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Hi all,
i just have installed the demo versions of apg 2.6, apg 3.0, ptp 1.8 for evaluation. And before i buy the serial numbers, there is a problem left...
I did some trial panorama pictures, some small consisting of 26 tiles, one row. Some bigger ones, consisting between 188 and 260 tiles, up to five rows.
I dont have a panorama head or nodal adaptor, so the angle between each horizontal tile will differ slightly, but all tiles overlap at least between 20 and more than 30 %.
The smaller panoramas worked fine, no problem at all. After approximately 2 to 3 hours rendering completed and the resulting .pdb has been written to disc.
The bigger panoramas (the 188 and 260 tile ones) ... hmmm ... the biggest one worked ok, after sproximately 12 hours finished. Three other ones had problems by automatically arranging the tiles. Some tiles have been sorted to a second or third panorama. The second and third big one sorted all tiles to the same panorama, but with many bad links, some tiles without any link.
I manually correted the links, deleted false ones (that linked to the third or fourth next in the same row), added links to the stand-alone tioles. I did a fast optimize, then i started rendering. After appr. 12 hours the progress bar had reached a point of, let me say 60% finished. After 24 hours it shows the same position. And after 48 hours still standing at the same position.
What is going wrong? Are the links still too bad? To few RAM? How can i find out the reason why one of the big panoramas worked ok in a reasonable time, the other run forever and no finishing in sight?
My rendering system is a Acer Laptop, 4 cores, Win 7 Ultima 64 bit, 4 GB RAM, apg 2.6 and 3.0, both 64 bit demo versions.
Any hint will be welcome.
greetings from germany
Christian Stüben
Last edited by Christian Stüben (2012-07-03 06:33:16)
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Christian Stüben wrote:
I manually correted the links, deleted false ones (that linked to the third or fourth next in the same row), added links to the stand-alone tioles. I did a fast optimize, then i started rendering. After appr. 12 hours the progress bar had reached a point of, let me say 60% finished. After 24 hours it shows the same position. And after 48 hours still standing at the same position.
What is going wrong? Are the links still too bad? To few RAM? How can i find out the reason why one of the big panoramas worked ok in a reasonable time, the other run forever and no finishing in sight?
I guess you are blocked in the blending stage. The process bar there is not linear (that's an issue of the software and is hard to solve in fact). So it can take a long time and then will make a giant step forward. I guess you didn't hit that part yet.
Why is it long ?
Most probably because a full line in the panorama doesn't fit in memory. If a single line doesn't fit in memory, a lot of swap on disk is happening. It kills the performance.
Christian Stüben wrote:
My rendering system is a Acer Laptop, 4 cores, Win 7 Ultima 64 bit, 4 GB RAM, apg 2.6 and 3.0, both 64 bit demo versions.
Good point: 64bits OS. Perfect. Weak point for big rendering, only 4 GB RAM ( 8 GB would be great ).
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AlexandreJ wrote:
I guess you are blocked in the blending stage. The process bar there is not linear (that's an issue of the software and is hard to solve in fact). So it can take a long time and then will make a giant step forward. I guess you didn't hit that part yet.
Why is it long ?
Most probably because a full line in the panorama doesn't fit in memory. If a single line doesn't fit in memory, a lot of swap on disk is happening. It kills the performance.
Yes, the progress bar says it is the blending process.
The necessary swapping was one reason i already assumed. But the funny thing is ... the biggest panorama, 229 tiles, each 21mp, giving 4 gigapixel to compute, due to overlap resulting 2 gigapixel, rendered in a reasonable time of approximately 12 hours. The smaller ones, 180, 190 and 210 tiles each, run more than two days and no end in sight. There must be some other reason than swapping.
Unfortunately i only have the demo version, so i can´t save the panorama data for trying a second rendering with more precise control point and connections, all must be redone from scrap.
Do you have a time limited version that can save project data? I would not care if such a version would imprint the watermarks double or triple fat ;-) but i would like to see that apg 3.0 can handle the smaller panoramas, before i buy the serial numbers.
greetings from germany
Christian Stüben
Last edited by Christian Stüben (2012-07-03 15:09:55)
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Christian Stüben wrote:
The smaller ones, 180, 190 and 210 tiles each, run more than two days and no end in sight. There must be some other reason than swapping.
Hi Christian!
What kind of files are they? Tiff, JPG . . I once accidently put in 16bit/Tiffs - took very much longer than 8bit or, of course, JPGs.
best, Klaus
Last edited by klausesser (2012-07-03 15:31:04)
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Hallo Klaus,
diesmal nicht auf d.r.f., die Welt ist halt klein 
The pictures / tiles are all jpeg, compression level 12 high quality. Maybe next weekend i give it another try with the jpeg all computed to smaller pixel resolution (5 gb instead of 21 gb each tile).
greetings from wuppertal to düsseldorf
Christian
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Christian Stüben wrote:
Hallo Klaus,
diesmal nicht auf d.r.f., die Welt ist halt klein
The pictures / tiles are all jpeg, compression level 12 high quality. Maybe next weekend i give it another try with the jpeg all computed to smaller pixel resolution (5 gb instead of 21 gb each tile).
greetings from wuppertal to düsseldorf
Christian
Oh - it´s you! 
Schön, Dich hier zu treffen!
herzlichen Gruß, Klaus
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Note that I've been using AutoPano for less than a week, so I might still be missing something. But here's a thought:
Select "Settings" from your Edit menu, and check the second section titled "Memory Used". You'll see that there's a slider bar... what's the maximum memory showing? One of the things that might be causing your issues is that AutoPano appears to scan available memory only when the program is first started. So, if you started APG right at system startup, it'll be able to access a much larger memory pool than if you started APG when you already had other software going.
I've been having the same problems as you: blending ran forever. I have 16GB RAM, I just killed a render process that had been going on for 41 hours when I found that APG was limiting itself to just 0.9GB of RAM. I rebooted my system, made sure that APG was the first program I started, and now APG reports using 12.2GB of RAM. We'll see whether my render completes in a more reasonable time.
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Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
I've been having the same problems as you: blending ran forever. I have 16GB RAM, I just killed a render process that had been going on for 41 hours when I found that APG was limiting itself to just 0.9GB of RAM. I rebooted my system, made sure that APG was the first program I started, and now APG reports using 12.2GB of RAM. We'll see whether my render completes in a more reasonable time.
I have set the memory slider to the rightmost position, that was 2 GB. And apg has been the one and only Program i started. Unfortunately, my Laptop has only 4 GB in total. Maybe with some trick i can manage to extend the memory usage to 3 GB. I have seen, that just after booting windows, win 7 itself takes 1,5 gb of the available ram. But when i start a program whitch heavily needs ram, exit the program, then the memory usage of windows will decrease from 1,5 gb downto 800, 900 MB. Maybe when i restart apg at this point i can snatch one or two bits more from the ram ...
Next weekend will be the next try.
Thanks for the hint.
Greetings from germany
Christian
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Christian Stüben wrote:
Unfortunately, my Laptop has only 4 GB in total
Can you add more?
As you are discovering, laptops are not ideal platforms for working with large pano images.
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mediavets wrote:
Christian Stüben wrote:
Unfortunately, my Laptop has only 4 GB in total
Can you add more?
As you are discovering, laptops are not ideal platforms for working with large pano images.
Nope, i can´t add more. The Laptop is two and a half years old, the chipset in conjunction with the bios only can handle 4 gb. And yes, this one is not ideal for rendering gigapixel. This i have known before 
And whether my Laptop is not ideal, but good enough, i will know next monday, just after the weekend.
The chances that it is good enough are pretty good, because the biggest panorama already rendered with very good result.
greetings from germany
Christian
Last edited by Christian Stüben (2012-07-03 18:06:21)
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My "forever" pano just finished. When APG was only using 1GB of RAM, it had gone 41 hours without finishing. When I made sure APG could access 12GB of RAM, it finished in 2:55.
Why can't APG see that more memory has been freed up and then use more? Why can it only allocate memory on program start? And most importantly: if there's a strong and sound reason why it is this way, why does the documentation not make it plain to the user so these problems can be avoided?
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Artisan S. wrote:
And for checking memory usage.....use the Taskmanager -> Performace indicators. You can see what the various processors are up to and how the memory usage is coping with the task.....if you get a constant low performance from the 4 I5 cores and the memory is filled to the brink.....kill the task, cry a little and realise that you have just exceeded the posibilities of your machine.......now processor upgrades are expensive, memory upgrades on desktops relatively cheap so go for as much ram as needed. When I bought my system (a humble Medion) memory was more important then processor power.....it's almost like the Shelby saying "Horsepower sells cars but talk wins races", well a fast PC is a PC with more memory.......not with a faster core.
Greetings, Ed
Everytime it is the same ancient wisdom ... there is nothing better than a lot of ram. Except even more ram.
Artisan S. wrote:
And leave your elephant out of the Schwebebahn will you
Ooops, too late, why didn´t you tell me that some earlier? Now the damage is already done...
http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/Wupper … 525ce4378b
http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/Wupper … 95a2451f0b
http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/Urwald … 3ec13192ac
http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/Im-Rau … 3be0174f49
http://www.heise.de/foto/galerie/Wupper … fa72b5814d
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Christian Stüben wrote:
Artisan S. wrote:
And for checking memory usage.....use the Taskmanager -> Performace indicators. You can see what the various processors are up to and how the memory usage is coping with the task.....if you get a constant low performance from the 4 I5 cores and the memory is filled to the brink.....kill the task, cry a little and realise that you have just exceeded the posibilities of your machine.......now processor upgrades are expensive, memory upgrades on desktops relatively cheap so go for as much ram as needed. When I bought my system (a humble Medion) memory was more important then processor power.....it's almost like the Shelby saying "Horsepower sells cars but talk wins races", well a fast PC is a PC with more memory.......not with a faster core.
Greetings, EdEverytime it is the same ancient wisdom ... there is nothing better than a lot of ram. Except even more ram.
Artisan S. wrote:
And leave your elephant out of the Schwebebahn will you
Ooops, too late, why didn´t you tell me that some earlier? Now the damage is already done...
guess it was Dumbo - and he flew against the glass-window . . 
best, Klaus
Last edited by klausesser (2012-07-03 21:22:19)
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Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
My "forever" pano just finished. When APG was only using 1GB of RAM, it had gone 41 hours without finishing. When I made sure APG could access 12GB of RAM, it finished in 2:55.
Why can't APG see that more memory has been freed up and then use more? Why can it only allocate memory on program start? And most importantly: if there's a strong and sound reason why it is this way, why does the documentation not make it plain to the user so these problems can be avoided?
If it would, we wouldn't have the opportunity to help you! ;-)
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I know you were being humorous. But for some reason, having seen your response I do not like my own earlier post. Allow me to rephrase:
If it were possible to have APG allocate memory more dynamically (say 90% of all available RAM) and modify that amount over time in order to take advantage of all available resources, that would appear to be a future enhancement worth creating. Alternately should that be too difficult, the user could be given the choice of entering any maximum value for memory up to some limit (like 90% of physical RAM or whatever). Lastly, if either of those is either not doable or is planned for far in the future, I would suggest that some sort of "best practices" or "quick tips" document be created, and put into that doc a simple suggestion that the user (a) check how much RAM is available to APG before starting a big job and (b) restart APG to allow it to access more memory if he/she has made more available.
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Another performance note.
I just used another strategy on the pano I'm working currently. I first used Photomatix to combine each set of 7 bracketed captures into a single LDR frame using batch processing. Didn't time it exactly, but that took roughly 10-15 minutes. Then, used APG to stitch those 20 frames into a pano. That took 12 minutes, from detection to rendering. So this strategy is far faster than almost 3 hours using only APG, and may be better for RAM-limited situations.
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Artisan S. wrote:
... care to show of the result here?
Greetings, Ed.
Yes, of yourse. If everything works perfectly, buing the serial numbers is planned for next month (so be a little bit patient), i will show the resulting panotour here (in the virtual tour gallerie section).
greetings from germany
Chris
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no problem showing them here with the autopano word in it.
I you want them rendered by me, let me know, then you can have them withour the autopano word already
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@Hans Keeson: thank you for your offer, but the basing images for all four panos are about 8 gb in size, they are jpeg quality level 12 high res. And the demo version can´t save projects, so everything must be done from scrap (importing images, automatic arranging tiles, then manually correcting unrecognized tiles, ... everything).
A friendly and good offer that i dont want to abuse. But in any case ... Thank you!
greetings from germany
Chris
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I was under the impression the demo could save projects. sorry to give you false hope. Still, once you have licnse but not enough memory you can forward the whole project for rendering.
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HansKeesom wrote:
I was under the impression the demo could save projects. sorry to give you false hope. Still, once you have licnse but not enough memory you can forward the whole project for rendering.
In demo mode:
1. You can render panos - but they will be watermarked.
2. You cannot save .pano files.
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Rodolfo Paiz wrote:
Another performance note.
I just used another strategy on the pano I'm working currently. I first used Photomatix to combine each set of 7 bracketed captures into a single LDR frame using batch processing. Didn't time it exactly, but that took roughly 10-15 minutes. Then, used APG to stitch those 20 frames into a pano. That took 12 minutes, from detection to rendering. So this strategy is far faster than almost 3 hours using only APG, and may be better for RAM-limited situations.
I´m always suggesting it: better use a HDR application BEFORE stitching.
1) These apps are specialized - they have ONE task and do it in best quality. That´s like the RAW conversion: APG can handle RAWs - but a dedicated RAW app like
CaptureOne or even Lightroom definitely can do it better.
2) You can´t expect ONE app doing it all in optimal quality.
3) APG runs far more easily and very much faster not using RAW or fusing bracketed images - needs much less RAM- and disk-power.
APP/G is a phantastic stitch- and render-app. The best in the world i mean. It has brilliant quality and most clever features - once you know them and learn how to handle them . . which can be painful and extremely time-consumpting under some aspects. But in the end you always find help here!
best, Klaus
Last edited by klausesser (2012-07-05 15:25:05)
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Indeed. No worries, I'll learn my way around it in time and hopefully be able to help others a little too.
I'm just now going to post the mostly-finished pano in the gallery here. Still needs some work removing haze and toning down the blue in the shadows, but it's getting there.
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Bingoooooo! Yippiyeahjahyippiyippiyeah!
The work has been done. All three panos that have run for more than two days are now rendered. Taking 3:25, 2:46, 3:45 hours each. Plus 1 to 2 hours each for manual correcting control points.
I have done some fumbling on some different parameters, so i can´t say what has been the greatest influece.
1)
When the first tries came to the point of "no further progress visible", working and updating the other windows (e.g. win explorer) became painful slow, flickering, blinking. My first thought was "hmm, gpu is fare beyond its limits"
So i made a application specific performance profile that tells the gpu "render, anti-aliasing, and all other tasks should be done NOT high-quality, but the fastest way they can be done"
2)
Starting memory-hungry applications like Photoshop and then exiting them helped to free another 500mb of memory that could be grabbed by apg.
3)
setting cache division manually to 2 MB. This resulted in a maximum size of 130.000 pixel for each pano output. The widest pano has 112.751 pixel at the x-axis, which pefectly fits.
4)
i switched from the preset to the 100+ picture setting
5)
i disabled anti-ghost and set rendering to the leftmost "simply stitch together"
6)
maybe (my demo version doesn´t save project data) i have done a better manual post-processing of bad control points.
Some of the comments here plus in the thread "APG memory usage" were very helpful. Thanks to all.
When coming to the blending, flickering and flshing is the same, so i think the gpu settings will not belong to my candidates for having done noticeable influence.
Of course, now there are many ghosts in the picture. In August, when i get the erial numbers, there will time enough to find the best combination of disabling and enabling. Beside this, the rendered gigapanos look great.
greetings from germany
Chris
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