Gigapan Import Problem

[gogles314]

Gigapan Import Problem

by gogles314 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 6:50 pm

Hi-

I'm using a gigapan to capture large images. When I do, I often end up with large featureless sections of the sky. The documentation for APG seems to indicate that it should be able to form artificial links between featureless images based on the overlap percentage. For example, in the wiki on the gigapan import wizard, they include this screen shot:
http://www.autopano.net/wiki-en/images- ... _links.jpg
where the whole sky is just linked based on the overlap (I assume since there is exactly 1 link between each image). This is *exactly* what I want to do. However, when I use the gigapan import wizard (APG is version 3.08), I get:

Screenshot of import result

Clearly, I could just go manually arrange all the sky images into columns, but given that the picture is bracketed and I have a number of these to stitch, that'd be rather time consuming.

I believe I've tried toggling all the obvious settings - I've set it to force a 360 pano in the wizard, I've tweaked the overlap % in the wizard, and I even went through and cropped the images from 3:2 to 4:3 so that the overlap % was the same horizontal and vertical, all to no avail. Any thoughts? I'm contemplating writing a .xml file and importing the pano as a "VR Drive 2" or something, but that sound like a world of hurt. It wouldn't bug me so much if it didn't look like the APG gigapan import was designed to do exactly this thing. Thanks for any help,

Kurt

[mediavets]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by mediavets » Tue Jan 21, 2014 7:07 pm

Welcome to the forum...

Some comments:

1. You could try processing your bracketed images before stitching. Many recommend that approach with bracketed exposures and APP/APG.

2. You could try to create a Papywizxard XML data file using Papywizard in simulation mode, faster than trying to hand code one.

3. IF the Gigapan Import wizard honours APP/APG global settings then check whether you have hard linking set for stacks.

4. The Gigapan range of robotic pano heads is far from ideal for shooting panos with a pano FOV of 360 H and 180 V, they are best used (and were designed ) for shooting partial panos with a VFOV of much less than 180 and a HFOV of much less than 360.

5. If the misaligned images concerned are truly featureless and/but there are no areas of the pano that are not covered then rendering the image may turn out OK?

[gogles314]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by gogles314 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:01 pm

Thanks!

1. I tried rendering with just the base image (no bracketing) as a stand-in and I get much the same result. To your point, I would have to arrange 1/3rd the number of images, so it would be a helpful workaround. Still, it's nice to adjust the exposure fusion of the whole pano.

2. Thanks - I'll try this next

3. Hard linking is off both global and local (not sure if there independent). Why do you think this would help?

4. I totally agree... the Gigapan takes way too many shots at the zenith. But the shot renders fine in the Gigapan Stitch Software (but I can't adjust the projection in Gigapan Stitch, which is a big part of why I use APG). I feel like lots of redundant data in the sky (i.e., too many pixels for such a high elevation) shouldn't prevent APG from just lining up these images blindly and blending them.

5. Well... I suppose nothing's truly featureless. The sky in these shots is a beautiful cobalt blue with some very subtle coloring changes; just not enough for any stitcher to grab on to. And the picture won't be balanced if I remove the sky. So a fair point, but no go.

Off to try Papywizard...

[mediavets]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by mediavets » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:16 pm

3. Hard linking is off both global and local (not sure if there independent). Why do you think this would help?.

It stops APG seeking CPs within a bracketed exposure series (a stack in APG-speak), and means that it detects CPs in only one layer and the other images in the bracketed series are placed at the same location.

And I believe you may be able to move a hardlinked stack as if moving one image - but I may be may be quite mistaken.

.............

Ax I understand it, APG uses the Import wizards for 'guidance' in placing 'featureless' images but it does not rigidly locate featureless images according to a regular grid pattern in the case of mosaic shooting patterns.

-

[mediavets]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by mediavets » Tue Jan 21, 2014 8:19 pm

Off to try Papywizard...

The main Papywizard site seems to be down at the moment but you can download Papywizard from here instead:

http://www.papymerlin.com/t%C3%A9lechar ... d/windows/

[gogles314]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by gogles314 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:11 pm

Thanks for the link. That works - it took some fiddling, but APG produces a much nicer result when I feed it the .xml from Papywizard.

I'm still wondering if there's a bug in the gigapan import (i.e., why's APG ignoring the 40% overlap instruction when it can't find links during the import) but at least this gives a workable path forward.

Off to try Papywizard...

The main Papywizard site seems to be down at the moment but you can download Papywizard from here instead:

http://www.papymerlin.com/t%C3%A9lechar ... d/windows/

[mediavets]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by mediavets » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:20 pm

Thanks for the link. That works - it took some fiddling, but APG produces a much nicer result when I feed it the .xml from Papywizard.

You are obviously a fast learner - I was expecting questions.

I'd be interested in seeing a comparable screenshot showing the Papywizard import result.

I'm still wondering if there's a bug in the gigapan import (i.e., why's APG ignoring the 40% overlap instruction when it can't find links during the import) but at least this gives a workable path forward.

Quite possibly - if the Gigapan Stitcher worked then that ceratinly suggests there might be - you could ask Kolor whether they'd like to invesitigate with your image set.

Nobody has ever explained quite what processes the various Import wizards use.

[mediavets]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by mediavets » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:27 pm

I'm still wondering if there's a bug in the gigapan import (i.e., why's APG ignoring the 40% overlap instruction when it can't find links during the import) but at least this gives a workable path forward.

Does the general information data look correct to you?

It states 180 images in 60 stacks, so I presume you have three expsoures in each bracketed series, but there appear to be many more than 60 stacks (ie. more than 60 shooting positions).

Attachments

[gogles314]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by gogles314 » Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:34 pm

There are only 180 images and 60 shooting positions - the general info looks correct. (10 columns, 6 rows = 60 shooting positions x 3 brackets = 180 photos).

I've attached a screenshot using the xml - APG still doesn't generate links, but the pictures are in roughly the right places and monotonically ordered - enough that the blending seems to do a reasonable job reproducing the sky. I don't have random bits of dark sky in the middle of the light sky.

Is there a bug report process to ask Kolor?

Thanks for the link. That works - it took some fiddling, but APG produces a much nicer result when I feed it the .xml from Papywizard.

You are obviously a fast learner - I was expecting questions.

I'd be interested in seeing a comparable screenshot showing the Papywizard import result.

I'm still wondering if there's a bug in the gigapan import (i.e., why's APG ignoring the 40% overlap instruction when it can't find links during the import) but at least this gives a workable path forward.

Quite possibly - if the Gigapan Stitcher worked then that ceratinly suggests there might be - you could ask Kolor whether they'd like to invesitigate with your image set.

Nobody has ever explained quite what processes the various Import wizards use.

Attachments

Using a .xml from Papywizard with roughly the same settings as the Gigapan

[gogles314]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by gogles314 » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:00 am

I see your question now... it did split up some of the stacks originally (i.e., without the xml input). I'm not sure why it does that, since it clearly knows they're bracketed. I could hard link them and see if that helps, but I think the xml is doing that anyways.

I'm still wondering if there's a bug in the gigapan import (i.e., why's APG ignoring the 40% overlap instruction when it can't find links during the import) but at least this gives a workable path forward.

Does the general information data look correct to you?

It states 180 images in 60 stacks, so I presume you have three expsoures in each bracketed series, but there appear to be many more than 60 stacks (ie. more than 60 shooting positions).

[mediavets]

Re: Gigapan Import Problem

by mediavets » Wed Jan 22, 2014 12:03 am

I see your question now... it did split up some of the stacks originally (i.e., without the xml input). I'm not sure why it does that, since it clearly knows they're bracketed. I could hard link them and see if that helps, but I think the xml is doing that anyways.

I'm not sure that the Papywizard import wizard does hard link stacks by default.

It would be interesting to see the result of trying hard-linking via global settings.