Stitching Software
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63 Stitching Software 1 Can‘t See the Forest for the Trees … Shot Using: Nikon D70, Nikkor AF-S f3.5-4.5/24-85 mm zoom Liepaja, Latvia lens, hand-held, 5 images using a 24mm focal length Stitching Software: PTMac (alignment, blending), Photoshop (parallax error corrections, image fine-tuning) Projection Type: Cylindrical, 150° × 35° 64 Stitching Software Don’t Lose Your Way in the Software Jungle 65 Internet Panorama Photography Forums process itself. The handling and performance of these programs is as varied as their design • International VR Photography Association: and price range. Most programs offer free http://ivrpa.org/forum downloadable test versions, and most are • Panoguide: http://www.panoguide.com/forums also supported by Internet forums, managed • Panotools: either by independent third parties or even http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG by the software manufacturers themselves. • Quicktime VR: A little time spent surfing through these http://lists.apple.com/mailman/listinfo/quicktime-vr forums will help you decide whether a par- • PTMac: http://www.kekus.com/forum ticular program suits your level of creativity • Autodesk Stitcher: http://discussion.autodesk.com/forums and experience, and whether the accompa- • PTGui: http://groups.google.com/group/ptgui nying documentation is appropriate to your 1 Panorama Tools • Max Lyons: http://www.tawbaware.com/forum2 personal style and workflow. Editor in the 2.6.1 version of the program Don’t Lose Your Way in the Software panorama fans. His program also provided a Tools for Apple Macintosh, introduced in Software Diversity Jungle strong impulse for the further development 2002) are both based entirely on Panorama of panorama software in general. Panorama Tools and are still clearly related to the origi- Working with a computer is a highly signifi- The introduction of Apple QuickTime in Tools is basically a loose collection of soft- nal program. cant part of the process of creating digital 1991 was one of the major starting signals ware tools designed to distort, correct, align, REALVIZ Stitcher (now called Autodesk panoramas from multiple source images. for the subsequent development of multi- and transform digital images for the spe- Stitcher) was probably the first generally So why are we dedicating so much time and media software. QuickTime VR appeared in cific purpose of creating digital panorama available, modern spherical panorama stitch- column space to theory? Firstly, it is simply 1994, and QuickTime VR Authoring Studio images–with excellent results. The only ing program with a user-friendly GUI. While interesting to understand the background (QTVRAS) followed in 1997. QTVRAS was problem is that the tools themselves are not Panorama Tools (and others) offered purely 1 QuickTime VR and the connections between the individual the first commercially available software easy to operate and do not have their own manual panorama stitching functionality, Authoring Studio parts of the process; and secondly, it would that enabled users to create 360° panoramas graphical user interface. In order to operate REALVIZ offered a highly automated stitch- otherwise be too easy to become disori- using computer technology instead of spe- the tools effectively, you need a fair amount ing process without manual control point ented by the complex choice of processing cial cameras, and to display the results as a of background knowledge, and you must also functionality. Image alignment was also per- options and parameters offered by profes- rolled-flat, cylindrical image or interactively use a command line to execute some tasks. formed semi-automatically, and was unfor- sional stitching software. Some background on a computer monitor using QuickTime The main aspects of the necessary back- tunately not always reliable. Until recently, if knowledge helps you to avoid making basic Player. Since the introduction of QuickTime ground knowledge have been addressed you wanted to produce high-quality panora- mistakes from the outset, or at least allows 5 in 2001, 360° × 180° panoramas can also be graphically (if not mathematically) in the mas for printing, you would most likely end you to correct your mistakes effectively dur- viewed interactively. These days, there are a previous chapters, so you shouldn’t have up using a program based on one of Professor ing the stitching process, making the results multitude of stitching and viewing programs much trouble coming to grips with the fol- Dersch’s algorithms, in spite of the steep produced by the computer sometimes less of available, often in the form of Java Applets lowing sections. Additionally, in order to learning curve involved. a surprise. and Shockwave or Flash applications. allow non-physicists and non-programmers All of these tools were part of the early Stitching software is available in many In 1998, mathematics professor Helmut access to these great tools, various groups development stages of digital photographic forms–from free, highly specialized open- Dersch at the University of Furtwangen in have programmed user-friendly GUIs for blending techniques. They demanded perfect source algorithms right up to complex (and Germany introduced his Panorama Tools the Panorama Tools algorithms. PTGui parallax correction and exposure, as well as sometimes expensive) software suites that software suite. He has since earned himself (Panorama Tools Graphical User Interface, excellent alignment and composition on the offer functionality way beyond the stitching a legendary international reputation among introduced in 2000), and PTMac (Panorama 66 Stitching Software Don’t Lose Your Way in the Software Jungle 67 part of the photographer, in order to produce at various stages in the stitching process. You error-free panoramas. can enter lens correction parameters manu- Without going into too much detail, ally, and, should you not want to use the we now compare four currently available, program’s built-in control point generator, professional-level stitching programs that you can align your individual source images offer very different handling characteristics by manually entering tilt, pan, and roll coor- and diverse functionality. But before we go dinates, with the mouse, or by selecting your any further, we would like to point out that own control points. You can also use addi- recent developments in stitching software tional plug-ins, such as Autopano, Enblend, algorithms have led to an ever-increasing or Smartblend, to control the alignment and level of fault tolerance for the overlap areas blending processes. in panorama source images. Until recently, it The 7.0 and 8.0 versions of PTGui signifi- was necessary to shoot precisely aligned and cantly increase the program’s range of func- exposed source material in order to produce tionality and go a long way beyond simple acceptable results. Modern blending algo- panorama stitching. Constant program rithms, such as Enblend and Smartblend, maintenance and fine-tuning has markedly can produce astonishing results even if the improved the automatic control point selec- source material is not of optimum qual- tion function, the program’s own blending ity. We can be fairly certain that the avail- algorithm, and general processing speed (no able blending algorithms will continue to need to be scared of gigapixels!). The pro- improve, and that the near future will bring gram now includes built-in QuickTime VR 7 PTGui Pro even more exciting developments. functionality, allowing you to output images User interface in directly to the interactive digital panorama Advanced mode The Perfectionist: format without having to use additional, New House Software – external tools. PTGui Pro While most stitching programs only adjustable Vedutismo projection type, these In a nutshell: PTGui is very fast and offers PTGui is well-known and offer the three standard projection types projection types offer a real plus when it an extremely wide range of useful functions. extremely popular among (flat, cylindrical, and spherical), PTGui has comes to producing printed output. Once you get used to the somewhat cryptic professional panorama pho- included Mercator and fisheye projection The automatic EXIF data recognition user interface, it quickly becomes a pleasure tographers. Although it had its origins as a for a while now, as well as various trans- function helps to realize large stitching to use the program to produce perfect pan- GUI for Helmut Dersch’s Panorama Tools, it verse projection types for use with vertically projects at least semi-automatically, and the oramas. is constantly being developed and expanded, stitched panoramas. The Mercator projection program‘s outstanding batch and template and is now only loosely based on the original. produces similar results to a cylindrical pro- functionality allow you to render hundreds The Ghost Buster: Today’s PTGui not only includes all of its jection, but with significantly less distortion of projects overnight. Additional support for Autodesk (REALVIZ) Stitcher original (and complex) command line-based to the upper and lower edges of an image; it HDR and bracketing sequences rounds out Bought by Autodesk in 2008, stitching tools, but also a suite of automatic, is thus a very useful addition for producing PTGui’s functionality, which also includes this program was probably GUI-based tools for aligning and merg- printed panoramas. The program even allows Exposure Fusion algorithms as an alternative the first to offer user-friendly ing images. As we have already