Le photographe interviewé, Cédric Girard, voit Autopano comme “un « must have » pour tout photographe réalisant régulièrement de la photographie panoramique”. “De plus très abordable à l’achat, et très ergonomique à l’usage”. Vous pouvez lire l’article entier ci-dessous et découvrir l’ensemble des avis sur les logiciels photos dans le dossier spécial de Clubic.

Vous recherchez d’autres avis sur Kolor et Autopano ? Consultez les liens ci-dessous :

Revue de Presse Kolor Avis des Clients Kolor

Passez en 64 bits

Les appareils photo actuels créent des images de plus en plus lourdes en taille et nécessitent davantage de puissance et une meilleure gestion de la mémoire pour les traiter. Autopano est disponible en 32 bits ou 64 bits pour être compatible avec tous les ordinateurs, mais il faut privilégier la version 64 bits si votre système la supporte. Cela permet d’augmenter la capacité d’utilisation mémoire dans Autopano et donc de pallier au problème de manque de mémoire pour les calculs.

Quelle est la différence entre un processeur 32 bits et un processeur 64 bits ?

Sur les systèmes 64 bits l’accès à la RAM (mémoire vive) est pratiquement illimité, parce que ces systèmes offrent une meilleure méthode d’adressage et d’accès aux données. Sur les systèmes 32 bits, chaque application est limitée à 4 Go de RAM (en pratique, ce chiffre est même inférieur). Avoir davantage de RAM permet aux applications de manipuler de plus grandes parts de donnnées, de mettre en cache davantage d’informations et de réaliser un grand nombre de tâches plus efficacement.

Comment puis-je passer à un système 64 bits ?

• Sur Windows :
Si votre ordinateur est équipé d’un processeur 64 bits, il vous suffit d’installer la version 64 bits de Windows. Si votre ordinateur n’est pas équipé d’un processeur 64 bits, vous devez vous procurer un nouvel ordinateur. Référez-vous à votre revendeur informatique pour plus d’informations.
• Sur Mac :
Mac OS X Leopard, Snow Leopard, Lion et Mountain Lion supportent déjà la technologie 64 bits qui permet l’utilisation de plus de 4 Go de RAM. Si vous avez l’intention de créer des panoramas de très grande taille, vous pouvez ajouter de la RAM et vous verrez les bénéfices apportés par le support 64 bits dans Autopano pour les grands panoramas.

Modifiez l’utilisation de la carte graphique si vous notez une baisse des performances

Le mode GPU (= carte graphique) consiste à utiliser les ressources de la carte graphique de votre ordinateur lors des calculs d’Autopano, au lieu des ressources du processeur. Ce mode est activé par défaut depuis la version 2.6 d’Autopano et permet d’améliorer l’expérience d’utilisation dans l’éditeur de panoramas. Il peut arriver que votre carte graphique ne soit pas assez performante pour effectuer les tâches qu’Autopano lui demande (c’est notamment le cas des cartes graphiques intégrées à la carte mère). Si vous n’êtes pas satisfait des performances d’Autopano, veuillez procéder à ces trois solutions :
• Installez la dernière version du pilote (driver) de la carte graphique
• Essayez le mode de compatibilité pour les anciennes cartes graphiques
• Si les 2 premières solutions n’améliorent pas les performances, désactivez complètement le mode GPU. Vous travaillerez dans ce cas uniquement sur la puissance du processeur, pas de la carte graphique. Cela vous permettra de fluidifier les opérations dans l’éditeur de panorama et d’accélérer légèrement le rendu mais vous ne pourrez plus utiliser certains outils comme le déplacement du panorama.

Modifiez l’explorateur de fichiers

Si Autopano plante dès que vous ouvrez un explorateur de dossiers (par exemple en cliquant sur l’icône “Analyser un dossier” ou en enregistrant un projet), cela est dû à un conflit entre Autopano et un autre logiciel. Pour résoudre ce problème, désactivez l’utilisation de l’explorateur de dossiers dans la fenêtre de préférences, onglet Général. Cela aura pour effet de contourner le conflit causant le plantage et d’activer l’utilisation d’un explorateur de dossiers spécifique, propre à Autopano. Cet explorateur est similaire à celui du système, avec certaines limitations cependant : pas de menu contextuel (clic droit), de réglages d’affichage des dossiers/fichiers, de miniatures et d’exploration du réseau.

Pour aller plus loin

Une page répertorie les solutions de dépannage répondant à la plupart des soucis que vous pouvez rencontrer dans l’utilisation d’Autopano :

Découvrir les solutions de dépannage Autopano

Les forums vous aident à partager votre expérience, poser des questions et obtenir des solutions à des cas d’utilisation précis :

Forum : utilisation d’Autopano Forum : bugs dans Autopano

Vous pouvez également obtenir un support technique en contactant l’équipe de Kolor.

Les photographes De Graaf ont caché 8 surprises dans le panorama, dont 5 sont liées à l’histoire de Lyon. Le visiteur peut ainsi rechercher ces surprises et découvrir certains monuments célèbres de la 3e ville de France, comme la basilique de Fourvière (XIXe siècle), la cathédrale Saint-Jean (XVe siècle) ou le palais de justice historique (XIXe siècle).

Cette prise de vue s’est déroulée en hiver ; le même panorama sera réalisé aux 3 autres saisons.

Détails techniques :
• Taille : 601 221 x 128 436 pixels (près de 100m x 20m si imprimé en qualité photo)
• Logiciel d’assemblage d’images : Kolor Autopano Giga 3.0
• Tête motorisée : Seitz VR Drive II
• Appareil photo : Nikon D800E
• Objectif : Nikkor 500mm f/4G ED VR II AF + doubleur de focale TC-20E III

Télécharger le communiqué de presse

L’assemblage dans Autopano Giga 3

Les 3956 photos composant le panorama ont été importées via le module VR Drive II d’Autopano Giga.

L’assemblage avec Autopano Giga 3 a duré 20h sur Mac doté d’un processeur Intel I7 (4 coeurs x2) de 3.6Ghz, avec 36Go de RAM, 400Go de SSD (raid 0) et 3To de disque (raid 0).

Le fichier .kro en sortie d’Autopano Giga faisait 360Go. Une bien jolie taille de fichier.

Quelques zooms sur Lyon

Pour rappel, toute personne peut essayer Autopano 3.0 en mode de démonstration, et les utilisateurs ayant une clé d’enregistrement légitime pour la version 2 peuvent l’utiliser sur cette version RC d’Autopano 3.0, qui expire fin décembre.

Télécharger Autopano Pro / Autopano Giga 3.0 RC 1

Journal des modifications (en anglais)

Main changes

This is release candidate version of Autopano Engine v3 and hopefully the only one. So one version before final release.

Memory optimization

Since beta 3, we are using the newly created crash report to fix and improve memory use for the application. We found some memory leak and some issues that will improve globally the engine.

Using during beta stage

We believe in our community and in our customers that have been supporting us for a long year on this version. The quality of a software application doesn’t come only from the quality of the developer ( come on, still a bit ), but from the quality of the communication between you and us. So for the v3, we decided to do the following:

• You can try all alpha, beta of Autopano Pro/Giga for free during the pre-release stage of the products. You can even remove the watermark as soon as you have a legitimate v2 key.
• All betas are limited in time. This Release Candidate version will expire end of December.

With this approach, you can already start to use v3 in production work ( at your own risk, of course ). I hope that you will enjoy the v3 and report a lot of feedback on our forum about it.

Roadmap to the release

We are now in RC stage, so this mean bug only correction. We are still aiming a final version for end November.

Fixes :

- 0001582: [Image I/O] Rendering in .psd with incremental suffix doesn’t work

- 0001579: [Image I/O] Bridge 2.6 and 3.0 compatibility

- 0001553: [Cortex ( rendu )] Linux crash at render startup

- 0001563: [Import plugins] Aperture, Lightroom, Bridge plugins to call autopano v3

- 0001414: [Shell Integration] Sign application for mountain lion

- 0001578: [Editor] Crash on close – MacOSX

- 0001576: [Editor] Local geometry analysis is not local anymore

- 0001570: [Editor] Quick preview is done in 2 steps : reverted because not compatible with move mode

Pour rappel, toute personne peut essayer Autopano 3.0 en mode de démonstration, et les utilisateurs ayant une clé d’enregistrement légitime pour la version 2 peuvent l’utiliser sur les versions alpha et bêta d’Autopano 3.0.

Télécharger Autopano Pro / Autopano Giga 3.0 Bêta 3

Journal des modifications (en anglais)

Main changes

This is the third beta version of Autopano Engine v3. We are in the stage where we don’t add new features, we only corrects bugs.

Crash report system

To help us to stabilize more this software ( it is stable enough ok, don’t make me say what I didn’ ). So, to help us in some strange bug report, we introduce in this version a real crash report engine that is cross-platform. So if you have reproductible crashes, this report can be send to us for analysis. It will allow us to find the real reason behind the crash. In the next few month, this report system will be introduced in all our softwares.

Several fixes

• We spent a lot of time on one complicated linux bug : it has been found and will improve PSB file support on that platform ( needed only for gigapixel ).
• Camera and lens database has been upgrade to support all latest cameras : Nikon D600, Canon 6D, etc.
• Windows : this version is the first version that is signed, so you won’t get anymore warning issue when installing under Windows 8. The work will be done on Mac too, but not finished.
• Integration of all our communication channels under ‘F1′, help shortcut. So please, hit F1, just once to see it. Nice, no ?
• After optimization, the layout of the panorama could switch back to default one scrambling the adjustement you did to make it straight. It should now be better in this area.
• Support of image offsets were added in file format that supports it. This is cool but really only for image geek. What does that means ? If you export the panorama and reprojected images in rendering, the size of images which are part of the panorama is not the same as the panorama. In the individual images, you now have an exif tag that says the offsets X, Y of this image to the zero of the panorama. This is quite nice to post-process individual images after autopano.
• GPU support cleaning. We are quite happy now with the latest shader code as it supports several hardware and driver versions.
• Some other minor fixes.

Using during beta stage

We believe in our community and in our customers that have been supporting us for a long year on this version. The quality of a software application doesn’t come only from the quality of the developer ( come on, still a bit ), but from the quality of the communication between you and us. So for the v3, we decided to do the following:

• You can try all alpha, beta of Autopano Pro/Giga for free during the pre-release stage of the products. You can even remove the watermark as soon as you have a legitimate v2 key.
• All betas are limited in time. This beta 3 version will expire end of November.

With this approach, you can already start to use v3 in production work ( at your own risk, of course ). I hope that you will enjoy the v3 and report a lot of feedback on our forum about it.

Roadmap to the release

We are still in beta stage, so this mean bug only correction. We are aiming a final version for end November.

Fixes :

- 0001570: [Editor] Quick preview is done in 2 steps

- 0001527: [Shell Integration] Sign under Windows 8

- 0001569: [UI behavior] unregistered drag and drop

- 0001566: [Editor] External stack processing does not work well with Enfuse

- 0001499: [Image I/O] [Linux] Photoshop PSB files not compatible to PS

- 0001532: [Cortex ( rendu )] linux rendering rgb channel issue

- 0001560: [UI behavior] Antighost error message to change

- 0001539: [UI behavior] Clean UIHelp / social network integration

- 0001556: [Unclassified] Integration cameras.txt / lensid

- 0001559: [Editor] Editor settings : focal truncated from lower integer value

- 0001538: [Qt] Qt 4.8.3 (ygilquin)

- 0001497: [Image I/O] VRDrive 2 focal source

- 0001548: [Cortex ( rendu )] GPU test failed on latest nvidia driver

- 0001552: [Editor] Add a progress bar when dropping image in an existing group

- 0001550: [Editor] After optimization, the layout of the panorama is not the same

- 0001547: [Editor] Render to embedded layers issues

- 0001549: [Cortex ( rendu )] wrong antighost capabilities

- 0001535: [Cortex ( rendu )] Offsets supports everywhere

Pour rappel, toute personne peut essayer Autopano 3.0 en mode de démonstration, et les utilisateurs ayant une clé d’enregistrement légitime pour la version 2 peuvent l’utiliser sur les versions alpha et bêta d’Autopano 3.0.

Télécharger Autopano Pro / Autopano Giga 3.0 Bêta 2 pour Windows, Mac, Linux

Journal des modifications (en anglais)

Main changes

This is the second beta version of Autopano Engine v3. We are in the
stage where we don’t add new features, we only corrects bugs.

Translation support

We started this huge job with the new engine. You should have a quite
up to date English language as well as French with this release.

Fixes

• Gigapan import plugin was broken. It works again.
• APG integration into Adobe Bridge CS6 under mac is fixed.
• Under some configurations, exifs metadata were not transfered from
  input file to output panorama.
• etc

Using during beta stage

We believe in our community and in our customers that have been
supporting us for a long year on this version. The quality of a software
application doesn’t come only from the quality of the developer ( come on,
still a bit ), but from the quality of the communication between you
and us. So for the v3, we decided to do the following:

• You can try all alpha, beta of Autopano Pro/Giga for free during the
  pre-release stage of the products. You can even remove the watermark as
  soon as you have a legitimate v2 key.
• All betas are limited in time. This beta 2 version will expire end of
  November.

With this approach, you can already start to use v3 in production work (
at your own risk, of course ). I hope that you will enjoy the v3 and
report a lot of feedback on our forum about it.

Roadmap to the release

We are still in beta stage, so this mean bug only correction. With the
feedback from the forum, we still have some issues that seems important
for us: GPU support on latest NVidia drivers ( issue 1531 ), big panorama
rendering under linux ( issue 1499 ).

We are still aiming a final version for mid/end November.

Fixes :

- 0001370: [translation] French translation pass – resolved.
– 0001277: [Synapse ( detection )] Geometric Analyse doesn’t work on
long focal – resolved.
– 0001526: [Unclassified] Email for imagedef log, change or not -
resolved.
– 0001525: [Import plugins] Numbering on input plugin – resolved.
– 0001521: [translation] Translation pass English to clean wording -
resolved.
– 0001522: [Shell Integration] Unable to export pictures from Adobe
Bridge CS6 to APG 3 – resolved.
– 0000897: [Performance] Gigapan test case 1056 : SIFT detection isn’t
running in parallel – resolved.
– 0001523: [Import plugins] Gigapan plugin, estimated focale is wrong -
resolved.
– 0001520: [Image I/O] Exif are not written into the pano when EXIF are
partially available – resolved.
– 0001505: [Image I/O] Raw decoding of overexposed image are pink -
resolved.
– 0001514: [Editor] Auto adaptation of the grid steps according to
panorama size – resolved.
– 0001309: [Image I/O] GPS coordinates changing – resolved.
– 0001378: [UI behavior] Move layer to new panorama do not keep camera
positions – resolved.
– 0001313: [Neurone ( optimisation )] Color correction not working after
image reload – resolved.
– 0001281: [Performance] Zero length image files cause autopano to crash
– resolved.
– 0001379: [Image I/O] can’t open .pano when folder name contains exotic
characters – resolved.
– 0001510: [Image I/O] PSB : wrong canevas size if panorama is not
embedded – resolved.
– 0001513: [UI behavior] wrong dirty status on level validation -
resolved.
– 0001512: [Editor] “Custom” rendering profile in dialog box should not
be clickable – resolved.
– 0001511: [Editor] canceling detection can crash – resolved.
– 0001506: [UI behavior] update size on dpi change – resolved.

The following issues were closed as they are not relevant anymore with
new engine:
– 0001438: [Synapse ( detection )] Number of picture read vs number of
CPU/THREAD in 32 bit (detection crashes) – closed.
– 0001355: [Image I/O] Qt compilation under linux when integrating new
KGFL – closed.
– 0000959: [UI behavior] Slow display during Image Mode – closed.
– 0001010: [Shell Integration] Layer mode broken on linux – closed.
– 0001515: [Editor] Group by stack doesn’t work anymore – closed.
– 0001335: [Shell Integration] Crash at .pano opening – closed.
– 0000044: [UI behavior] Selection in layer editor doesn’t always follow
the editor Selection and reversed – closed.
– 0000040: [Image I/O] EXIF Speed / Aperture edition doesn’t stay in the
editor – closed.
– 0001280: [GPU] GPU check crash in remote desktop connexion – closed.
– 0001449: [Editor] Restart needed when compatibility with old graphic
card checked? – closed.
– 0001508: [Editor] levels issue – closed.
– 0000920: [Cortex ( rendu )] Crash on render (Linux) when no space on
disk is available – closed.
– 0001507: [Editor] crop interface precision – closed.
– 0001494: [Editor] removing images causes random crash – closed.

Pour rappel, toute personne peut essayer Autopano 3.0 en mode de démonstration, et les utilisateurs ayant une clé d’enregistrement légitime pour la version 2 peuvent l’utiliser sur les versions alpha et bêta d’Autopano 3.0.

Télécharger Autopano Pro / Autopano Giga 3.0 Bêta 1 pour Windows, Mac, Linux

Journal des modifications (en anglais)

Main changes

This version is an improved version of Autopano engine v3. This is the first beta version and we are now in the stage where we don’t add new features, we only corrects bugs.

GPU support

We solved the complicated issue related to the support of some graphics cards and some OS that don’t allow to update GPU drivers easily. We hope that for most hardware, the solution found will give a nice real time interface in the editor.

Linux support

There were some issues with Linux support. To be able to solve them, we raised the minimal version of the kernel to a new value so that we can guarantee that everything is working smoothly. For Ubuntu, version 10.04 LTS is now needed as a minimal OS requirement.

Using during beta stage

We believe in our community and in our customers that have been supporting us for a long year on this version. The quality of a software application doesn’t come only from the quality of the developer ( come on, still a bit ), but from the quality of the communication between you and us. So for the v3, we decided to do the following:

• You can try all alpha, beta of Autopano Pro/Giga for free during the pre-release stage of the products. You can even remove the watermark as soon as you have a legitimate v2 key.
• All betas are limited in time. This beta 1 version will expire end of October.

With this approach, you can already start to use v3 in production work ( at your own risk, of course ). I hope that you will enjoy the v3 and report a lot of feedback on our forum about it.

Roadmap to the release

We are in beta stage, so this mean bug only correction. We are not far from the final version.

Fixes :

- 0001451: [Shell Integration] Linux build on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS

- 0001474: [Shell Integration] Settings are not saved under linux

- 0001501: [Editor] When selecting a link, the CP-List does not refer to this selected link

- 0001492: [UI behavior] rename crop button 360×180

- 0001496: [Import plugins] VRDrive 2 plugins HDR mode

- 0001276: [Shell Integration] Extended save as with multiple folder source

- 0001493: [Editor] Unchecking remove control point in optimizer doesn’t disabled underlying controls

- 0001461: [Shell Integration] Autopano doesn’t work in remote desktop context

- 0001491: [Editor] prefered projection does not work

- 0001488: [Editor] Move pano is reseted when mouse is outside projection space

- 0001396: [GPU] Editor doesn’t show anything

- 0001486: [UI behavior] Cancel during folder pano detection only close dialog box

Voici une nouvelle version alpha du logiciel d’assemblage d’images Autopano 3.0, apportant des améliorations principalement liées à l’éditeur de panoramas et à la phase d’optimisation (voir le journal des modifications ci-dessous, en anglais).

Pour rappel, toute personne peut essayer Autopano 3.0 en mode de démonstration, et les utilisateurs ayant une clé d’enregistrement légitime pour la version 2 peuvent l’utiliser sur les versions alpha et bêta d’Autopano 3.0.

Télécharger Autopano Pro / Autopano Giga 3.0 Alpha 3 pour Windows, Mac, Linux

Journal des modifications

Main changes

This version is an improved version of Autopano engine v3. It will be the latest Alpha version for this engine, meaning, we are now only in bugs correction mode, no new feature will be added before v3.0 release.

There were several improvements in different part of the code. Here’s a quick list of them.

Editor improvements

Again, the editor has been really taken care of, because we really want an easy workflow:

• For many tools, we added a new mecanism for validation. For example, you are adjusting values in panini projection, if you change tools without hitting the check button, then the latest changes are lost. You expect that these changes are always applied but not always.Now, it will warn you about these unsaved changes and you can apply them or cancel them. This behavior can be changed in editor setting ( always apply, ask, never apply ).This behavior is now applied on projection, crop, vertical line, mask, level, exposure fusion and quick preview tools.
• Right click does always select when beeing in anchor edition mode.
• Line tool can only be used in spherical and planar mode. In fact, in any other projection, maths behind were an approximation and didn’t work well. So, we left that tool active only in projections where it has a real solution. We’ll probably rework this code in a future version to bring you line tool in any projection.

Optimization improvements

• It appeared that in some cases where the focal length is know, the convergence was going too far from the real focal length. The optimization engine has been improved to prevent focal length to go too far from initial value. It still can when it has too, but not as often as before.With fisheye lenses, it could happen and you could see that in layer editor, the calculated focal length there was having the value 220°. It doesn’t happen anymore now.

Using during beta stage

We believe in our community and in our customers that support us since a long year. The quality of a software application doesn’t come only by the quality of the developer ( come on, still a bit ), but from the quality of the communication between you and us. So for the v3, we decided to do the following:

• You can try all alpha, beta of Autopano Pro/Giga for free during the pre-release stage of the products. You can even remove the watermark as soon as you have a legitimate v2 key.
• All betas are limited in time. This Alpha 3 version will expire end of October.

With this approach, you can already start to use v3 in production work ( at your own risk, of course ). I hope that you will enjoy the v3 and report a lot of feedback on our forum about it.

Roadmap to the release

There are still some bugs opened in our database and the only big one is a GPU related bug ( issue 1396 ). The linux version has also a crash at exit that prevent every settings to be saved ( meaning you have to enter the registration again … ). Nevertheless, this kind of issue is easy to solve.

So next release will be beta 1 and I hope a lot of people will use it a lot to raise any issue that are still there before going to RC mode.

Fixes :

- 0001485: [Editor] crash on APP start – resolved.

- 0001453: [Editor] CPE editor and control points – resolved.

- 0001482: [Editor] After adding control point to some image pair, the selection is changed and images are switched – resolved.

- 0001427: [Neurone ( optimisation )] is auto color and auto histo working ? – resolved.

- 0001457: [UI behavior] Why validation on some tools – resolved.

- 0001463: [Neurone ( optimisation )] CP optimization is not stable! – resolved.

- 0001336: [Image I/O] tiff reading issue – resolved.

- 0001458: [Unclassified] Wrong metadata in .pano – resolved.

- 0001455: [Editor] Horizon issue – resolved.

- 0001462: [Image I/O] saving project file – automatically stacks images – resolved.

- 0001469: [Neurone ( optimisation )] Multiples entries in RANSAC model – resolved.

- 0001473: [Editor] wrong pictures index in mask editor – resolved.

- 0001475: [Editor] Selection manager is global to all panos – resolved.

- 0001476: [Neurone ( optimisation )] Color correction not always working – resolved.

- 0001477: [Editor] Mask points still displayed when images are unselected – resolved.

- 0001479: [Editor] Mask tool: add a button to delete all current mask points – resolved.

- 0001480: [Editor] ‘Lines tool’ is accessible in some unsupported projection – resolved.

- 0001484: [Qt] Object::connect: No such slot WHMovePicture::verifyCurrentIndex() – resolved.

- 0001468: [Import plugins] Neutralhazer slow to give hands back – closed.

- 0001467: [Neurone ( optimisation )] Auto color doesn’t stay if changed in setting – closed.

Voici une nouvelle version alpha du logiciel d’assemblage d’images Autopano 3.0, apportant des améliorations de l’interface, un module d’import pour la tête motorisée VRdrive II, la compatibilité avec les fichiers RAW des derniers appareils photos du marché et la correction de bugs.

Vous pouvez lire le journal des modifications ci-dessous (en anglais), il contient des détails intéressants sur cette mise à jour et l’évolution du logiciel.

Pour rappel, toute personne peut essayer Autopano 3.0 en mode de démonstration, et les utilisateurs ayant une clé d’enregistrement légitime pour la version 2 peuvent l’utiliser sur les versions alpha et bêta d’Autopano 3.0.

Télécharger Autopano Pro / Autopano Giga 3.0 Alpha 2 pour Windows, Mac, Linux

Journal des modifications

Main changes

This version is an improved version of Autopano engine v3. It also takes into account customer requests for an easier UI in Autopano.

Editor improvements

A lot of small changes have been made to ease the work in the editor. Here’s a quick list of them:

• The layer editor is synchronized with the panorama editor. This is quite nice because now, you have a direct synchronization between the layer editor selection and the editor itself in both ways. Select an image in the editor, it selects the line in layer editor. Easy. It is really an improvement over the old behavior and allows new actions, like deleting an image directly from the control points editor.We also added some new features in the layer editor like the ability to copy, paste location of one image to another image, or to move the current selection to a new layer in a single click.
• If you hold the shift key when selecting an image, you select the whole stack composed with this image, it is easier for moving stacks as a whole instead of moving the images one by one.
• In the Info window, you now have an accurate evaluation of the overlapping percentage of the panorama. This is often a good-to-know information about the panorama.How to read this value? Imagine a 2-image panorama : 0% means no overlapping at all. 100% means both images are overlapping in full. 50% would be something like the edge of one image is at the center of the second.Note: the value can go over 100% if you do bracketing. With a 3-bracket panorama, you should have a value around 340%, 300 coming from bracket et 40% of real overlapping between different location.
• Improved Panini projection. You now have access to the horizontal field of view that was hidden before. This allows to get a larger view. We didn’t allow to get the maximal theoretical value because there is really too much distortion in that case, nevertheless, now, you can go beyond the first version.Note: You have to be aware that maximal horizontal field of view depends on the distance parameter. If you change the distance, the max changes. It is often a good way to get a larger field of view.
• Constraint-based masking and stack: we added another way to put a constraint on each image composing a stack with two new button dedicated to this action.
• When using move mode for image or full panorama, you can also hold the shift key to force motion only in one direction ( horizontal or vertical ). For panorama centering, that’s nice.

Seitz VR Drive II support

Seitz VR Drive II has a build-in mode that drives directly cameras, it is called the HDR mode. It setups for you the number of brackets, exposure, etc. Moreover, the VR Drive II also creates a Papywizard XML file. So, it seems adequate for us to create a super easy wizard that does everything out of VR Drive II. Now, in the Import module, you have a new plugin designed for VR Drive II HDR mode. Compared to the standard Papywizard plugin, it introduces in the main page an option to let you select from within the plugin the kind of output you want: tonemapped or true HDR. Behind the scene, it has been optimized to follow the way the head organized the shoots for an easy wizard.

RAW decoding

We changed how RAW decoding is done in this version of Autopano: be aware that decoded RAWs will be a little darker now than before. Here’s the explanation:

If you used to decode manually-exposed RAW files within Autopano, there were an automatic level done over the images during the RAW decoding. Then, the output images didn’t have the same exposure anymore, which could be an issue for the stitching. We removed this option from DCRAW engine and now you have a stable exposure. The drawback is that decoded RAWs look darker than before. Our previous design was to be able to have a decoded RAW exposed like the JPEG if produced by the camera, but it is not really possible anymore.

The good point with that change is that bracketing of RAW to produce HDR is now better. If you do bracketing with a large amount of eV between the shots, you end up with really dark images. With that changes, they stay dark and also don’t introduce anymore noise because of this RAW decoding auto level.

Miscellaneous

Other changes in this version:

• We support all new RAW formats from new cameras available in the market ( Nikon D800, Canon 5DMark3, etc ).
• When doing a Gigapan or Papywizard panorama, as the number of images can be fairly large, it could happen that the name of the produced images was wrongly numbered because it reached a 9999 value (the camera starts again the filename with 0000 ). In this case, you needed to rename the images before importing them because we used alphabetical order. Now, we use timestamps instead of alphabetical order when it is possible. It solves this issue.
• Is an image missing in a panorama? Just drag’n'drop it from a group to the panorama. Easy way to add an image to the panorama.

Using during beta stage

We believe in our community and in our customers that support us since a long year. The quality of a software application doesn’t come only by the quality of the developer ( come on, still a bit ), but from the quality of the communication between you and us. So for the v3, we decided to do the following:

• You can try all alpha, beta of Autopano Pro/Giga for free during the pre-release stage of the products. You can even remove the watermark as soon as you have a legitimate v2 key.
• All betas are limited in time. This Alpha 2 version will expire end of October.

With this approach, you can already start to use v3 in production work ( at your own risk, of course ). I hope that you will enjoy the v3 and report a lot of feedback on our forum about it.

Roadmap to the release

We are now concentrating only on reported bugs (no new feature will be introduced until the release version). There are 2 open bugs that still need some attention. First one is about GPU use on some computers. As we are using it a lot now for the real-time editor, it stresses a bit some old computers and in some cases, it doesn’t display anything on the screen ( issue 1396 ). Another topic is that some tools have a validation action that doesn’t seem to do anything but if you don’t use it, the panorama switches to its previous state. This is a design issue we need to adjust for the next version (issue 1457).

Fixes :

- 0001250: [Neurone ( optimisation )] distorsion model settings not kept – resolved.

- 0001347: [Editor] Display average overlaping percentage in help window – resolved.

- 0001380: [Neurone ( optimisation )] Optimization with orphan images – resolved.

- 0001420: [Cortex ( rendu )] Pannini projection cropping the zone – resolved.

- 0001403: [Import plugins] VRDrive 2 import plugin – resolved.

- 0001388: [Import plugins] Parsing error in Papywizard plugin – resolved.

- 0000454: [Import plugins] Using timestamp for sorting gigapan input images – resolved.

- 0001450: [Unclassified] Theta min/max inversed – resolved.

- 0001439: [Editor] Horizontal squeeze on rectilinear projection – resolved.

- 0001444: [Image I/O] KGFL 4.0.0 integration – resolved.

- 0001446: [Import plugins] Neutralhazer protection is on – resolved.

- 0001419: [Editor] Too approximated crop in pannini – resolved.

- 0001385: [Cortex ( rendu )] Single row detection template – resolved.

- 0001237: [UI behavior] move help text of each tools – resolved.

- 0001319: [UI behavior] create new graphics resources – resolved.

- 0001428: [Cortex ( rendu )] %f does not work in rendering name – resolved.

- 0001425: [UI behavior] same picture can be dropped several times in same group – resolved.

- 0001390: [Unclassified] first start seems not stable (Import, GPU…) – resolved.

- 0001245: [Editor] Drag’n'drop images from a group to a panorama => add images to that panorama – resolved.

- 0001224: [Editor] Delete picture in CP mode – resolved.

- 0001374: [UI behavior] “Hide” system menu is not translated on Mac – resolved.

- 0001200: [Editor] Expose move horizontal / vertical only in panorama mode – resolved.

- 0001387: [Cortex ( rendu )] graphcut constraints – resolved.

- 0001397: [Editor] Pannini squeeze range – resolved.

- 0001287: [Cortex ( rendu )] Mode mask and stac – resolved.

- 0001069: [Editor] In move mode, move a stack in a whole instead of moving individual images – resolved.

- 0001409: [Editor] Can save a pano with only picture – resolved.

- 0000084: [Editor] Selection des images via l’editeur de layer aussi ( refleté dans l’editeur au-dessus ) – resolved.

- 0000865: [Editor] Copy / Paste Image location in contextual menu of layer editor – resolved.

- 0001345: [Editor] Select some image in the layer, right click, move to new layer – resolved.

- 0001350: [Editor] Layer editor : right click on image, copy /paste image name – resolved.

- 0001398: [Cortex ( rendu )] Editor visual jump when changing projection mode – resolved.

- 0001394: [Synapse ( detection )] Crash on close all group when a group is detecting – resolved.

- 0001391: [Editor] settings not saved – resolved.

- 0001389: [Unclassified] Plugin apply on only 3 images – resolved.