problems to generate a panoramic picture of 360X180 degrees.

[Anonymous]

Good afternoon, I need help with the program.

First, when I load my pictures the program reads the lens with 50% less angularity. For example, I shoot with a 10mm lens, the program reads as a 20mm lens. At first I could only adjust the lens in the properties, but if I do that the program does not understand the image that will be stitched.

So what can I do?

I use the instructions for 20mm lenses and I shoot with a 10mm?

When I follow the instructions in the manual, I have the impression that we photographed more than we should shoot, the problem is that the larger amount of images generates the parallax.

I bought the program, I studied the program, but I can not create a panoramic picture of 360x180 degrees.

I work with a Nikon D200 and Mac Leopard.

Please someone help me, I need to be able to generate this panoramic photo!

Tankx

marilia vasconcellos
brazil

[Sam Rohn]

hi marilla -

if you are using a Nikkor 10mm fisheye, on a Nikon DX camera like the D300, 6 around + 1 up & 2 down should give you a usable set of images for stitching, (thats how i shoot) this should be read as ~ 15mm by the app due to the 1.5 crop factor on Nikon DX bodies - typically, you want about 30% overlap between images - if you shot too many, try using the crop tool to make the images narrower to reduce overlap to about 30%

also, make sure that your pano head is properly calibrated, you should do this before anything else, there should be no (or minimal) parallax in the images you are intending to stitch

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0HaRZi-FWs

http://www.rosaurophotography.com/html/technical7.html

http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm

personally, i would recommend requesting a refund from autodesk and spending your money on PTGUI, autodesk has totally abandoned stitcher, it has not seen any real update in about 3 years, & note its not being included in the 2011 software releases to the left of this post, plus the lack of any response by autodesk to any customer queries in these forums basically mean that money spent on this product is money down the drain...

sam

[banasm]

Yep, what Sam said, except for the part about requesting a refund. ;) PTGui can do some great stuff, but it isn't exactly bulletproof either (it will also choke if you have too much overlap in your images).

BTW, the reason we are suggesting less overlap to your images is because all image-stitchers like to have orderly input data, and then match some detail in image A - B, then B - C, etc. When there is the possibility to match a detail that is in A - B, and A - C, as well as B - C, the stitching process doesn't do a better job, it just has more work to do matching features!

Also, Stitcher reads the EXIF of your input images to determine lens focal length, but it also considers how many images you have loaded (in case you cropped the images, as Sam suggested). So, it might see your input images as 15mm equivalent, but then see so many images and think "oh, that many images is closer to what I'd expect for 20mm" (no, it doesn't actually think that...).

So it all sounds rather "black box" but in truth, any panoramic stitcher is going through the same calculations and assumptions to set up the stitching process, unless it asks you for manual input of everything. That's the "automatic" part that many people are quite reliant on today, which further adds to the confusion when it doesn't just work.

[Anonymous]

banasm
I'm not sure that PTGui has a problem with too much overlap.
I use a Coastal Optic 4.88mm fisheye that makes a 185° (actually 190°) circular fisheye image.
When I started using it I wanted to test how well PTGui could stitch 2 fisheyes, so I shot 4 images at 90° stops.
That meant I had over 200% coverage.
PTGui stitched all 4 shots together, fast and flawlessly

Doug Aurand
Albuquerque, NM

[Sam Rohn]

ptgui unquestionably does a better job handling non-ideal overlap situations than stitcher, stitcher also has had probs reading the exif from some of my images, some of my earlier panos that i didn't shoot "perfectly" never came together quite right in stitcher came out fine in ptgui

another big drawback is stitchers lack of speed compared to ptgui, autopano, etc - & good luck getting any support or response from autodesk on updates, compatibility, plans on fixing bugs, roadmap, etc

notice the lack of an autodesk stitcher 2011 in the left sidebar showing new products ? $350 for an app with no support & no likely updates, vs $180 for ptgui pro would make me want a refund if i were a new customer...

sam