Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

[Joachim Otahal]

Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:07 pm

I have a problem with the control points optimization.
If there a way to limit the FOV or focal and the Roll values Autopano tries to use during correction?
Because sometimes I get ultra-weird results.

Pic FOV-Focal-Pitch-fix-fov-try: Another optimization, variant one when it goes totally out of whack, when "same focal" does not work as expected since I cannot tell which focal range is the right one.
Pic FOV-Focal-Pitch-FOV-out-of-whack: A typical "completely out of whack" example.
Pic FOV-Focal-Pitch-before: before optimization, somewhat OK, not good, but good enough to work on.

I contacted support, but I did not yet get an answer, the ticket looks like lost (surprising, since the support worked great two month ago).
Does anyone know a way to get that thing straight, so set an expected FOV range, an expected Roll value range ?

Attachments

fix fov fail

out of whack

Not really good, but at leas we can work on it.

Last edited by Joachim Otahal on Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[mediavets]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by mediavets » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:20 pm

What camera body and lens did you use?

What pano head?

How much overlap do you have between adjacent images?

[mediavets]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by mediavets » Sat Jan 18, 2014 5:21 pm

I have a problem with the control points optimization.
Is there a way to limit the FOV or focal and the Roll values Autopano tries to use during correction?
Because sometimes I get ultra-weird results.

Not to my knowledge.

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:38 pm

What camera body and lens did you use?

What pano head?

No head. Source is a computer game.

How much overlap do you have between adjacent images?

30% or more.

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Sat Jan 18, 2014 8:46 pm

Update of another example where is does not work as expected...
In the upper one has some unlinked pictures, so I add some control points. Then "optimize" with the default "gigapixel" setting.

Attachments

Looks easy to correct

Huh?

[mediavets]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by mediavets » Sat Jan 18, 2014 9:21 pm

What camera body and lens did you use?

What pano head?

No head. Source is a computer game.

So what do the Image properties look like? as in my screenshot.

How much overlap do you have between adjacent images?

30% or more.

You don't need or want more. More is not better.

Attachments

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:20 pm

What camera body and lens did you use?

What pano head?

No head. Source is a computer game.

So what do the Image properties look like? as in my screenshot.

Yes, with one difference in this case (this game): 130 to 230 pics, each about 3700x3600.
Most of the time it works as expected, I've created over 100 of game panos in the past (some of them on my homepage). Only this time it does that thing more often, and a forced range of FOV and Roll would fix that the hard way..

[mediavets]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by mediavets » Sat Jan 18, 2014 10:30 pm

So what do the Image properties look like? as in my screenshot.

You didn't answer the question.

What focal length do you set?

So the resolution and aspect ratio of your source images may vary?

Do you use the multiple viewpoints option?

Attachments

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Sat Jan 18, 2014 11:20 pm

You didn't answer the question.

You didn't ask , I could not guess that this was the detail you asked for.

What focal length do you set?

Usually I don't set it, it is detected correctly (with +- 2° fov difference max between the pics, but an RMS of 2.5). However I tried setting all source pictures to the correct expected focal length or FOV 30/35/40, although 35 is the calculated real FOV for this case.

So the resolution and aspect ratio of your source images may vary?

All perfectly identical, same resolution (usually 4224x2640 for directx 9 based, or 6384x3584 for directx 10+ games).
This set is a bit different since I have to cut of the left third where Lara is in view. If you know a trick how to hide her from screen just say *g*.

Do you use the multiple viewpoints option?

No, never. However in THIS case it IS worth a try when it happens the next time, since that game does not allow me to turn the camera completely without parallax effect. It is always placed "behind the head", even when weapon-zoom-aim is used.

EDIT: Using "Multiple viewpoints" makes the detection even worse. A lot worse.
Compared to PanoramaStudio: They do have an option to set the approximate focal length for detection.

[lumelix]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by lumelix » Sun Jan 19, 2014 4:12 pm

You're assuming that the graphics engine of the game works exactly like a real lens. But this is not so, as many optimizations will be done to improve the graphics output and speed. APG is programmed to operate with real scenes.

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Mon Jan 20, 2014 7:54 pm

You're assuming that the graphics engine of the game works exactly like a real lens. But this is not so, as many optimizations will be done to improve the graphics output and speed. APG is programmed to operate with real scenes.

That is only a guessing theory, quite wrong in some parts. But it has nothing to do with the strange effect I have here since that also happened with real-life panoramas.
I just counted: I already created over 600 (six hundred) game panoramas with Autopano Giga since September 2010, some with 800+ pictures, with up to 750 megapixels. So I have over 600 proves that it works very well on game scenes, and it rarely fails.
The first one was from Fallout 3, a scene from inside Mothership Zeta, 41 screenshots each 1920x1200 combined to a 4350x1876 pixel panorama. Today (new gfx card) I could redo the same scene with less pictures and higher resolution since I can run Fallout 3 in 4224x2640 resolution now, and got a stronger machine to create larger panos.

Only with this game and picset Autopano is more stubborn than usual, I am hitting some internal limits of Autopano Giga.

[lumelix]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by lumelix » Mon Jan 20, 2014 10:00 pm

41 Images with 1920x1200 for a pano with only 4350x1876 is much to much overlapping.
A good value for overlaping between Images is 20-25%.
So for this low Resolution, 4x2=8 Images should be enough. With 41 Images you hit the limit for overlapping

On the other hand all PC-games have an very complex texture optimization, which can lead to different views when looking around. But the control point detection in APG works with identical texture zones and can be misled this way.

Can you show us such a big Panorama from a game with 750 Mpixel?

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:20 pm

41 Images with 1920x1200 for a pano with only 4350x1876 is much to much overlapping.
A good value for overlaping between Images is 20-25%.
So for this low Resolution, 4x2=8 Images should be enough. With 41 Images you hit the limit for overlapping

On the other hand all PC-games have an very complex texture optimization, which can lead to different views when looking around. But the control point detection in APG works with identical texture zones and can be misled this way.

Can you show us such a big Panorama from a game with 750 Mpixel?

You are right about the number of images, but that was my first one, you learn from pano to pano to get better.
For the 750 megapixel: Indeed, http://joumxyzptlk.de, section pics&panos, Skyrim, the fourth one.
I am working on an update to make them interactive and zoom-able instead of naked presentation which nearly no one can use, so if you want to get the big original be fast .

A different question: Do you get notification emails when someone replies to you on this forum? 'cause I don't...

[lumelix]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by lumelix » Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:28 pm

It is amazing how well it works with these 3D views and stiching with APG !
I had to search very long to find a unique stiching error in this panorama.
In Skyrim the 3D- and texture engine seems to be very stable.
I know older games where the texture was re-placed with any small wobbles.
With this examples, you would not have a change with APG.

Again: It is important that you don't have too much overlap, 25% is sufficient.

In the user control panel you can adjust the settings for notifications.

Attachments

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:30 pm

Can you show us such a big Panorama from a game with 750 Mpixel?

I forgot: One Fallout 3 Panorama is using 1.4 Gigapixel. I created it after I got more RAM.

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:43 pm

It is amazing how well it works with these 3D views and stiching with APG !
I had to search very long to find a unique stiching error in this panorama.
In Skyrim the 3D- and texture engine seems to be very stable.
I know older games where the texture was re-placed with any small wobbles.
With this examples, you would not have a change with APG.

Again: It is important that you don't have too much overlap, 25% is sufficient.

In the user control panel you can adjust the settings for notifications.

Ou, you found one that got past be. When I remember correctly, this panorama was stitched together from about 300 screen-shots, each 4224x2640. The "fps" was about 20 to 25...
If you search long enough you'll find more stitching errors, and in my other panos too. Autopano Giga crashes from time to time when getting to the limit, and the control points discovery starts failing too, so after a while you hit the "good enough for today, start to render and go to bed" limit.

Not all game engines are as panorama friendly as the Bethesda engines. Oblivion, Fallout 3/New Vegas and Skyrim are the most panorama friendly games, allowing quite some fun. And doing the shots without any parallax / camera displacement error.

Thanks for your screen-shot on the forum notification. That confirms that my settings are correct and the forum software has the same problem it has since about 2012.

[mediavets]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by mediavets » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:49 pm

Thanks for your screenshot on the forum notification. That confirms that my settings are correct and the forum software has the same problem it has since over a year.

I get notifications - you don't?

[Joachim Otahal]

Re: Weird FOV/Focal/Roll after optimization, limit possible?

by Joachim Otahal » Sun Jan 26, 2014 12:01 am

The final:
The support could help me out. Cutting out the left third of the picture caused the distortion problem, so it is better to use .tif with transparency/alpha channel to remove unwanted objects (even if it is 25% of the picture) before putting them into Autopano Giga.

Still my request with a given range for FOV/Roll stays, but it isn't that important any more.