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	Visit the FM Store · Image Upload · Buy & Sell FM Forum Rules Rules: One new topic per day FM Forums | Landscape Photographer Pages: [1] 2     I have seen ... (new panos) (archived topic)

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States I have seen ... (new panos) ... the future of stitching and it is now. Some time ago I posted a many-shot pano of Ubehube Crater in Death Valley. At the time I could not reveal what I used to make it. Well, I can now say. In the interest of full disclosure, I work for Microsoft (but not in the marketing / sales department). :) In that capacity, I often have the opportunity to try out new software well before the general public. Last May, Microsoft Research made one of their projects available for use by Microsoft employees. That project was for stitching software. Now for the really cool part. To produce that Crater pano, all I had to do was select the shots that went into the mosaic. It did not matter which order they were selected in. After selection, press Run. That's it! No preliminary measurement of pitch, yaw, roll, or the lens used. No marking of points that adjacent shots had in common. Nothing! The software would analyze the patterns in each shot, then, like a jigsaw puzzle, figure out which pieces fit together. If it finds a shot that it can't match, it sets it aside for you to insert later or discard if it doesn't belong. Jeffrey actually saw me do it so, as the saying goes, "I have a witness". Anyway, the stitching software is now just a feature of the just-released Microsoft Digital Image Pro 10. As far as I can see, the only limitation is that the final pano cannot exceed 53 Mpixels (as I recall). If you create a pano larger, it will ask you to select a small, medium, or large pano setting rather than the default "actual" setting. I've included a 5-shot pano for your inspection. I've intentionally made it rather large and not processed the heck out of it. I can not find any stitch lines, can you? I'm not particularly interested in the merits (or demerits) of the picture. Edited by DonH on Aug 11, 2004 at 10:04 PM GMT Aug 06, 2004 at 03:27 AM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Sunrise pano at Sunrise, Mt. Rainier NP Aug 06, 2004 at 03:30 AM

charlesk Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Oct 21, 2003 Total Posts: 5177 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Pretty neat, Don. The pano looks fine to me. Not sure I would buy the software just for the stitching though... How does the software deal with more difficult stitching situations? Like a very wide shot, or a shot with some parallax? I have used other automated tools that do fine on panos where everything is far away and there are no tricky spots, but they have difficulty with the complex stuff. I also wonder how it would handle some of my Muir Woods tree panos that went from the ground to way overhead... Thanks for telling us about this. --c Aug 06, 2004 at 03:38 AM

CarlG Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Mar 12, 2002 Total Posts: 4461 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Well, I am impressed! Did they happen to mention what the MSRP will be for this software? Also, not sure if you can answer this but why only 53 MB? If you wanted to stitch four Mark II files for a simple horizontal panoramic, wouldn't that far exceed this limit, if shot in Raw, saved to Tiff as a 16-bit file? I never swore to be a mathematician, so I would not know. Carl P.S. Nice shot, btw! Aug 06, 2004 at 03:39 AM

dan hillis Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Apr 04, 2004 Total Posts: 731 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Very nice pano Don! Wow I checked out the crater and that is FANTASTIC Great job!!!! :thumb: Aug 06, 2004 at 03:40 AM

charlesk Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Oct 21, 2003 Total Posts: 5177 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Yeah I forgot to say... 53 Mpixels is a fairly serious restriction for some people. Not me, mind you... --c Aug 06, 2004 at 03:49 AM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Charles, I've only tried it on 4 panos, now. One of them was a retry of the Ubehebe Crater, i.e., a mosaic. The ghosting issues that were present last May now seem to be taken care of because the registration looked great. I don't know about the parallax issue nor how it handles color blending as that was not an issue in my tests. Carl, don't know the MSRP but a quick check on the web mentions prices in the $80-90 range. I didn't say 53 MB, I said 53 Mpixel. So for the Mark II that's almost 9 shots. You can stitch more but the final resolution will be cut back a bit. I have no idea why the restriction. I will make my wishes known internally but ... Thanks, Dan. I'm glad you didn't take a too critical eye, though. As I say, there was quite a lot of poor registration in that one. Aug 06, 2004 at 03:50 AM

charlesk Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Oct 21, 2003 Total Posts: 5177 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... I would be VERY curious to see how it deals with blue sky blending. Some of the Yosemite panos I am dealing with right now have horrible seam blending issues, even with locked exposure and WB (not sure why.) Parallax is also a critical issue. Does it work with 16-bit TIFFs, Don? It does look very promising. I think we are just now entering the "adolescence" of stitching software... --c Aug 06, 2004 at 03:55 AM

Jeffrey Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Nov 12, 2002 Total Posts: 5330 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... I swear on a stack of digital camera catalogs, that this is true! Saw it with my very own eyes, and I was not under the influence of anything. What is the full MDI Pro 10 all about, in addition to this? How about a link to a MS page? And, the most important question.... is there a Mac version??? Aug 06, 2004 at 03:59 AM

charlesk Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Oct 21, 2003 Total Posts: 5177 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Jeffrey: I don't think so. Info at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B00029QWTM/104-0683732-2671167?v=glance Aug 06, 2004 at 04:04 AM

stotan Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Feb 20, 2004 Total Posts: 184 Country: Canada Re: I have seen the future ... thats really cool too bad i have a mac :( Aug 06, 2004 at 04:04 AM

Mark Schapper Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Sep 15, 2003 Total Posts: 4915 Country: Australia Re: I have seen the future ... Don, You mean a stitcher that would even make me use it????? Mark Aug 06, 2004 at 04:10 AM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Jeffrey, thanks for the laugh!!! and I was not under the influence of anything. This link might give you some useful info. Charles, I haven't tried it with 16-bit tifs yet. Aug 06, 2004 at 04:10 AM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Sorry guys: Operating System Microsoft Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, or Windows XP 128 MB Aug 06, 2004 at 04:16 AM

charlesk Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Oct 21, 2003 Total Posts: 5177 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Don, I just downloaded the manual for this product and aside from a reference to a "panoramic stitch tool" in a sidebar, there's no information about how stitching works .. ??? --c Aug 06, 2004 at 04:27 AM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Charles, my guess is that they don't feel that it is significant enough to tout for the market that they are aimed at. I may end up using just that feature, I don't know yet. At this point, I've not used any other feature. Aug 06, 2004 at 04:51 AM

charliec Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Jan 10, 2004 Total Posts: 2250 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Don, Is this the secret weapon you used to put together the horse shoe bend pano? Aug 06, 2004 at 08:44 AM

hugh Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Jan 09, 2002 Total Posts: 23945 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Hello Don, Looks like a 'must have' for pano folks, and may even capture some who aren't :). Thanks for the information. hugh Aug 06, 2004 at 10:21 AM

Chris Baten Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Apr 22, 2003 Total Posts: 2402 Country: Netherlands Re: I have seen the future ... Was just having trouble in blending blue skies in my pano attempts using cs.. and looking for a better tool. Your examples do look promising...! Thanks for the info! Aug 06, 2004 at 11:23 AM

Walter Mitty Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Aug 27, 2003 Total Posts: 1616 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Don, How would you rate this in terms of quality of finished product to Pano Tools and PT Assembler? I know you have done some interesting peices in the past with PTA and, of course, there is Max Lyon's work. I fnid it does a great job, although rather laborious! If this is it's equal, I would find it hard to not use it. And as for the size limit, Just build 2 or three (or more?) mini panos with it and then do a final assembly with PTA or Hugin and use Emblend to average out any differances in exposure. Aug 06, 2004 at 12:48 PM

charlesk Offline Image Upload: On Registered: Oct 21, 2003 Total Posts: 5177 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Some may not be aware that there is a new tool called Autopano that can be used as a plugin for PTAssembler. It automatically detects control points and while it needs to be "watched", it does a very good job. Greatly reduces the tedium. --c Aug 06, 2004 at 01:21 PM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Charlie C wrote:Is this the secret weapon you used to put together the horse shoe bend pano? No, I used Pano Tools / PT Assembler on the Horseshoe Bend shot and it came out at 127 Mpixels. Hugh wrote: Looks like a 'must have' for pano folks, and may even capture some who aren't . Thanks for the information. Don't know about that, yet. I haven't tried enough panos with it. It does look very promising though. Chris wrote: Was just having trouble in blending blue skies in my pano attempts using cs.. and looking for a better tool. Your examples do look promising...! Thanks for the info! I wouldn't be misled by my skies, Chris. I was very careful to make the temperature of each shot exactly the same. Plus, I was using a 400mm on this pano so the FOV is not very large. Rob wrote: How would you rate this in terms of quality of finished product to Pano Tools and PT Assembler? I know you have done some interesting peices in the past with PTA and, of course, there is Max Lyon's work. I fnid it does a great job, although rather laborious! If this is it's equal, I would find it hard to not use it. And as for the size limit, Just build 2 or three (or more?) mini panos with it and then do a final assembly with PTA or Hugin and use Emblend to average out any differances in exposure. Eventually, I'd like to do Horseshoe as you've suggested. At the moment, my number of panos is too limited to be able to make the comparison you seek. Charles K wrote: Some may not be aware that there is a new tool called Autopano that can be used as a plugin for PTAssembler. It automatically detects control points and while it needs to be "watched", it does a very good job. Greatly reduces the tedium. I hadn't heard about Autopano. Thanks. Aug 06, 2004 at 03:17 PM

Tim ONeill Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Feb 06, 2003 Total Posts: 7530 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Don, This a pretty exciting piece of software. It is worth the price for just stitching if it works as expected. Have you considered doing a test with your Horseshoe Bend stitch with (I think) Panorama tools? It would be an interesting comparison. BTW, does Max Lyons know about this software? Thanks for the update. I look forward to more posts. Oh, I kind of forgot, Really great image. Aug 07, 2004 at 12:59 AM

dbrugge Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Jul 19, 2004 Total Posts: 272 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Don, How would you compare this with the PhotoShop photomerge? I have only played with the photomerge a little and was underwelmed by it. What does the sticher in image-pro bring to the table? Aug 07, 2004 at 04:56 AM

DonH Offline Image Upload: Off Registered: Mar 23, 2003 Total Posts: 7190 Country: United States Re: I have seen the future ... Rob wrote: How would you rate this in terms of quality of finished product to Pano Tools and PT Assembler? I know you have done some interesting peices in the past with PTA and, of course, there is Max Lyon's work. I fnid it does a great job, although rather laborious! If this is it's equal, I would find it hard to not use it. And as for the size limit, Just build 2 or three (or more?) mini panos with it and then do a final assembly with PTA or Hugin and use Emblend to average out any differances in exposure. Sorry it took me so long to get back to you on your question. I've reworked the Horseshoe Bend pano, as several suggested, with this product. As you can see by the panos included, there is a pronounced difference in the perspective of the 2 though the same shots were used. I know that the perspective shown by the 2nd shot, i.e., with Digital Image Pro 10 (DIP), is very accurate. I also know that setting the reference point in PT can have an effect on the finished pano, so that might explain the difference. Something I did not expect, though, was that with PT there were many "stitch lines" though the shots were seamless (same exposure and WB). It was as if the overlap produced a darker region, even though they were aligned. Again, this may come with my beginner status with PT. DIP exhibited no lines whatsoever. As far as alignment, PT had a bit of an edge. The alignment in several areas of the DIP image were slightly off in a few places though not many at all. Total time to produce the DIP pano prior to post processing was about 10 minutes, maybe less. Needless to say, PT required many hours. Don Aug 12, 2004 at 05:49 AM

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