wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: HOW TO GET STARTED?
Roger Howard 2005-Jan-20 23:22:00
On Jan 20, 2005, at 2:38 PM, mark1schuster wrote:
>
>
> When I saw the message headed 'How to get started' I eagerly read
> the replies. Yes, like other amateurs I've had good cylindrical
> results but I had no idea of how to get started with 360 x 180. At
> last I was going to get an answer. Well that's what I thought but
> what I got was lots of accolades for Panorama Tools. PTools sounded
> wonderful and better still, free of charge so I spent quite a bit of
> time reading up on PTools on the net and do accept it provides
> excellent results - I've looked at so many examples - but I think
> I'd rather pay for something less time consuming and more user
> friendly.
> So come on guys and gals, tell me about something I can use. I'd
> rather spend my time being creative than honing my software skills.
> Better still, how can I immerse myself in a sphere with a bog
> ordinary digital camera with the usual 38mm (equ) lens?
Did you consider that maybe this was, in earnest, the best
recommendation that most people have? That it's used widely precisely
because it delivers great results, not because we like beating
ourselves up?
You can pay $400 for Stitcher, but you might end up fighting it even
more. Most people like its interface better on first blush - it seems
more intuituive - but the more you demand of the app, the less it
delivers. PanoTools based apps (PTMac, PTGUI, PTAssembler, etc) provide
a level of control that enables the best possible results from your
work, if you learn to use them (only one is necessary - they all do the
same things). Panoramas - especially full spherical panos - aren't
necessarily easy, especially if you demand quality at the same time
(otherwise, you could go shoot 2 shot spheres with IPIX, which is
certainly easier, or even a one-shot lens system).
With a 38mm lens on a consumer camera, you're really going to need
proper nodal point alignment which means a tilting pano head of some
kind, and tripod.
I consider honing my software skills to be a major component of
enabling creativity; I don't hear designers demanding that they get
something easier than Photoshop and Illustrator... it's about using the
right tools for the job, and knowing your tools is almost always a
prerequisite for creative expression - whether you paint, play guitar,
shoot panos, or design and build homes.
But yes, if you just want easy, then it's a compromise... but you've
placed a lot of restrictions on what you want, and they aren't all
mutually compatible if the goal is to produce spherical panos - a low
end camera, 38mm equiv lens, no mention of a tripod and pano head.
I consider PT more user friendly than the alternatives. Let me define
what I mean by user friendly. None of the PanoTools products are
pretty; none are developed by shining GUI designers (no offense guys).
That's plainly obvious. What they do provide is the clearest path from
source files to a finished pano - with other tools, I simply don't know
what they are doing, and don't always understand why they fail to
stitch on certain images, and so on. With PanoTools, there's no mystery
meat; it's all out in the open. Yes, it may look ugly and complicated;
frankly, it's not complicated, just open - all the control you could
ever want, but with companion tools like autopano and enblend you can
very often get a good-enough pano with virtually no work.
If I was just shooting cylindrical or rectilinear panos, I would
probably never have switched to PanoTools from my previous stitchers.
Now that I have, I use PT for everything. I have also trained folks
much less interested in details and control than myself.
The challenge with these questions on the mailing lists, is there's a
massive variety of workflows involved, yet many people who come to the
lists at first want all the answers in a single document. Lens
parameters, photography advice, nodal point characteristics,
everything. Yet they're probably using a lens, panohead, and other
equipment and techniques that are fairly unique to them. So best we can
do is advise on a skeleton workflow. Here's a pretty high level, but
all-inclusive, PanoTools workflow for instance:
1) Import images into PanoTools-based stitcher of your choice.
2) Estimate lens FOV (38mm in this case) and plug it in with the proper
lens type (equirectangular)
3) For the first three image pairs, set 6 or more control points for
each pair.
4) For the rest of the image pairs, set 3 or 4 control points at least
- don't forget to set control points between the first and last images
(assuming they overlap) to "close the loop"
5) Optimize for FOV using control points from the first 3 image pairs.
Optimize for FOV, a, b, and c, again using just the first 3 image
pairs.
6) Optimize for yaw, pitch, roll for all image pairs
7) Optimize for all parameters and all image pairs.
8) Set your pano output size and format and then render.
9) Blend if necessary
Note, this might again seem complex; but steps 3 and 4 are the most
time consuming, and yet can often be completely automated (autopano,
XPoints, etc). Steps 5 through 7 take all of a minute or two. Step 9
can also be completely automated (enblend).
That said, Stitcher can be pretty easy, but for sphericals with lots of
source files (long lens like you're using), you're gonna need REALLY
good nodal point alignment and lens calibration to get a good fitting
sphere in Stitcher. PanoTools is much more forgiving.
Hope this helps,
Roger