New lightweight motorized panorama head

[yiorgos]

New lightweight motorized panorama head

by yiorgos » Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:27 pm

Here's a lightweight, single-row, motorized head I made, weight with batteries and controller is about 900gr.

It's user-programmable, can be used on a monopod for fast action panos and it can be triggered via remote.

You can see it in action here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vGSNLAhMVj0

Last edited by yiorgos on Fri Sep 06, 2013 10:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Destiny]

by Destiny » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:06 pm

I think its very cleaver and it certainly has its use. It looks like a lot of effort has gone into it.. For me, its the best homemade option I have seen.. However, for me I wouldn't bother with a motorised head unless the top rail was also motorised.. Therefore, its a very good start... Well done...!! A lot of people talk about making one but you actually did make one... How much would they sell for if you made them commercially...

Destiny...

[yiorgos]

by yiorgos » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:47 pm

Thanks. I made it lightweight so it can be used on a pole (hence the remote release) and also to be able to
shoot panos using a monopod rather than having to carry a tripod. It can shoot a 360 pano in 2.5 sec.

Here's a video using it on a monopod: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_bVY1fkoryI
That's an earlier version on the video.

I've shown this on the facebook group and had a few people contact me who were interested in purchasing one,
so I may do a small run of 5-10 pieces. Price would be only 350 euro.

And btw, it can also do timelapse: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pgcm3J0AB2M

Last edited by yiorgos on Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Destiny]

by Destiny » Fri Sep 06, 2013 11:57 pm

Thats really cool on the pole.. The price is very affordable too.. I am sure others might be interested in that.. Its only $500 Aus.. A fully anodised aluminium box would look nice.. That would make it even lighter too... It seems to work well with the Gobi head..
http://www.kolor.com/buy/photo-hardware/bushman-panoramic-gobi.html
I guess if someone wanted a cheap option for a full sphere, they could tilt the head down and run it at -45 and then perhaps +45 or what ever their setting were, with a fisheye... I think it would make a good beginners setup..

I look forward in reading more about it..

Destiny..

[a a gruntpuddock]

by a a gruntpuddock » Sat Sep 07, 2013 4:24 am

Why not build one using spare bits of timber and a Lego set?

You can have it working autonomously using an internal program or run programs on an external pc, laptop, pda, etc.

You can aso have direct control using Bluetooth or usb if that is what you prefer.

Does multi-row panos and can handle bracketing, mirror lockup, etc.

Comes with its own programming language but several others are available most of which are also free.

Programme it to shoot in rows or columns whichever you prefer.

Just google Lego Pano Head to see how many different designs have been created.

Here is my version but you can build it any way (and using any materials) you prefer and program it to do exacty what you want.

https://vimeo.com/user11574285

[yiorgos]

by yiorgos » Sat Sep 07, 2013 6:32 am

It seems to work well with the Gobi head.

It uses a standard 1/4"-20 screw so it works with just about any head. In the monopod video I used a panoramic bracket I made that's very light (see attached photo)

I guess if someone wanted a cheap option for a full sphere, they could tilt the head down and run it at -45 and then perhaps +45 or what ever their setting were

If you use a fisheye lens with 180-degree vertical FOV you can shoot a whole sphere at a single pass or maybe with an additional nadir shot by tilting the monopod down 10-20 degrees

I'll have the final version finished next week and will post some photos & video...

[Artisan New]

by Artisan New » Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:40 am

Nice job looks great and performs it's trick.....I noticed you did use a 90 mod 0.5 as a base (as far as I can detect).....no anti-backlash but using a FE you won't be hindered by that. The head I build the electronics for does use AB gears and now has an Arduino as a controler. But it can's spin round in 3.5 seconds....to much mass I'm affraid so those pesky Higgs bosons spoil the fun. I have to accelerate and decelerate each step carefully in order not the damage anything (in the long run). Building light is (sort of) easy with a single axis under control but with two motorised axi things become a lot more difficult......

Greets, Ed.

Last edited by Artisan New on Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:54 am, edited 1 time in total.

[yiorgos]

by yiorgos » Sat Sep 07, 2013 8:32 am

Acceleration & deceleration are essential. I use it too and as a matter of fact it's one of the parameters the user can customize.
Backlash is not a problem, I'm using the controller to hold it in place when not shooting.

I was a little concerned about power draw but I let it run continuously to test the batteries and I stopped it after it had shot 850 panos.
The battery pack was still going strong, it can probably shoot around 1200 panos on a single charge.

I'm using an Arduino for processing but I have built a custom board that holds all electronics (see attached)

[Artisan New]

by Artisan New » Sat Sep 07, 2013 9:35 am

Applaus looks great.....I've build a custom shield on my Ardiuno Uno (using a Arduino prototype board and a lot of tight nook and cranny soldering (since the prototype board contains a lot of solitairy islands so is not so ideal for prototyping)....In the final version (using a 3D printed casing that waits on a 3D printer to be developed and build) I'll use a Fritzing board instead. Easier soldering and it will look better.

BTW, nice example of Greece resiliance....ever played with the thought of bringing it to market? It would be a great solution for many a real estate dealer....simple to use, set on tripod, push the red button.....give the dude or dudette time to leave the room.....(you can't be sure the're smart enough to keep themselves at the non business end of the divice) and presto one part of the VR tour ready to proces.

Greets, Ed.

So your using the Accelstepper library as well?

Last edited by Artisan New on Sat Sep 07, 2013 9:35 am, edited 1 time in total.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Sat Sep 07, 2013 10:11 am

BTW, nice example of Greece resiliance....ever played with the thought of bringing it to market? It would be a great solution for many a real estate dealer....simple to use, set on tripod, push the red button.....give the dude or dudette time to leave the room.....(you can't be sure the're smart enough to keep themselves at the non business end of the divice) and presto one part of the VR tour ready to proces.

He has...See: http://www.kolor.com/forum/p121051-yesterday-23-47-04#p121051

"I've shown this on the facebook group and had a few people contact me who were interested in purchasing one,
so I may do a small run of 5-10 pieces. Price would be only 350 euro."

[yiorgos]

by yiorgos » Sat Sep 07, 2013 11:09 am

Applaus looks great.....I've build a custom shield on my Ardiuno Uno (using a Arduino prototype board and a lot of tight nook and cranny soldering (since the prototype board contains a lot of solitairy islands so is not so ideal for prototyping)....In the final version (using a 3D printed casing that waits on a 3D printer to be developed and build) I'll use a Fritzing board instead. Easier soldering and it will look better.

Thanks Ed.

I tried the protoshield route and gave up on it early on.
I then tried a perfboard version but that was a mess of wires with so many connections, I'm using all available pins.
I also looked into Fritzing but was too expensive, > 10x the price of a proper, factory-made, custom board.
I'm using the Accelstepper library but with a few custom mods.

ever played with the thought of bringing it to market? It would be a great solution for many a real estate dealer....simple to use, set on tripod, push the red button.....give the dude or dudette time to leave the room.....(you can't be sure the're smart enough to keep themselves at the non business end of the divice) and presto one part of the VR tour ready to proces.

I have thought about taking it to market but for now I'll just do a small run if there is demand once the final prototype if finished.

There are several potential market segments for which this head would be suitable.
Real estate, Google Trusted Photographers, and any high volume operation can benefit especially since it offers
repeatability and once you develop a stitching template you can use it for mass production with no need for control points.
It would also be a good solution for people who use poles and to shoot street & action panos with a monopod.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sat Sep 07, 2013 12:19 pm

Thats really cool on the pole..

. . . and needs extremely short exp. times - under 1/1500sec. Handheld on a pole (instable in ALL directions) i measured 1/4000sec as longest time on a D800
to get almost sharp images.
That´s using at f8 for sufficient DOF i guess comes quite rarely at least in Europe . . . So you´d need to set the ISO at very high values - getting mucho noise.

Simply a math´s thing. I asked Josef to mail me a formula which makes it easy to estimate as exp. time needed for several rotation-speed modes.

3-4 sec. of rotation time shooting 5 images using a fisheye @1/1000sec. means "smearing" of about a whole bunch of pixels - and so reducing the resolution massively.

The more highres the camera provides the more pixels get "smeared" with the rotation. Instead of a D800 you can take a compact-camera as well . . .

Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Sat Sep 07, 2013 1:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Artisan New]

by Artisan New » Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:26 pm

Why you need Joseph to send you a formula, don't they teach calculus in Germany? If Angela Merkel saw this she would be most disappointed in you Klaus .

Lets say a full circle take 3.6 seconds.....thats 3600 milliseconds and 1/1000th of a second = 1 millisecond. Now lets take this further (slowly). In 3600 milliseconds the device makes a full circle that is 360 degrees. Now comes the hard part....360/3600 = 1/10 of a degree of blur. He's using a FE with a lateral FOV of about 95 to 100 degrees...which is depicted on a Canon sensor....with about 3600 pixels on the which means 95 degrees (lets say 100 degrees) are smeared out over 3600 pixels = about 36 pixels per degree....aka a smear of 3 to 4 pixels....not pin sharp....but for most non critical cases like Google and Real Estate brokering usable (you can limit the zoom in KRPANO Klaus you don't HAVE to go to 100% as you probably know). At 1/4000 it's pin sharp....and our shapy is living in Greece....and the light in Athens does not compare to the light in Düsseldorf Klaus....

So now I have to design a new door for an appartment building (the one Iive in actually).

Greets, Ed.

[Artisan New]

by Artisan New » Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:42 pm

I'm using all available pins

Yeps, so am I.....is use an LCD and that takes up 12 connections, 2 Big Easy controllers eating 3 a piece, a 335 accelerometer using up 5 more of which 3 are analog pins (of course) and I also build a 5 switch resistor cascade on it....and an optocoupler (running on 3.3 volts) The whole system runs on 3.3, 5 and 12 volts....it was/is a mess of wires I must admit but it works....and about Fritzing.....I like what they are doing with their software amd sponsoring it is just about okay with me....not if you penny pinch (by need or by principle). But if you see how much money I save not having to buy a Seitz, and how much fun I get from building it, 25 euro isn't much.....if it works (I also sponsor the development of the software I use).

I wonder why the Arduino boys and galls don't make a protoshield with more then 20 triplets and no duo's......islands are a RPITA to work with (I've been their, I know).

Greets, Ed.

For my next project (a 3D printer) I'll use a R Pi and an A Mega and will get them to communicate.....the R Pi will run Repetier Host/Slic3r and the Arduino will translate G-code into movement of the tree motors. That way I don't waste a precious desktop on my 3D printer. All within the real of the doable it just takes time.

Last edited by Artisan New on Sat Sep 07, 2013 5:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[yiorgos]

by yiorgos » Sat Sep 07, 2013 7:24 pm

Yeps, so am I.....is use an LCD and that takes up 12 connections, 2 Big Easy controllers eating 3 a piece, a 335 accelerometer using up 5 more of which 3 are analog pins (of course) and I also build a 5 switch resistor cascade on it....and an optocoupler (running on 3.3 volts) The whole system runs on 3.3, 5 and 12 volts....it was/is a mess of wires I must admit but it works....

Ed, if you use a shift register you can cut down the number of pins needed for the LCD from 12 to just 3. What do you use the accelerometer for? Vibration detection?

[Artisan New]

by Artisan New » Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:12 am

Yeps, so am I.....is use an LCD and that takes up 12 connections (of which 6 are to Arduino pins, ed. Ed), 2 Big Easy controllers eating 3 a piece, a 335 accelerometer using up 5 more of which 3 are analog pins (of course) and I also build a 5 switch resistor cascade on it....and an optocoupler (running on 3.3 volts) The whole system runs on 3.3, 5 and 12 volts....it was/is a mess of wires I must admit but it works....

Ed, if you use a shift register you can cut down the number of pins needed for the LCD from 12 to just 3. What do you use the accelerometer for? Vibration detection?

- Shift Register, indeed.....maybe in build 2.....when I have to rebuild anyway....

http://www.electronics-lab.com/projects/mcu/015/

Great way to free up pins....indeed. If I use a custom board I'll have to take this into account.....since Pins on a Uno are at a premium.

- Yes, vibration detection was the plan (the 335 registers max 3 G and I hoped it would be suitable)....especially when going HDR I thought that could have it's benefits. But input is always welcome since a wise man learns from his mistakes but it's even more efficient to learn from the results (or mistakes) of others.

Greets, Ed.

Last edited by Artisan New on Sun Sep 08, 2013 9:19 am, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sun Sep 08, 2013 1:16 pm

Why you need Joseph to send you a formula, don't they teach calculus in Germany? If Angela Merkel saw this she would be most disappointed in you Klaus .
.

Our "beloved Angela" is a quantum physicican by profession (or is she a chancellor professionally . . ?). I´d not be surprised about she can calculate really good. (did it hep the economy? Well - it´s not soo bad, ok)
I graduated in audio-engineering - some 40 years ago in the US - and studied photography (without a degree - being able to make a living from it and being successfull is graduation enough i mean . . )

Calculations l´m used to leave to the professionals.

Lets say a full circle take 3.6 seconds.....thats 3600 milliseconds and 1/1000th of a second = 1 millisecond. Now lets take this further (slowly). In 3600 milliseconds the device makes a full circle that is 360 degrees. Now comes the hard part....360/3600 = 1/10 of a degree of blur. He's using a FE with a lateral FOV of about 95 to 100 degrees...which is depicted on a Canon sensor....with about 3600 pixels on the which means 95 degrees (lets say 100 degrees) are smeared out over 3600 pixels = about 36 pixels per degree....aka a smear of 3 to 4 pixels....not pin sharp....but for most non critical cases like Google and Real Estate brokering usable (you can limit the zoom in KRPANO Klaus you don't HAVE to go to 100% as you probably know). At 1/4000 it's pin sharp....and our shapy is living in Greece....and the light in Athens does not compare to the light in Düsseldorf Klaus....

So now I have to design a new door for an appartment building (the one Iive in actually).

Greets, Ed.

Thanks for the calculation, Ed. But i meant a flexible formula for doing the calc by VARIABLE setting focal-length, sensor-size and -resolution, Pixelpitch, circling time for example.

I guess it all comes clearer to the excited user when he/she learns about the pure facts about what they do.

Of course you not always need to get tack-sharp images at high resolution. But then you also can use a very small and very lightweight and cheap compact-camera instead of a DSLR, can you.

Because you most likely not ALWAYS know in advance that you do NOT need high quality - what if it suddenly becomes a demand? And you can´t provide it? Re-shooting teh same thing? Waiting for the same light/weather?

Sorry - i´m a professional. Professionals are sober and precise thinking people - always taking in account Murphy´s law . . . :D

Klaus

btw: about Athens - they have owls already . .

[yiorgos]

by yiorgos » Sun Sep 08, 2013 2:21 pm

Klaus, have you actually shot a pano with a 8mm fisheye lens on a 2.5-3sec continuous rotation?
In my tests it looked pretty sharp, I'll repeat the test this coming week with the final version of the prototype and will upload the pano.

The point is to be able to capture fast action and street panos if one so chooses. If your ultimate concern is sharpness you can also use it to leisurely shoot supersharp bracketed scenes with a tripod.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sun Sep 08, 2013 2:43 pm

Klaus, have you actually shot a pano with a 8mm fisheye lens on a 2.5-3sec continuous rotation?

I shot a pano with 5D2 and 15mm fisheye using 5 sec. of rotation. It was extremely bright and i was able to use 1/1000sec @f8. Aside from viewing @100% it´s acceptable.
http://www.360impressions.de/KBogen3/ Choose "Koenigsalle2" in the box on the top-right. Needed to excessively masking out ghosts of the people you see in the picture.

The point is to be able to capture fast action and street panos if one so chooses.

Then i suggest a rig of 6 GoPro - ONE shot covers 360x180 with acceptable quality.

If your ultimate concern is sharpness you can also use it to leisurely shoot supersharp bracketed scenes with a tripod.

"ultimate concern" is a big word . . The question is what you need thge pano for.

Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Sun Sep 08, 2013 2:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[a a gruntpuddock]

by a a gruntpuddock » Sun Sep 08, 2013 3:58 pm

Should be able to run an LCD screen with 3 wires (including the earth) using an I2C screen chip interface - loads of them on ebay.

[mediavets]

by mediavets » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:18 pm

I shot a pano with 5D2 and 15mm fisheye using 5 sec. of rotation. It was extremely bright and i was able to use 1/1000sec @f8. Aside from viewing @100% it´s acceptable.
http://www.360impressions.de/KBogen3/ Choose "Koenigsalle2" in the box on the top-right. Needed to excessively masking out ghosts of the people you see in the picture.

Klaus

Ooops - a partial vampire.

Last edited by mediavets on Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:37 pm

Ooops - a partial vampire.

Yes - one of the funny games speedmode plays . . ;-)

The point is: doing single shots you can wait that moving persons are either gone away or they´re ghosts are seperated enough to be eliminated by masking.
In speedmode you get too much ghosts which partially overlap so that a mask can´r seperate them from each other.
That´s because the faster the camera spins around the more it shoots one person several times.

So especially in crowded places resp. when objects move fast the speedmode definitely is counterproductive.

(i mentioned that severals times before - making some users rather angry . . )

Klaus

PS:

In this case i did it later again using te masking tool from PTGui - which is much more precisely controllable.

Last edited by klausesser on Sun Sep 08, 2013 6:39 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Artisan New]

by Artisan New » Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:33 am

What about the realistically achievable resolution?

Klaus

It produces 3584 x 1792 equirectangular images.

Sorry - i oversaw it.

best, Klaus

Nice toy, nevertheless!

But not if it's freezing outside Klaus.....operating temperature between 0-40 degrees.....so in the Sahara you can't use it as well....so I should advice a Nikon D800 and 2.8 6 FE and 2 shots to do the same.

No seriously Klaus, what you are forgetting is, is that the VR market is rappedly expanding all around you (in fact all around all of us) and that VR is used in several different applications these days. For showing a house on funda the quality of a Theta or even better the quality of our Greek freinds machine (in fast mode and in stop motion mode) is more then okay. If you wanna shoot a museum collection in detail you need a better head (row/column) and maybe even a better camera. If you wanna shoot street in a crowd you can do it with manual rotater and a tripod or us a rotator like Yiorgos is building is also a solution (and possibly even a better one, if he includes a 12 shot mode since 12 shots give 7 opertunities to stitch without ghosting (image 1-6, image 2-7, image 3-8, image 4-9, image 5-10, image 6-11, and image 7-12 makes 7).

And Klaus, how the hell do you dare to state you're a professional and then talk about the fact that you don't know what quality you need for a shoot? So in order to satisfy every future use of any photo (VR or otherwise) we should all be shooting snapshots with a Leica M and 0.95 Noctilux as Steve Huff keeps advising us? Or a take D800 for panorama's as some other people suggest? Or are we then all making fools of ourselves and should we all buy a IQ180 back (and of course toss it in the bin when the IQ200 hits the market) and an ArcaSwiss camera coupled to a Schneider Digitar and Seitz VR2 in order to take panorama's for Funda. And to complete things we should all drive to the job using a Mercedes Benz S Class(R) to minimize the risk of missing the shoot because our cars break down (or even better a VW Fox since that is currently leading the ADAC breakdown index in the "Kleinwagen Klasse" and get about the same rank as an S-Class(R)). You do know Google uses a 6 shot manual panorama mount as recommended gear as is a 7D btw. Now that makes me laugh but there is some sense in this. Why make things more complicated then needed. I could see Google adopting Yiorgos's solution because this is only marginally more complicated but it looks a lot more professional.

Now yesterday I was at the European FabLab convention in Aachen. I saw a lot of talks about 3D printing and a lot of 3D printer builders there (most of them open sourcing there products). Now there were also a lot of talks about 3d printing and the community. And 3D printing applictations these days range from printing coral reafs to printing living tissues (fascinating talk by Prof. Boris Chichkov, expect medicine to be revolutionised over the next decade by the black/white art of tissue enginering). Now he can print on nanometer scale (check on his name in google to se some fascinating work). Now I don't need to print on nanometer scale, so I don't have to buy a several 100 kdollar machine in order to get my work done (alltough he had some interrest from the medical field). I'm happy with a Prusa.....but even happier with a Scrappa of my own design.

By the way the day beforeI was at the Mini Maker Fair in Kerkrade.....verry interresting and inspirational as well. Made a lot of contacts over the counter so to speak.

Greets, Ed.

P.S. So my calculation was correct, thanks Klaus . And for the rest of us amateurs:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_of_view

and some old high school math (hey lens theorie is mandatory in the land of Christian Huygens). And be fair, you don't need a masters degree in math to understand those formula's right.

Last edited by Artisan New on Tue Sep 10, 2013 6:40 am, edited 1 time in total.

[yiorgos]

Re: New lightweight motorized panorama head

by yiorgos » Mon Oct 07, 2013 4:49 pm

Here's some photos of the final version of the motorized head.
Reduced the size of the controller quite a bit.
Total weight including batteries and controller: 920gr

Also improved the timelapse function to be much smoother:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mshy0yWXwKc

Attachments

_MG_5959-b.jpg (91.68 KiB) Viewed 4883 times

_MG_6054a.png (239.81 KiB) Viewed 4883 times

_MG_6062b.png (302.67 KiB) Viewed 4883 times

[klausesser]

Re:

by klausesser » Mon Oct 07, 2013 6:40 pm

No seriously Klaus, what you are forgetting is, is that the VR market is rappedly expanding all around you (in fact all around all of us) and that VR is used in several different applications these days.

REALLY?? C´mon - you´re kiddin . .

For showing a house on funda the quality of a Theta or even better the quality of our Greek freinds machine (in fast mode and in stop motion mode) is more then okay.

Who put that in question?

If you wanna shoot street in a crowd you can do it with manual rotater and a tripod or us a rotator like Yiorgos is building is also a solution (and possibly even a better one, if he includes a 12 shot mode since 12 shots give 7 opertunities to stitch without ghosting (image 1-6, image 2-7, image 3-8, image 4-9, image 5-10, image 6-11, and image 7-12 makes 7).

So you can count . . good!

And Klaus, how the hell do you dare to state you're a professional and then talk about the fact that you don't know what quality you need for a shoot?

???? What substances did you have in your coffee?? What are you talking about? Belive me: i definitely know "what quality i need for a shot" . .
But you never can know whether a client later needs a higher quality or not for a bigger presentation on a beamer or a print.

So i´ts always better to have much resolution. Even when it´s redundant in many cases.

Klaus

Last edited by klausesser on Mon Oct 07, 2013 7:12 pm, edited 2 times in total.