PanoTools:
Re: PTGUI multi-row spherical QTVR instructions?
stevenkan 2005-Aug-15 17:07:21
--- In #removed#, "desyreuk99" <#removed#>
wrote:
> But although I have had success with Bernhard Vogl's guide on
> spherical QTVR production using PTGUI, Autopano, Enblend and
> Panocube Plus (although only creating single row, cylindical QTVRs
> from my 10-22 lens and not a fisheye) I can't figure how I would
go
> about using this set-up to stitch together a spherical QTVR using 3
> rows of images shot with the 10-22 in portrait and a zenith and
> nadir shot(if necessary) as I was trying to do in RealViz.
Do you have a more specific description of what's not working for you?
Anyway, here's one man's (amateur) workflow:
1) Make a template.
a) Make a black-box-on-white background or take Dummy.jpg from
here:
<http://www.kan.org/pano/template/>
and resize it to the size of images created by your camera.
b) Create a new PTGui project (or use mine) and set the Panorama
Settings for Equirectangular, 360 x 180.
c) Repeatedly drag Dummy.jpg onto the Source Images window, once
for each of the images you'll be using in your typical shoot (or use
my PTGui template and modify the image locations). Ignore the EXIF
information and put in your own lens parameters (or skip this and let
PTGui figure it out)
d) On the Image Parameters tab, manually enter the "expected"
values for each image, based on how you'd set up your NN for your
typical shoot. For example, if you normally shoot in Portrait mode,
set all the Roll params to -90. Set your nadir shot for -90 pitch,
and your Zenith for +90 pitch. Set your "middle" rows for 0 yaw, +40,
+80, +120 etc if you shoot 360/40 = 9 shots per row, etc. The
template linked above uses 1 row of 6 shots at -45, 1 row of 9 shots
at level, 1 row of 6 shots at +45, one cap, and one nadir, in that
order. All rows start at 0 degrees yaw.
e) Specify settings for output file, output format, etc.
f) Save the template.
2) Now, for each set of "real" shots, drag them into a new PTGui
project and choose File: Apply Template, and apply the template you
just created (or downloaded). All your images should be roughly pre-
aligned. Save now.
3) Run autopano. When it's finished, do a "Save As" under a new
filename, in case you need to backtrack.
4) Make an "adjacency map" (or download mine) showing which images
should overlap with which other images. Use APClean or the Control
Points table to remove any obvious mis-matches. Save now.
5) If any adjacent images are missing control points, use the CP
Editor to add them manually. If your template doesn't already do
this, rotate each image _in_the_CP_editor_only_ by 90 degrees.
6) In the Optimizer, use the "simple" interface to choose your Anchor
image, then switch to the Advanced interface. I typically un-
check "Use Control Points of" the Zenith and Nadir shots for my first
runs, but YMMV. Optimize for 'b' first. Save if you like the results,
or Save As if the results are promising, but not quite right.
7) Use APClean or the Control Points table to remove "bad" control
points.
8) Rerun the optimizer for all lens parameters except Shear.
9) By this time you should be getting pretty darn good results. When
the heart of the pano looks good, then uncheck all the images
_except_ cap and nadir and optimize those, using all control points.
Since nadir and cap are likely to have the worst parallax error
(depending on how they were shot) I usually do those last, and
optimize them separately from the rest of the shots, so they don't
screw everything else up.
10) Create Panorama! If your nadir/cap shots need a lot of manual
retouching, you may want to render w/o these two shots, and then
render those two separately. The wiki has far better instrux than I
could provide for nadir/cap retouching.
Anyway, this is just my experience, and I've only done about 10 of
these, so I'm still on the "steep" part of the learning curve. I
found the template and the adjacency map to be tremendously helpful
in getting things started, especially with difficult stitches. After
I do a few more I probably won't even need the adjacency map anymore,
since it'll be burned into my brain.
Without the template, I also sometimes got really weird stitches that
were obviously really, really wrong, but I couldn't get the optimizer
to figure things out. I suspect that the optimizing function suffers
from a lot of "local minima" and can get stuck near a "bad" solution
under certain circumstances. Prealigning everything with the template
seems to avoid this most of the time.
Another technique I've found useful, esp. in indoor and other low-
contrast situations, is to duplicate certain troublesome image files,
crank up their contrast in Photoshop, and then "replace" them into
the project so that I can see where to put manual control points.
Once the placement is all worked out, then I "replace" them with the
originals.
HTH, YMMV.
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