The GetDPI Photography Forum

Great to see you here. Join our insightful photographic forum today and start tapping into a huge wealth of photographic knowledge. Completing our simple registration process will allow you to gain access to exclusive content, add your own topics and posts, share your work and connect with other members through your own private inbox! And don’t forget to say hi!

New Visualizer Beta (free, no registration required) - feedback requested

dougpeterson

Workshop Member
Focal Length Visualizer

I have added a beta of v3 of our visualizer and would appreciate any feedback. Please keep in mind I am not a programmer by profession, only by hobby and necessity, so there's a lot I cannot do. One big thing I cannot do is allow an arbitrary numerical input (e.g. a popup that asks you how many mm of shift rather than forcing you to 5mm increments) - I'm sure a good programmer could do that, but I've tried and I can't get it to work.

The main feature added is the ability to look at the results of a sensor with stitching. This allows you to answer a question like "how wide is a 60XL lens when doing a 3-shot stitch with an IQ260?"

This tool, as it is today, is a result of feedback generously provided in the past on this forum and on GetDPI. That includes feedback that said the tool should be free, and not require any form of registration to use - and so it is. We appreciate your previous feedback and hope you'll contribute more.

----

IMPLEMENTED IN V3 Beta
(1) stitching for 2-5 rows, and 2-5 columns of images
(2) vertical or horizontal orientation for single-shot and stitched frames

NOT YET IMPLEMENTED, but likely to be implemented in v3:
(3) basic statistics like resolution, and print size for selectable PPI
(4) when you click on the stitching button the popup will contain a graphical representation of the stitch you are asking for. For instance if you select [IQ260, 1 row, 2 columns, 20mm of shift, vertical] it will show the two overlapping vertical rectangles of an IQ260 and the resulting overlap and final, much like our existing Image Circle Visualizer.
(5) An option to select a lens rather than slide the lens into a specific position. This (I think) might be easier for some novice users as they'd see the name of the lens they want to use rather than just the focal length, and would set the ground work for future additions like DOF equivalency.

NOT IMPLEMENTED, and unlikely to be implemented in v3, but would be neat for next version:
(5) in the stitching popup where it will soon show the rectangles of the sensor positions with stitching [see #4] have a selectable image circle size or a list of lenses to select from with image circles pre-set. Thus allowing us to fully replace the Image Circle Visualizer tool, merging it into this tool.
(6) [panoramic stitching] rather than [shift stitching] where the camera is rotated rather than having the camera move behind the lens inside the image circle as with a tech camera or TS lens.
(7) automatic detection/notification when your shift is too large for the given sensor you've selected (i.e. you're trying to shift a 33x44mm sensor by 50mm which would mean a gap between frames)
(8 ) well formatted aspect ratio indicator along with other stats from #3. I could add something like "1.666:1.0" now but I'd prefer to wait until the next version and work out the code to format neatly like 3:2 and 5:4, which easy for preset sizes, but becomes more complicated when adding arbitrary stitching
 

jagsiva

Active member
Very nice Doug. Would be a plus to have greater than +/- 20mm as a couple SK's do have large image circles and with the Rotaslide you can get bigger shifts.

A nice feature would be to give a 35mm focal length FoV and tech cam lens model and the app tells you what kind of shifts would be needed. This of course assumes that everybody thinks in 35mm FoV terms, which I must confess, I do.
 

Shashin

Well-known member
jagsive, if you select a 35mm camera and then you constrain by diagonal or horizontal, then it converts focal length to the other format.
 

jagsiva

Active member
jagsive, if you select a 35mm camera and then you constrain by diagonal or horizontal, then it converts focal length to the other format.
I realize that. leave aside the 35mm format for a second. What would be nice is the ability to enter a FoV (v & h in degrees for your format/sensor size) and an associated lens (e.g. 60XL w/120mm IC), and the app determined the best orientation (portrait or landscape) and shift/rise combination with number of frames (rows/columns).

The reason I mentioned 35mm instead of FoV is that I intuitively know what a 24mm or 85mm in 135 terms would look like.
 

Steve C

Member
Nicely done! I have wanted this stitching feature for quite a while. It shows that I don't have to buy any more lenses for my Alpa. I just have to get everything to hold verrry still while I stitch. Thanks for your generous contributions. This would make a really good iOS App in the field if you want to stretch your programming experience a bit.
 
Top