stiched vertical Pano with hdr

[Klaus Esser]

Hi!

This is a vertical panorama stitched from 12 shots in 4 rows of RAW.
Canon 20D/Nikon200/Manfrotto PanoHead SPH modyfied.
http://www.klausesser.de/StadtTFrt_AC.jpg

[Marian Howell]

impressive stitch klaus!! and you hdr-ed this as well?! alot of work.
that car in the lower left puts the size and perspective nicely in context. i find the center red+white post and the rails in the lower right to be distracting in their leanings. and while i think in this web version the sky could use some blending, i've discovered that sky blends that look visible in the web are of no importance when blown up and printed to good size, so that might not be an issue with this :)
how big will you print this???

[Sean DeMerchant]

Hi!

This is a vertical panorama stitched from 12 shots in 4 rows of RAW.
Canon 20D/Nikon200/Manfrotto PanoHead SPH modyfied.


What order did you process this in? Did you stitch then do an HDR merge or did you do the HDR and then stitch the images together?

I ask as I am concerned that doing the stitching first might yield unregisterable images (due to automated perspective corrections).

The image itself is interesting. Albeit, there seems to be some some sort of distortion in the final image as the leading vertical line at center curves to the right as one moves up and I am curious how to best correct this when one has multiple stages (HDR & stitch) requiring image alignment.

thanks,

Sean

[Klaus Esser]

Marian, Sean!

Thanks for your comments. I first did hdr and stitched afterwards.
It´s a planar-projection via the editor of Autopano Pro.
The picture´s size is about 0,70x2,20m at 200dpi.
It´s not yet finalized for printing - i´ll do a geometrical check before that. And the colors may be worked over too . .

best, klaus

[Asher Kelman]

Klaus, was this hand held? I see the answer, Manfrotto.

I think even hand held the lines are so definite, the stich could be perfect too.


Asher

[Georg Baumann]

WOW! Love it! Feels as if you stand in front of a ocean liner.

Klaus, you say modified manfrotto, in what way modified? See, I had a bad experience lately with a panorama, and I figured the problem now, it was only the second time I tried a Pano, hence the disappointment.

I also use 303SPHPlus including the 5 degrees leveling section. Now I went out and leveled it, then extended the middle section of the tripod to the mamximum, so I shot overhead so to speak. Back home I started processing 32 images each shot with 3x exposure bracketing=96 Tiff's, developed them in Raw and created for each of the brackets 1 HDR ending up with 32 HDR's.

Then stitched them, only to find out that the last 3 or so where of axis. _______ fill in foul language! <grins>

So what I wonder is this, I adjust the horizontal level, but somehow I fail to see how I can adjust the the vertikal to ensure on a 360 degree turn to be on axis all the time.

I know it sounds stupid, but as you may imagine, the proceedure and processing was labour intense, and the result was for the trash. Is there a Manfrotto addition that helps to level the verticakl for 360 degree shots? How do you do it?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Then stitched them, only to find out that the last 3 or so where of axis.

What do you mean by "of axis"?

Is it that the starting and ending images of the 360 degree FOV do not connect vertically, or is it something else?

So what I wonder is this, I adjust the horizontal level, but somehow I fail to see how I can adjust the the vertikal to ensure on a 360 degree turn to be on axis all the time.

There will always be a small inaccuracy when using spirit levels, either by our judgement or by mounting tolerances of the level itself. It should not be much of an issue for the software, it just needs to add 'a small rotation' to all images, or to the less well registered one(s).

Bart

[Georg Baumann]

What do you mean by "of axis"?Is it that the starting and ending images of the 360 degree FOV do not connect vertically, or is it something else?
There will always be a small inaccuracy when using spirit levels, either by our judgement or by mounting tolerances of the level itself. It should not be much of an issue for the software, it just needs to add 'a small rotation' to all images, or to the less well registered one(s).


Hello Bart,

Yeah well, the vertical was not leveled apparently enough. I have one spirit level where you look down to, so this I call horizontal level, but I do not have a way to check the vertical, or I misunderstand something fundamentally. It was so much of level that the stitching software made a mess. From memory I would say that probably the 5 last pictures where of level, and the rest were ok, I suppose I could have cropped and handmanipulate it, but this would have taken a long time.

See, from a practical point of view.... I point -S- and look at my level, it is fine, then I rotate to -W- and it is still fine, further to -N- and let's say it is of level.... So I would need a way to be able to comfortably level the vertical and the horizontal to ensure it is all right even on 360 degree movements high over my head.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Hello Bart,

Yeah well, the vertical was not leveled apparently enough. I have one spirit level where you look down to, so this I call horizontal level, but I do not have a way to check the vertical, or I misunderstand something fundamentally. It was so much of level that the stitching software made a mess. From memory I would say that probably the 5 last pictures where of level, and the rest were ok, I suppose I could have cropped and handmanipulate it, but this would have taken a long time.

I'll restate in my own words, to make sure we understand each other.

The spirit level you look down on, can be circular (bull's-eye), linear (single rotation axis) , or crossed linear (dual-axis). The circular or the crossed levels can be used for leveling the base/plane of rotation. It is typically positioned between the tripod and the camera mount (or e.g. ballhead). The actual rotation is done by the camera mount (e.g. panning base of a ballhead), on the top of a so called leveling base (e.g. from Acratech (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&Q=&is=REG&O=productlist&sku=431861) or Manfrotto (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&Q=&is=REG&O=productlist&sku=146230)). Once leveled, one can extend the tripod column because the plane of rotation is unaffected, it is just translated to another height (unless it can also be rotated, which is bad for the intended purpose). The leveling will rarely be perfect, but close enough to reduce non-matching start and ending images (which also can be perfected with the stitching software by fine-tuning the roll parameters for all of the images).

Now, due to additional inaccuracies in the camera mounting construction (on top of the leveled plane of rotation), it can happen that the final optical axis is still not exactly horizontal. The most accurate detection for that is by using a clear dual axis level (http://www.bhphotovideo.com/bnh/controller/home?A=details&Q=&is=REG&O=productlist&sku=112360) in the camera hotshoe, and rotating the camera. Any imperfection detected there will result in a wobble/wave image pattern as you rotate 360 degrees. That also can be minimized by the stitching software, it just needs to adjust the assumed horizon/pitch parameters.

It does depend on the software whether the per image roll and pitch parameters can be fine-tuned.

Bart

[Asher Kelman]

Bart you have said it well.

Let me add. Each joint above the tripod bas either play or is not true.

There is also some looseness, ie "play" on the manfortto extention plate and also on the Arca Swiss join. As you turn the equipment can sag a little one way or another, esp[ecially if something is actually loose.

Check your tripod feet are full out and on stable ground. The legs must be securely locked. Same with all joints up to the camera.

A grid on your viewfinder screen will help you recongnize that your verticals or true. You can move the camera around the optical axis before taking any pictures and confirm that the verticals remain true. Use a cord for shutter release. Treat the camera as if it is fragile as you rotate.

Something is really off for you to end up with a faulty stitch since we can often do a great job by hand.

Also in the software, there should be a capability of selecting common points and/verticals that would help the software align correctly.

Asher

[Klaus Esser]

Hi Bear!

here´s a screenshot of the vertical line tool. You just draw a line along the vertical you wanbt to correct. Can be a number of verticals. APP does a correction regarding the lines you draw and adjusts the whole picture. Works great!

best, Klaus
http://www.klausesser.de/Vert.jpg

[Michael Fontana]

Klaus, you' re right; APP is very good!

I gave it another try with 3 shots; macro 50 mm on FF.
It was hendheld, which is not to much a problem, beeing far away from the bridge:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/bridge.jpg

BTW, this is a new 250 m long pedestrian/bike bridge between France (left) to Germany; the shots were made from Switzerland ;-)

[Michael Fontana]

Klaus

now I tried a single-row, 5 shot (vert) pano, with my distagon 35/2.8, which has less distortion/better contrast than the distagon 28. Looks pretty good, and APP has some really good features and is FAST, compared to other stich-apps.

Even I guessed the nodal point only, (by eye!!) and shot quick and dirt camera-jpgs, without any edits at all, it looks promising:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/APP_dist_35.jpg


That' s 70 cm x 46cm at 300 dpi, having about the angle of a 24 mm on FF, unstitched.

I used the cylindrical projection and converted it into a "normal" with the panotool plugin "Remap" from kekus.
This looks better to me than the Planar projection, right out of APP. What do you think?

I'll get that bloody stitching app ;-)

[Rob Riley]

beautiful vertical pano Klaus
sorta reminds me of when i went boating last though ...

[Klaus Esser]

Klaus

now I tried a single-row, 5 shot (vert) pano, with my distagon 35/2.8, which has less distortion/better contrast than the distagon 28. Looks pretty good, and APP has some really good features and is FAST, compared to other stich-apps.

Even I guessed the nodal point only, (by eye!!) and shot quick and dirt camera-jpgs, without any edits at all, it looks promising:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/APP_dist_35.jpg


That' s 70 cm x 46cm at 300 dpi, having about the angle of a 24 mm on FF, unstitched.

I used the cylindrical projection and converted it into a "normal" with the panotool plugin "Remap" from kekus.
This looks better to me than the Planar projection, right out of APP. What do you think?

I'll get that bloody stitching app ;-)

hey Michael!

Welcome to the club! :-)

I didn´t try the "Remap" plugin. Will check it. Planarprojection always is a problem - just as it is with shift/tilt with wideangles. Depends on the angle and the amount of correction. Panotools are working with very good algorithms.

Here´s a 110degree planprojection from APP:
http://www.klausesser.de/Efeu.htm
and here a 360dgree vr from APP:
http://www.klausesser.de/Stadttor.htm

best, Klaus

[Klaus Esser]

beautiful vertical pano Klaus
sorta reminds me of when i went boating last though ...

Thanks, Rob! I have another one - more "boat-like": :-) :-)
http://www.klausesser.de/Stadtt_mellow_cool.jpg

best, Klaus

[Klaus Esser]

Michael - is that your studio? Looks fine!

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

yep, how can you tell?
Did yaa see any cam inside?

I should paint the door in a other color. The good thing: it's facing north; plus 3 stairs from home to the studio. You actually can see one pole of the balcony;
I'm living at the third floor and finished, a week ago, the remolding of the corridor:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/corridor.jpg

[Klaus Esser]

"yep, how can you tell?
Did yaa see any cam inside? "

the kind of building and the windows - i had a such a kind of studio some years ago in Düsselsorf :-)

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

Meanwhile I wait to get the license key from Autopano, I made some other tests, that time with the 50 mm macro on FF. Just to see the importance of the lens quality, as it has less distortions, than the distagon 35...

Would it be better to get these, even minimal distortions corrected; prior to stitch it in APP?

How is that vertical-lines tool used?
1st. drawing line, then pressing "enter"key will not work. Any shortcuts?

Here too, Panotools remap works fine, after producing a cylindrical projection.
It's calculating a double row, right now....

ok, looks pretty fine - I had guessed the nodal point only, so it's not perfect; but optimising that will make it better...

[Michael Fontana]

Klaus, good morning

how critical are interior stitches, flat ones or QTVR?

I'm tempted to use it for some shots of (art) installations. These are spread out on all 4 walls, and the floor/celing as well, in small rooms. I fear it might be difficult to translate the feeling, one has standing in these rooms, by using just normal, unstitched shots.

[Georg Baumann]

OMG <blush> Hehehe, sorry for the "somewhat" late reply and thank you very much in deed Bart and Asher and Klaus for your answers.

Firstly, yes it is a bullseye level, and I think to solve this problem of setting up the tripod and head as accurate as possible Bart's suggestion of that 2-axis-hotshoe-level is the solution. I never saw this before, seems to be the thing to get!

See, I set it up somewhere in the dunes and look onto that bullseye level, adjust it, then check by rotating the camera and while moving may be 180 degrees it is of level again, hence this means the tripod does not stand right and I have to shorten one leg for example. But with a 2 axis level you can do that probably much quicker. Thanks so much! I know it seems like a stupid problem, but it can be nervewrecking when you deal with uneven grounds most of the time.

@Klaus, thanks very much! I never heard about that software before, looks pretty advanced and well worth the money.

[Klaus Esser]

Klaus, good morning

how critical are interior stitches, flat ones or QTVR?

I'm tempted to use it for some shots of (art) installations. These are spread out on all 4 walls, and the floor/celing as well, in small rooms. I fear it might be difficult to translate the feeling, one has standing in these rooms, by using just normal, unstitched shots.

Hello, Michael!

Here´s an example of a spherical pano in a very narrow space:
http://www.klausesser.de/VinKugelH.mov


best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

Very nice, Klaus!
In these narrow spaces, it would be very hard with a "normal" single shot, only.

This morning, I precised the nodal point, and managed to get rid of the distortions - in the flat, planar image; 5 shots, one row only. Looks much better now, and could convert it into a partial QTVR; how do you do that task? I'm aware that you made a speherical one. I didn't found that feature in APP....

[Klaus Esser]

Very nice, Klaus!
In these narrow spaces, it would be very hard with a "normal" single shot, only.

This morning, I precised the nodal point, and managed to get rid of the distortions - in the flat, planar image; 5 shots, one row only. Looks much better now, and could convert it into a partial QTVR; how do you do that task? I'm aware that you made a speherical one. I didn't found that feature in APP....

Hi Michael!

APP doesn´t care about spherical or not! The only shortcome in it is the lack of supporting fisheyes. That comes wit the next update (there´s legal stuff).

I did this pano with a 20mmNikon on a 20DCanon and a 3-step dri. About 60shot for pano x 3exp. for DRI. With a fisheye it´s 8 panoshots . . . . for each cube-side one shot.

Here´s a very good description:
http://www.fromparis.com/html/technical_us_create_a_quicktime_vr_in_10mnts.php

The absolute need to do spherical panos is a well adjusteted "Nodal"-head. Stitching is more easy and more precise with such a head - though it generally CAN work even handheld.

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

thanks, Klaus

yeah, I remember, that legal stuff was some years ago, when someone captured Helmut Dersch's idea and gave it to a lawyer...

at the moment rendering in APP a 700 MB-file, and using a very good quality, so it takes a while, even on a Quad with 8 GB of Rams and a dedicated scratch disc.

I'm impressd with APP, thanks for pointing to it.

[Michael Fontana]

You' re right, Klaus, lens kwality is important:
Here's a single-row-stitch:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/screenie_100_crop.jpg



This morning, I made the first 3 row, 5 images, each, but there is some ghosting, look at the crop @ 100 %.
The nodal point not beeing as precise as required?

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/ghost.jpg

[Klaus Esser]

[QUOTE=Michael Fontana;24875]You' re right, Klaus, lens kwality is important:
"Here's a single-row-stitch:"
This morning, I made the first 3 row, 5 images, each, but there is some ghosting, look at the crop @ 100 %.
The nodal point not beeing as precise as required?

Michael - this i call a good lens . . :-) (single-row) - which was ist? Your Zeiss?

I guess it was the alignment of NP in your second picture. Especially in narrow spaces it´s most important to align very exactly.

btw.: i enjoyed seeing your vinyl-records as well as seeing your old Mac! :-) My wife has one even a bit older: a 512k with one singlesided floppy and keyboard without numberblock.
No way to attach a hd . . :-)

best, Klaus

P.S.: you can try to work on ghosting by manually correct the control-points.
See here - good forum - and the constantly developing APP-Wiki:

http://forum.autopano.net/

[Georg Baumann]

<scratching head> where do you see ghosting? I looked at your crop but I do not what you think to be wrong.

[Michael Fontana]

Good morning, George,

the ghosting is in the appartement shot - at the top left, a 100%-crop, aka the stereo.

I tested the entire weekend - with different lenses - and might show some insights, if someone is interestet in it.
I'll probably have two set-ups:

A quick and dirty-one, single-row, with the zuiko 21, for getting more angle.
A pixelpeeping one, with the distagon 28, for lots of MP.

[Michael Fontana]

The zuiko 21 works great, as it has a big angle, meanwhile keeping good contrast/resolution, and rather low distortion.

So here (http://www.proimago.net/test/zuiko%2021_partial.mov) is a partial QTVR, made with it.

It's not perfect, I know, so some of the hardcore-stitchers - I'm a newbe - might add some critic and comments.
Reminder: The goal is to show art installations, covering walls and floors, better than singleshots can do.

[Ray West]

Hi Michael,

The chair is one of the best demonstrations I've come across, to show Moire pattern interference ;-)

It is a considerable improvement re. stitching, but I think the focus/sharpness of the image varies across the scene. However, if your final aim is for large flat surfaces, that may or may not be a problem. For a large flat surface, then I think a stepping method would be better than a camera rotating method for accuracy.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Michael Fontana]

Thanks, Ray
what do you mean by "stepping method would be better "?

As for the Moirée: the planar stitch has some 680 MB (16bit) therefore a small QT with 5 MB will have some losses.
I'm sure, one can reduce these, but I' ve to figure it out, yet. I haven't worked really on the image, but rather to get the stitch well done.

The images were RAWs, but no HDR, so there is plenty of headroom.

[Ray West]

Hi Michael,

I was not being critical of the chair, I know what causes the pattern, and it is bound to happen at some stage or other in digital images, to a greater or lesser extent, when displayed on any digital device.

By stepping, I mean that instead of rotating the camera with it being fixed in one position, which makes the edges of the subject further away than the centre, you step the camera over , thus the distance to the subject is substantially the same. It will work for a flat surface, but not for landscape - unless you count aerial photography for mapping (the landscape is then far enough away to be considered flat). I think with care, and depending on the subject, and time available, you would get good results simply by moving a normal tripod parallel to the subject. (I suppose it could be considered as a manual shift lens, but obviously the movement will be greater.) I suspect there is a technical term for what I described. ;-)

Best wishes,
Ray

[Klaus Esser]

The zuiko 21 works great, as it has a big angle, meanwhile keeping good contrast/resolution, and rather low distortion.

So here (http://www.proimago.net/test/zuiko%2021_partial.mov) is a partial QTVR, made with it.

It's not perfect, I know, so some of the hardcore-stitchers - I'm a newbe - might add some critic and comments.
Reminder: The goal is to show art installations, covering walls and floors, better than singleshots can do.

Hey Michael!

very important to show installations or paintings in a room - simply everything which is very geometrical - is, to absolutely adjust your noadal-point-adapter! Saves a lot of work afterwards.

I would suggest to make spherical panos - you can easily extract parts of it later for planar-panos.
When you shoot cylindrical-panos, make symmetric rows - one horizontal. one up, one down.
1) the resolution is better and (more important)
2) the symmetry to stitch without greater distortions is better for the stitcher/blender.

best, Klaus

[Klaus Esser]

Hi Michael,

I was not being critical of the chair, I know what causes the pattern, and it is bound to happen at some stage or other in digital images, to a greater or lesser extent, when displayed on any digital device.

By stepping, I mean that instead of rotating the camera with it being fixed in one position, which makes the edges of the subject further away than the centre, you step the camera over , thus the distance to the subject is substantially the same. It will work for a flat surface, but not for landscape - unless you count aerial photography for mapping (the landscape is then far enough away to be considered flat). I think with care, and depending on the subject, and time available, you would get good results simply by moving a normal tripod parallel to the subject. (I suppose it could be considered as a manual shift lens, but obviously the movement will be greater.) I suspect there is a technical term for what I described. ;-)

Best wishes,
Ray

Hello Ray!

Moiree comes from the Chip. Regardless if you swing a camera around it´s npp or do a parallel-shift or a linear stitch (that´s the word) by moving a camera parallel to a plane.
Some chips/cameras produce moiree earlier some later - it´s the geometrical alignment/structure of the sensors on a chip.

If it ocours it´s sometimes easy to remove - so it is with the chair - and sometimes more complicated, as with clothes for example, by using special filters in postpro.

Doing stitches in a linear way is 1) VERY complicated - you have to calculate the exact mid-point for each movement to avoid EVERY perspective view and 2) it looks obviously artificial, unnatural.

look here for some examples of linear photographing and stitching (click at "Bild größer zeigen"):

http://www.tomasriehle.de/bilder.php?dir=fotografische_abwicklu&&pic=4

best, Klaus

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

I was not being critical of the chair, I know what causes the pattern, and it is bound to happen at some stage or other in digital images, to a greater or lesser extent, when displayed on any digital device.

In this case it is caused by the resampling method used for zooming in the QT 'plugin'. It does demonstrate moire/aliasing 'nicely'. Avoiding it is possible, but probably too slow to be practical.

I suspect there is a technical term for what I described. ;-)

You described it well. I think it could be called stepping or tiling (from adding tiles). It works when there is essentially no foreground, because that would show parallax ghosts. Flat subjects shot with longer focal lengths work best.

Bart

[Klaus Esser]

Hi Bart!

"In this case it is caused by the resampling method used for zooming in the QT 'plugin'."

Exactly. I had a list of dividings which deminishes resampling artifacts in QT - i´ll look for it.
There are certain factors which minimizes it.

"Tiling", parallel-stitching at short distances - as inside rooms with art-installations - is nearly impossible.
I did some experiments. But for reproduction of a single picture by shifting only the digital back/camera it works well - as Michael did already. Here the lens is the limiting factor.

best, Klaus

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

"Tiling", parallel-stitching at short distances - as inside rooms with art-installations - is nearly impossible.

Short distances make it hard, especially with short focal lengths. The reason is perspective and geometry.
Assuming the subject is flat (3D structures wll fail because the foreground will show parallax between the individual images) the main geometrical 'distortion' per image tile is the magnification difference between the center and the corners of a rectilinear (on a flat plane) projection.
To correct for that, one may need to convert (in the final projection) to a relatively long focal length if the original focal length was 'short'. Of course, capable software will be able to automagically figure this out, if enough control-points are supplied and offset is calculated correctly.

I did some experiments. But for reproduction of a single picture by shifting only the digital back/camera it works well - as Michael did already. Here the lens is the limiting factor.

Indeed, and the most important stitching parameter is a Horizontal or Vertical offset between the images. Once that is corrected, the remainder is for minor lens distortions. Anything with depth in it, needs to be shot from a single point.

Bart

[Klaus Esser]

Short distances make it hard, especially with short focal lengths. The reason is perspective and geometry.
Assuming the subject is flat (3D structures wll fail because the foreground will show parallax between the individual images) the main geometrical 'distortion' per image tile is the magnification difference between the center and the corners of a rectilinear (on a flat plane) projection.
To correct for that, one may need to convert (in the final projection) to a relatively long focal length if the original focal length was 'short'. Of course, capable software will be able to automagically figure this out, if enough control-points are supplied and offset is calculated correctly.



Indeed, and the most important stitching parameter is a Horizontal or Vertical offset between the images. Once that is corrected, the remainder is for minor lens distortions. Anything with depth in it, needs to be shot from a single point.

Bart


Hi Bart!

Did you ever shoot parallel stitches inside rooms? Could you show us some examples?

best, Klaus

[Ray West]

Hi Klaus,

Thanks for the link. I do not know if all the images were linear stitch examples, but it gives an unnatural distortion in many instances, although possibly geometrically accurate. It depends on the subject, and how the result is being presented or viewed, and the purpose. My intention in suggesting it was purely for flat surfaces - e.g. copying a large painting. If there is any depth to the image, you either have to be very selective in choosing the camera positions, and/or how you fudge the overlapping images. I have taken images of lengths of hedgerows, for example, linearly stitched, and trees in the background and clouds are duplicated, but for my purposes, it didn't matter, or a clone tool got the result good enough. I think for a room, with normal furniture or bookshelves, say, not bare walls, you would need a lens with a very narrow field of view, and take many images. For a room, where normally you would stand and look about you, then the spherical panoramic stitching will appear more natural. For more scientific purposes, then I think that linear stitching is required, at least with the current state of the art/affordability.

http://www.klausesser.de/VinKugelH.mov is very good, appears very natural, if you pan/rotate at the camera level, and somehow, I want to walk down the shop... However, if you look up or down, and then pan, the perspective looks unnatural. This is possibly related to the fact that you are not moving your head, which possibly switches in some sort of neural compensation for the real image orientation, and reality's larger size and so on and so forth.

Bath city council, it must have been ten or twelve years ago, took a number of images of their Georgian house fronts, and built them into the 'doom' virtual reality game engine. Builders/developers/architects, then merged in their proposed alterations, so that an impression of the changes could be obtained. Obviously the detail was not as we would expect now, but afaik, the images were all captured hand held, and linearly stitched.

Now, just for fun, get a couple of dozen cheap point and shoots, mount them on a spherical array, fire them all at the same time (a bit like a time slicing array) Correct the results in software.

Best wishes,

Ray

[Klaus Esser]

Hi Ray!

"Now, just for fun, get a couple of dozen cheap point and shoots, mount them on a spherical array, fire them all at the same time (a bit like a time slicing array) Correct the results in software. "

There´s a guy in Texas, who has build an "Event-Cam" (http://www.kaidan.com/EventCam.html) of a bunch of compact-digital cameras as a circle-arrangement and can fire them simultanously as a one-shot-pano. Funny!
There were several constructions to make it spherical too. I know a construction with 3 Nikons with fisheyes i a circle and each camera-lens was tilted in a calculated angle.
You can make a one-shot spherical VR with it :-) : http://www.agnos.com/catalogo.htm?v_lingua=ENG&v_iss_web=0000000000000643466948470344&v_cod_art_sche=MROTATORR

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

okay, I optimised pretty carefully my set-up for the zuiko 21 - single-row- 5 shots - and it looks pretty good. The aequivalent on FF would be about 11 mm (landscape orientation, and 14 mm, in height. The final file has 3.5 x the size of FF. Just web-screenie's, the tiffs look better:

http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/garden.jpg


and some 100% crops:


http://imago.macbay.de/OPF/crops.jpg



This copy of the zuiko 21 has a weeker upper sie - in landscape orientation; so I better do make 6 shots instead of 5, and cut it of, later. But I like that set-up, its fast and easy to shoot, and stitching is fast, directly in planar, aka rectalinear projection. The capture was RAW, but no big tweaking...

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Did you ever shoot parallel stitches inside rooms? Could you show us some examples?

No, since I know (from handheld panos) they would produce parallax ghosts in the foreground (tables and such) I've avoided them. I'm strictly entry pupil oriented in my stitched shooting, unless it is of something that doesn't fit on the flatbed scanner. Scanned stitches are only offset and rotation corrected.

In a few weeks I'll show some examples of large natural light church interiors that I'm working on, but I'm too busy with selling the parental house, and the auctioning of the furniture right now. The shots have been taken, but I'm not pleased with the HDR colors and tonemapping yet, they need some more work.

I'm also planning on shooting some ceiling decorations, and there I might also try some stepped/tiled shots, just to see how that works out. I'll get back on it.

Bart

[Michael Fontana]

oh, I see you've been busy ;-)

Ray and Klaus: the chairs "moirée" is not from the sensor, ratherfrom the display's resultion, or from downsampling... I verified it at 100%....

Klaus: I realised the importance of a really precise NP in the room shot, --> PS-retouche , so I redid its measure for the garden. BTW: That shot was done to planar, directly.... as the APP-wiki suggests it for architecture-typ-shots.

Comparing to stepping or flatstitches - with a shiftlens - the pano (garden) is much better, in terms of image quality. For my actual purpose - these installations - stepping would not be possible, due tosmall little rooms, and you can't walk arround, cause of the installation. On Thomas Riehle's site the flatstitches are the "Fotografische Abwicklungen"

Klaus, how do you deal with moving objects, like tree's?

[Klaus Esser]

Hello Michael!

"Klaus, how do you deal with moving objects, like tree's?"

If there´s movement which can´t be handled by smartblend, you can do the renderings with photoshop-layers and erase movement in the layers. Tricky thing - but works great!
Very complicated it becomes when moving leaves are in the DRI-sequence additionally . . :-) - Photomatix blends it partially, but sometimes leaves contours.

best and goodnight, Klaus

[Klaus Esser]

Bart you have said it well.

Let me add. Each joint above the tripod has either play or is not true.

There is also some looseness, ie "play" on the Manfortto extention plate and also on the Arca Swiss quick-release joint. As you turn, the equipment can sag a little one way or another, especially if something is actually loose.

Check your tripod feet are full out and on stable ground. The legs must be securely locked. Same with all joints up to the camera.

A grid on your viewfinder screen will help you recognize that your verticals or true. You can move the camera around the optical axis before taking any pictures and confirm that the verticals remain true. Use a cord for shutter release. Treat the camera as if it is fragile as you rotate.

Something is really off for you to end up with a faulty stitch since we can often do a great job by hand.

Also in the software, there should be a capability of selecting common points and/verticals that would help the software align correctly.

Asher

let me add a link about perspective correction by simply set the eye level in a shot:

http://forum.autopano.net/p10343-today-00-15-51#p10343

the rest can easily be corrected by using the vertical lines tool.

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

....... Photomatix blends it partially, but sometimes leaves contours.

yep, I had that, too, even using the new "anti-ghosting"

After filling up the harddisc with about 40 GBs of tests, I found a sadisfying way to make a five-shot-single-row "pano"; I'm aware, this is not the "squeeze ever bit out of a pixel" as Klaus is doing it; but for the purpose of next week assignement, it's fine. The artist liked the partial QTVR, as the quality of the big, flat canvas. Downsampling it to a normal print format, for catalogues, etc (A-3/300) offer astonishing details and sharpness.
Making 360 deg-QTVR is not required in that situation, but even for the partial ones, I have my finger crossed ;-)

Still trying to get better QTVR-interpolations, as I simply used this function in Doubletake. Klaus, how do you convert some planar in partial QTVR's? Scaling down the bigs canvas first helps a bit....

As far as I could see, Cubicconverter only makes round ones...

Back to the thread's topic; some thoughts: For vertical pano's, its possible to tilt the column with the panohead for 90 deg, ergo having the cam in a landscape orientation, doing some shots respecting the nodal point, then just rotating the 360 deg-baseplate, for a 2nd row? I don't think this setup is possible when having the cam in the portait-orientation....

[Klaus Esser]

yep, I had that, too, even using the new "anti-ghosting"

After filling up the harddisc with about 40 GBs of tests, I found a sadisfying way to make a five-shot-single-row "pano"; I'm aware, this is not the "squeeze ever bit out of a pixel" as Klaus is doing it; but for the purpose of next week assignement, it's fine. The artist liked the partial QTVR, as the quality of the big, flat canvas. Downsampling it to a normal print format, for catalogues, etc (A-3/300) offer astonishing details and sharpness.
Making 360 deg-QTVR is not required in that situation, but even for the partial ones, I have my finger crossed ;-)

Still trying to get better QTVR-interpolations, as I simply used this function in Doubletake. Klaus, how do you convert some planar in partial QTVR's? Scaling down the bigs canvas first helps a bit....

As far as I could see, Cubicconverter only makes round ones...

Back to the thread's topic; some thoughts: For vertical pano's, its possible to tilt the column with the panohead for 90 deg, ergo having the cam in a landscape orientation, doing some shots respecting the nodal point, then just rotating the 360 deg-baseplate, for a 2nd row? I don't think this setup is possible when having the cam in the portait-orientation....



Hi Michael!

I use to have the camera ALWAYS in portrait-mode for stitches (because of the nodal-adapter).
You can use it in landscape-mode of course - but remind the overlapping: at least (!) 30%.
And you should very exactly adjust to the npp of the lens, when you work at close distances as inside a room.
Besides: the npp floates in zooms!

The shorter the distance the more extreme is the correction of perspective afterwards. Making more pics with broad overlap the stitcher/renderer has a broader variety of perspective informations to make a correction. The differences in perspective between the single shots to stitch and correct is smaller, when there´s plenty of overlapping.

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

okay, guys, last night, I shot a round one (http://www.proimago.net/test/Rhein_360.mov)

Light was suboptimal, and no HDR was used, as the cam failed to shot auto-brackets, with non-canon lenses....

BTW: It's not far away from my home

[Klaus Esser]

okay, guys, last night, I shot a round one (http://www.proimago.net/test/Rhein_360.mov)

Light was suboptimal, and no HDR was used, as the cam failed to shot auto-brackets, with non-canon lenses....

BTW: It's not far away from my home

Hi Michael!

Beautyful atmosphere and light!

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

Hi Michael!

Beautyful atmosphere and light!

best, Klaus
Hi Klaus,
yes, dusk (or dawn) is my prefered light for buildings. So smooth.... but hard to keep the shadows open

[Klaus Esser]

Hi Klaus,
yes, dusk (or dawn) is my prefered light for buildings. So smooth.... but hard to keep the shadows open

The nature of shadows often is to be deep - not open . . . :-) :-)

best, Klaus

[Michael Fontana]

agree, ;-)


It happens that I write "shadows", when I mean the 3/4-tones....