flipside wrote:

Hi,

I use APP to create 360° hdri images for use in 3D software. I'm using a sigma 4.5mm lens, and take 3 images to get the full 360° coverage (theoretically 2 would work but then there is zero overlap to stitch).

I use 12 to 18 EV's to get the full dynamic range. So I end up with 12*3 to 18*3 fisheye images.

Untill now, I just created the hdri's first, and stitched them with APP. So 3 hdri fisheye images stitched to one panorama. This works, but the smartblend function has some problems with hdr images.

So now I was looking into the feature of stitching every exposure set to a panorama, so I can merge the resulting panorama's into a hdri later on. Since the fast exposures are usually completely black except for the bright light sources, APP cannot stitch them. So I want to stitch the 'good' exposed image set and use the exact same settings for all the other exposure sets.

In the help files there is this page:http://www.autopano.net/wiki/action/view/Bracketed_panorama

But when I drag all of my images into APP, and click the detect button, it creates a real mess. Probably because many images are almost black, or very blown out. Not like the images in the example where they do not differ much from the middle exposure.

Is what I'm trying to do possible with APP1.4, without manually editing 12 to 18 sets of images?

Thanks,

wouter

Hi Wouter!

I tell you my workflow - smartblend still seems not to render HDR (i use 1.4.2)

Put ALL images into APP - maybe you should do without the darkest ones or the almost blown ones (i didn´t have problems with very bright ones but with almost black ones).

In the editor on the left is a layers-window. Here you set the layers to "bracketed layers". Now do your geometrical editing - but WITHOUT using ANY colorcorrection (that´s important)!
Then go to render the pano. In the render-dialog set render to TIFF 16bit.

Now the most important thing: in the field "filename" you HAVE TO type in additionally "%L"!

Then you get bracketet layers rendered from which you can make a "real" HDR file in Photomatix saved as .hdr or .exr for the use in Maya, Cinema, Max or something as probes for global illumination or global lighting.

That´s what i do - maybe there´s some improvement which i didn´t realize yet . .

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2008-10-16 16:44:46)

flipside wrote:

Hey Klaus,

I tried without the very dark ones, and then indeed it works. But that isn't usefull for me because the dark ones are the most important for a good hdri. They make the hdri true high dynamic range, and make sure you get accurate shadows in the 3d renderings.

What I would need is simply one stitch of EV0, and all other EV simply stitched with the same transformations, without even analysing them. I believe I read something like that with PTGui (but I can't work with that, and like APP much more).

The simplest option would be that smartblend would work well on hdr's of course :-) Hint hint :-) Besides that not working well, APP gets very slow loading and viewing hdri files to be stitched. But I can live with that!

wouter

There are two ways around that:
1) lift curves in the very darkest pictures a litte, so that at least a very little amount of structures is visible.
(when i have brackets which seem to be completely dark i always do so - there´s still enough deep in them)
2) work with templates - the program "knows" by that where a picture has it´s place without having to detect control points.
I never did so myself - but it´s the usal way among experiecend panoristas who used to use Panotools or PTGui before they switched tp APP (for good reasons, i mean )

Somebody here surely can explain that workflow.

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2008-10-17 13:44:10)