Well-known member
AutoPano Pro 2.5 (or Giga) for sure...

I have used them all the features and quality of this application are amazing, the latest version (2.5) that was just released has made it considerably faster than before (and it wasn't slow previously!).

As the other poster mentioned, download the trial and give it a whirl...
 

mjm6

Member
Thanks for the input, guys.

I downloaded Autopano Pro (I don't think I need the Giga version), and got it running in trial mode. I'm not sure what's going on, but it seems to run very slowly on my machine (Mac Pro 2x2.66 Intel chipset, 16GB ram).

It takes a few minutes to just find the images in a directory, even if the directory only have a few images in it. With a few hundred, it takes a long time, and it remains slow to process, and slow to keep up with adjustments, etc.

I'm going to have to try to figure out if there is something that can be done to speed up the interface, because it's unworkable in it's current state.

I got a few images processed, and the normal ones seemed to go together seamlessly. The one that I tried that stumped Adobe also stumped it in Auto mode, and because of how slow the interface is running, I couldn't really get it to happen with manual adjustments. I'll try again later.

---Michael
 

mjm6

Member
As for workflow, the interface seems like it could use some help... I like the way Lightroom shows you a light table of images, and you can work with them (group them, etc.). APP isn't as usefully arranged, so I'm wondering if the logical thing to do is make edits, etc. in Lightroom, export to a directory only for panos, and then import that directory into APP?

Is that the workflow people use? I can see it can handle RAW files, including images from the M9, but I doubt it can render as well as a dedicated RAW processor, and the tools to do that aren't as robust.

Thanks,

---Michael
 

mjm6

Member
After reloading it, things are much, much faster. I'm not really sure what the slowness was last night, but it seems to be working reasonably well now.

I tried one of the stumpers from Adobe, and APP couldn't handle it either. I didn't really expect that it would, but I'll work with the manual capabilities to see if I can manage to do it with that method. If not, then I guess I need to not shoot those types of images!


---Michael
 

kit laughlin

Subscriber Member
Michael, I use APP, the latest one, too, and for sure it is worth spending time in the shooting phase to make the software's job as easy as you can (this speeds it up, too).

Can you (once you get it done!) show one of your problem images (maybe thumbnails to show the elements)? Cheers and good luck, kl
 

coulombic

New member
Microsoft ICE does quite well. There are occasionally mis-registrations, but it's exponentially faster than Adobe's "Automate" feature, and generally less clunky-feeling than other alternatives. It's free, so if nothing else, it's worth trying.
 
S

Stoney

Guest
I am listing several stitchers including some that you do not need to pay for if you are on a tight budget. I do tend to use Autopano Giga 2.5 and Ptgui the most. If you are a professional you really need a tool box and not a swiss army knife.

Autopano Giga 2.5
Autopano Pro 2.5
http://www.kolor.com/

Hugin ( no cost to you )
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

Microsoft ICE ( no cost to you )
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/groups/ivm/ICE/

PTAssembler
http://www.tawbaware.com/ptasmblr.htm

Ptgui 9.0.3
http://www.ptgui.com/
 
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