The dark image is actually the zenith. By the time I took these shots, i was frustrated and was not paying much attention to exposure levels. But even with the darker zenith, its stitches very well. But not the nadir.

I noticed that PTGui has a View Point Correction feature http://www.ptgui.com/examples/vptutorial.html. Does APP offer a similar feature? I could not find it in the tutorials.

janaslani wrote:

I noticed that PTGui has a View Point Correction feature http://www.ptgui.com/examples/vptutorial.html. Does APP offer a similar feature? I could not find it in the tutorials.

No.

The VPC feature in PTGui can only be used in certain circumstances anyway and the process seems to be quite fiddling.

Check out the Patch tool feature in Pano2VR for assistance with patching the nadir:
http://gardengnomesoftware.com/tutorial.php?movid=09

Because I'm lazy and no purist, I often put a 'mirror ball' cap at the nadir or limit viewing parameters in the player, rather than taking and patching in a nadir shot.

First image - Here I just stitched all your images - including the nadir - with APP1.4.2, tidied up some redundant control points, levelled, and  rendered with spline36 interpolator and Smartblend.  You could edit the 'remnants' of the tripod out of that.

Second image - Here I left out the nadir shot when stitching and have applied a mirrorball cap using Pano2VR.

If you use Windows the DevalVR player can be useful to have a quick preview of stitched equirectangular images in the 'round':
http://www.devalvr.com/paginas/productos/

Last edited by mediavets (2009-02-28 12:12:43)

1,2,3- Stitch all images in APP except for the nadir. Once the pano is detected, open the pano editor and only then import the nadir. Do it like this because your nadir will have parallax errors and you don't want the rest of the images being influenced by them. Put the nadir shot on its own layer, roughly move it into place using the Move tool, then use the CP Editor and local geometric analysis & local optimize to position it properly. Render both layers (%L in filename template), then combine both layers in Photoshop.
4- I dont know, didn't try to stitch your shots, but the nadir can have parallax errors, it doesn't matter much (as long as you add it last, as I wrote above).
5- No, you will just mask out some parts at the end of point 1 in Photoshop.
6- Hire me to do it
7- not really, doing what I wrote in point 1 will be quicker and easier.

"Is there a way to de-fish my nadir shot to use this method?"
Well yes, if you create a panorama then APP will defish the source images, but thats not a good way to do it. For example you'd have to add two instnaces of the same image to a group and then detect that as a pano and render.

"Does APP render and output cubic faces?"
Not yet, in the future it should.

touristguy87 wrote:

It seems that you're just trying to take a wide FOV pano here, not generate some ridiculous # of MP so I'd just redo it with a better perspective that would make this much simpler to stitch and then crop the shots to get the aspect-ratio that you want.

he shot a sphere . . . .

Hi Janaslani!

Hans Nyberg - one of the "Gurus" of the pano-scene - showed a very clever way to shoot a Nadir even using long exposuretimes resp. bracketing (which i strongly suggest in such situations):

http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/nadir/

best, Klaus

Last edited by klausesser (2009-02-28 20:37:24)

hankkarl wrote:

Since you're a new member here, I recommend that you don't listen to touristguy87, his advice is wrong, and he insults everyone.  Don't take his comments personally.

Thanks for the heads up... Um, the shots I have posted r  are test shots, I wasn't focusing on exposure and HDR. I'm trying to figure out what is the proper way of positioning my tripod, trying to get a close enough viewpoint and shooting the nadir so that it stitches properly.

The closest I've come to having a decent nadir stitch is to stitch 6+zenith, render as tiff, import in pano2VR and use the patch tool to patch in my nadir. But my nadir is fisheye and I don't know how to defish a single image yet to use for patching

I'm new at this so I've been consumed reading tutorials, watching videos and going through various programs and their menus. As a graphic designer for many years, I know how the workflow is between illustrator, photoshop, indesign, dreamweaver, etc. I know what each program is capable of and what is should be used for. but when it comes to 360x180 panos, I'm a newbie so some of the tasks that might be simple to some are still unknown to me.

GURL's method makes perfect sense to me. I sent him a message asking him to expand on his steps and he was nice enough to send me a response...

GURL wrote:

When using APP you could try this method:
- first "detect" the panorama without the nadir shot (and save the project to be safe)
- add the nadir shot
- crop the nadir shot using the fisheye circular crop (to remove remove legs, etc)
- place manual CPs along the crop circle
- use local optimize for the nadir (to avoid disturbing the whole panorama)
- render.

...except I still cant figure out how to "place manual CPs along the crop circle". I'm on a mac, maybe the shortcuts are different.

So I'll keep trying here and hopefully with your continued support, I can come up with a method that I can duplicate confidently while on a shoot.

You can defish Nikkor 10.5mm FE shots in Capture NX which has a feature to do just that.

Does Nikon supply Capture NX with the D300? IIRC they did initially at least with the D3 and D300. Opps no use to you as it is a Windows program. 

PTLens may do what you want?:
http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/

Also Pano2VR will allow you to convert equirectangular images - say produced by APP - to cube faces.

Last edited by mediavets (2009-02-28 21:03:44)

Yes, I was mistaken capture NX runs on Mac as well as Windows.

http://imaging.nikon.com/products/imagi … /index.htm

klausesser wrote:

touristguy87 wrote:

It seems that you're just trying to take a wide FOV pano here, not generate some ridiculous # of MP so I'd just redo it with a better perspective that would make this much simpler to stitch and then crop the shots to get the aspect-ratio that you want.

he shot a sphere . . . .

Yes, and APP supports spherical projections, right?

So if he can't get them to stitch properly with APP then maybe the problem is in the shots that he took?

I'm just asking, I don't see what the problem is with that, here. Maybe the question riles all the genius intellect on this forum...

especially when he clearly states that he's experimenting with different shooting techniques and at least one of you "geniuses" is trying to help him do just that.

Last edited by touristguy87 (2009-02-28 22:22:17)

Ahahaha We are the new world order, bow down and feed us!

Sorry for the off-topic, trollfood is so tasty

touristguy87 wrote:

...why don't you just reshoot the shots correctly?
I'm sure that you can cobble the shots together in some half-assed way, but why not just go back and get some good shots?

There's nothing wrong with his shots. They aren't half-assed. The need for defishing doesn't mean his shots are flawed. Some tonemapping and a better white balance and they'll be great.

janaslani wrote:

...except I still cant figure out how to "place manual CPs along the crop circle". I'm on a mac, maybe the shortcuts are different.

OK, there are two things people mean when they say "set manual CPs".  Even someon who's native language is English may use the terms interchangeably.

One is to just set CPs in the control point editor http://www.autopano.net/wiki/action/vie … nts_Editor ,

The other is to move the image and manually lock it down.  Turn the control points editor on, then go back to the pano editor window and right click on the image you want to lock down.  You'll get a list of options of which other pictures to lock it to.

Another way to do the same thing is given at the end of  http://www.autopano.net/wiki/action/vie … rce_images