I have done quick tests to stitch my 1,152 pictures in PTGUI and
AutoPano Pro.
1. AutoPano Pro
I gave up to stitch 1,152 pictures after pre-test with 75 pictures.
2. PTGUI Pro 7 beta
As not I said before, it was possible to stitch 1,152 pictures in PTGUI.
But it is very difficult and needs much more time than CINEMA 4D.
I will explain what I did.
1. The PTGUI is not efficient software, so it is impossible to import
1,152 pictures into computer which has less RAM than 4GB. This is not
related to picture resolution, but "previews" which are made in PTGUI
requiers GB RAM.
Since I am using small computer with 2GB RAM for pano jobs, I gave up to
import 1,152 pictures at once, and divide the pictures to 3 groups (384
pictures) by exposure.
2. Also testing with full size pictures needs very long time, so I used
1/3 size pictures (1296*864 pixel). However I believe that it is
possible to do same thing with full size pictures, according to my other
tests.
3. First, generate control points (CP) by automatic function. Then 70%
of pictures were arranged well, but the CP were not generated for some
pictures and some pictures had wrong CP. Blue sky does not need CP, but
"regular windows" or "tower beyond fog" needs CP.
So I removed some CP by hand, and add some CP by hand. It needed over 4
hours for 384 pictures and still it is not enough.
4. Next, I moved all pictrues to initial positions with NC_Pano. The
"initial positions" are ideal positions which are decided by design and
use of pano head. In this case, it was 6 rows (8 degrees step, from -8
to 32 degrees) and 64 columns (5.625 degrees step).
The NC_pano is a SuperCard project made by me to edit PTGUI file. The
PTGUI has similar function "Fill yaw" but it is not enough to me. You
can get the NC_Pano from below
5. After that, all pictures seems to be arranged well. If pano head has
no error and lens settings are perfect, stitching is already done. But
things are not so easy.
First, I went to "Optimizer" page, and un-checked pictures which do not
have CP, to prevent alert. Also I checked "Link roll" because normally
the value does not change picture to picture in one set of shooting.
Also I checked that anchor picture has enough CP and other pictures
except skys are linked well by enough CP. This is the most important
thing for PTGUI and need much time, I think.
Then executed "Optimize". The skys which have no CP remain initial
positions but it is no problem.
6. Finally, I rendered the project part by part. Because the PTGUI
requested very large disk space (over 200GB) to render whole pano
(96,000*26,100 pixel), but it crushed though I gave enough HD (500GB).
Anyway if you have enough RAM, HD and fast CPU, I recommend to "partial
rendering" to render large pano. It is more stable, able to render in
smaller computers and may be even faster.
In this case, I divided my project to 16 parts. Final size of my pano is
32,000*8,700 pixel (because I resized source pictures to 1/3), and one
piece of the pano has 2,000*8700 pixel.
It is easy to divide rendering. In case of 16 parts, go to "Panorama
Settings" page, set FOV (Horizaontal) to 22.5 degrees and execute
rendering. After finishing rendering, select "Panorama Editor -> Edit
-> Numerical Transform", then put 22.5 degrees into "Yaw" field. It
rotates all pictures (means world) 22.5 degrees horizontally. In same
time, change output file name a bit (adding number is good), then
execute rendering again.
7. After finishing all rendering, I merged resulting 16 pictures into
one large pano in Photoshop. The result is below (devided to 2 parts to
compress with JPEG, 10MB each).
I had to do same thing 3 times to make the pano to HDR, but I did not do
it because it is a functional test. It is possible with some more time.
8. Comaparison with the PTGUI and CINEMA 4D
PTGUI is 5 to 10 times slower than the CINEMA 4D. This is difference
between RAM and HD, because the CINEMA 4D does not use HD (virtual
memory). PTGUI can handle larger project than the CINEMA 4D, but it
needs very large disk space, very slow and not stable.
Therefore, I prefer to divide larger project to small parts, and render
them in RAM without HD.
About stitching qualty, the PTGUI has more unevenness than CINEMA 4D.
Better part is better but worse part is worse. Then average of the PTGUI
is bit worse than CINEMA 4D. It may be improved by more work on CP, but
it also needs more time. At least with same editing time, CINEMA 4D is
better.
Only one good thing I found in the PTGUI is "color blend" between
pictures. So the sky in PTGUI is more smooth than it in CINEMA 4D. The
CINEMA 4D has image analizing function but I did not impliment it yet to
my compositor.
--
冨士 俊雄
Toshio Fuji <email@hidden>
_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
QuickTime-VR mailing list (email@hidden)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/quicktime-vr/email@hidden
