Creating HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Autopano Giga

[Rami]

Creating HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Autopano Giga

by Rami » Wed May 15, 2013 2:25 pm

Dear all,

Here's a new tutorial combining Oloneo's HDR software PhotoEngine and Kolor Autopano Giga, to create beautiful HDR panoramas:

http://www.kolor.com/blog-en/2013/05/15/tutorial-how-to-make-an-hdr-panorama-with-photoengine-oloneo-autopano-giga-kolor/

[marzipano]

by marzipano » Thu May 16, 2013 3:32 pm

I thought APG was supposed to be able to do all of this - it is certainly being marketed as capable of image fusion and hdr file production as far as I am aware

Strange that this seems to be promoting a rival product or has there been a change of direction we don't know about ?

In the tutorial linked in here, we find:

Rule 2: never use a panorama tool to create and edit an HDR image

hmmm - maybe I'll be using Photmatix for longer than I first thought

Martin

[lumelix]

by lumelix » Thu May 16, 2013 8:45 pm

I think exactly the same when reading this tutorial.
But in the described methode I see a problem.
When dealing with small panos (eg. some hundreds of megapixel) and with bracketings from 3 steps it will work.
But if you are working on a gigapixel panorama with bracketings with 5 up to 9 steps, I guess that there is no
HDR-software that can handle this big amount of data.
Here my hope is still at APG.

[leifs]

by leifs » Thu May 16, 2013 9:35 pm

Thought I would give it a try. So I revisited a sphere with 92 positions and 5 brackets.
What I need to follow the tutorial is the 5 layered panos, produced in APG.
Thats were it ended. After detection the pano needed some editing to get a straight and stepless horizon.
Editing of the 92x5 bracket pano takes forever. As shown below it is a one-core operation. I can't wait half an hour for each edit, so I have aborted it. Game over.

leifs

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Thu May 16, 2013 9:38 pm

When dealing with small panos (eg. some hundreds of megapixel) and with bracketings from 3 steps it will work.
But if you are working on a gigapixel panorama with bracketings with 5 up to 9 steps, I guess that there is no
HDR-software that can handle this big amount of data.
Here my hope is still at APG.

You can do it folder/hundreds by folder/hundreds using the same preset.

best, Klaus

[lumelix]

by lumelix » Fri May 17, 2013 10:15 am

You can do it folder/hundreds by folder/hundreds using the same preset.

Hi Klaus
How do you mean that exactly?

I guess the problem with the methode in the tutorial is that there is no HDR-software that can handle gigapixel input files to do the tone mapping.
As the editor says: "None is truly working" of these workflows. And below: "Create a panorama for each bracketed exposure".
But what if the panorama is several Gigapixel big and the bracketing has 9 steps, eg. from -4 to +4 EV to cover the extreme dynamic of the scene?

I try out such a case but first do the HDR for every single image. Then stitch them together and try to blend them properly in APG.
But the color correction in APG clearly wasn't able to blend this mosaic usefull together. It wasn't a surprise, because the individual HDR-images were really different.

So the first rule "Rule 1: stitch first, build HDR later " is correct in this context.
The second rule "Rule 2: never use a panorama tool to create and edit an HDR image" is also correct at the moment, because APG isn't able to do the tone mapping. It only support fusion and the results aren't comparable to those e.g. from Photomatix.

But which other software can handle really big input files to do that.
And the main question is still: What should we think about this publication in the Kolor forum?

[gkaefer]

by gkaefer » Fri May 17, 2013 11:14 am

You can do it folder/hundreds by folder/hundreds using the same preset.

Hi Klaus
How do you mean that exactly?

I guess the problem with the methode in the tutorial is that there is no HDR-software that can handle gigapixel input files to do the tone mapping.
As the editor says: "None is truly working" of these workflows. And below: "Create a panorama for each bracketed exposure".
But what if the panorama is several Gigapixel big and the bracketing has 9 steps, eg. from -4 to +4 EV to cover the extreme dynamic of the scene?

I try out such a case but first do the HDR for every single image. Then stitch them together and try to blend them properly in APG.
But the color correction in APG clearly wasn't able to blend this mosaic usefull together. It wasn't a surprise, because the individual HDR-images were really different.

So the first rule "Rule 1: stitch first, build HDR later " is correct in this context.
The second rule "Rule 2: never use a panorama tool to create and edit an HDR image" is also correct at the moment, because APG isn't able to do the tone mapping. It only support fusion and the results aren't comparable to those e.g. from Photomatix.

But which other software can handle really big input files to do that.
And the main question is still: What should we think about this publication in the Kolor forum?

photomatix can use larger files than oloneo. photomatix I feeded up to 10gig files. You get an warning that it is failing, but you can Switch to an reduced preview. photomatix is handling this very well. Dont want to speek about time needed...

so my practice is telling me: gigapixels & HDR are only possible (with limited 16GB RAM Hardware) by using photomatix and/or oloneo to create tonemapped Images out of your brackets. using batching and templates in oloneo and photomatix allow to generate Images that can be used in apg to create a pleasing gigapixel pano...

Georg

Last edited by gkaefer on Fri May 17, 2013 11:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

[klausesser]

by klausesser » Fri May 17, 2013 11:37 am

I try out such a case but first do the HDR for every single image. Then stitch them together and try to blend them properly in APG.
But the color correction in APG clearly wasn't able to blend this mosaic usefull together. It wasn't a surprise, because the individual HDR-images were really different.

You know how to make a preset for batch-processing the sets? Usually the images all have the same treatment and can´t be different.
(hope, you did shoot manually . . ).

So the first rule "Rule 1: stitch first, build HDR later " is correct in this context.
The second rule "Rule 2: never use a panorama tool to create and edit an HDR image" is also correct at the moment, because APG isn't able to do the tone mapping. It only support fusion and the results aren't comparable to those e.g. from Photomatix.

That is correct.

But which other software can handle really big input files to do that.
And the main question is still: What should we think about this publication in the Kolor forum?

As said: having very much files it´s wise to process them in parts - using the same preset for all.

best, Klaus

[lumelix]

by lumelix » Fri May 17, 2013 11:38 am

Hi Georg
Is this 10 gigabyte or 10 gigapixel ? Good to know anyway .

My experience with panos created and stitched together from HDR-images those were preprocessed in Photomatix is not very pleasing.
Even when using "templates" that means everytime the same settings for every batch processed image.
The differences between this preprocessed images are to strong (eg. when there are also sky and clouds in the image) so APG isn't able
to blend them properly and usefull.

[marzipano]

by marzipano » Fri May 17, 2013 11:58 am

So the first rule "Rule 1: stitch first, build HDR later " is correct in this context.
The second rule "Rule 2: never use a panorama tool to create and edit an HDR image" is also correct at the moment, because APG isn't able to do the tone mapping. It only support fusion and the results aren't comparable to those e.g. from Photomatix.

That is correct.

Then Kolor should remove all references and processes for fusion from their products. What we have at the moment is Kolor providing fusion support and hdr file outputs and at the same time telling us not to use them

Personally I would prefer not to have to use Photomatix or Oloneo but be able to do the whole thing in APG but if they no longer want to go in that direction they need to tell the customers and remove all the facilities so people can stop wasting time trying to get them to work properly

best
Martin

[lumelix]

by lumelix » Fri May 17, 2013 11:58 am

Hi Klaus
All manually shooted. Yes I know how to batch in Photomatix .
Try out the settings with several single images and then save and use the best as preset for the whole batch.
But with gigapixel panoramas with several hundreds of images the color correction in APG 3.0.5 is still very problematic. I still get these brightness steps as described in many posts.
And without CC, the visible differences are still to big for a nice result, even when shooted manually. The HDR-process increases the differences also.

Kolor have said that in version 3.1 there will be a improvement for the color correction in this case. I hope so!

[gkaefer]

by gkaefer » Fri May 17, 2013 12:11 pm

Hi Georg
Is this 10 gigabyte or 10 gigapixel ? Good to know anyway .

My experience with panos created and stitched together from HDR-images those were preprocessed in Photomatix is not very pleasing.
Even when using "templates" that means everytime the same settings for every batch processed image.
The differences between this preprocessed images are to strong (eg. when there are also sky and clouds in the image) so APG isn't able
to blend them properly and usefull.

Gigabyte... (3x 3.7Gigybyte if I remember correct)
so fare away from gigapixel panos...
Georg

[lumelix]

by lumelix » Fri May 17, 2013 12:25 pm

Thanks for this information. I did not expect that this works

Last edited by lumelix on Fri May 17, 2013 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[aircamera]

by aircamera » Wed Jun 19, 2013 6:23 pm

I gave a try to this tutorial. I started with 3 steps from -1 to +1 EV. The problem I had is that APG made 3 panoramas that didn't really match. What I mean is that if I zoom to 300% I can see some details are at the good place on each layer but some pixels are moved 10 or 20 pixel away... So then Oloneo can't work correctly and the result is not sharp at all...

[shop360]

by shop360 » Sun Jul 07, 2013 1:56 am

have you guys though of adding all the images (bracketed) into apg, then using the HDR mode instead of LDR and exporting as an .hdr file.. import it into photomatix then you can work on it?

[ronwillium00]

by ronwillium00 » Sun Jul 07, 2013 8:28 am

Hello everyone, it is a great forum, it contains alot of usefull informations for me ! thank you guys for good work !

[klausesser]

Re:

by klausesser » Mon Feb 10, 2014 2:34 pm

But if you are working on a gigapixel panorama with bracketings with 5 up to 9 steps, I guess that there is no
HDR-software that can handle this big amount of data.

But there is: you can do it in parts - using the same preset there´s no problem running several batches of x images each.
Limiting depend on your machine´s RAM i guess.

Klaus

[klausesser]

Re:

by klausesser » Mon Feb 10, 2014 2:37 pm

What I mean is that if I zoom to 300% I can see . . . .

Viewing @ more than 100% isn´t clever at all.

Klaus

[dim]

Re: Tutorial – Create HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Aut

by dim » Sun Mar 16, 2014 3:24 pm

I think photomatix is not the best tool to prepare hdr image for spheric or giga panoramic

[klausesser]

Re: Tutorial – Create HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Aut

by klausesser » Sun Mar 16, 2014 5:28 pm

I think photomatix is not the best tool to prepare hdr image for spheric or giga panoramic

What makes you think so?

best, Klaus

[HansKeesom]

Re: Re:

by HansKeesom » Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:46 pm

But there is: you can do it in parts - using the same preset there´s no problem running several batches of x images each.
Limiting depend on your machine´s RAM i guess.

Klaus

Do you mean you stitch the photos of f.e. the 0-exposure-layer and use that as a template to load all other layers and render them? Sounds cool and logical

[dim]

Re: Tutorial – Create HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Aut

by dim » Sun Mar 16, 2014 10:58 pm

I think photomatix is not the best tool to prepare hdr image for spheric or giga panoramic

What makes you think so?

best, Klaus

I have tested a lot of hdr softwares on windows, osx & linux, only 2 has pano tweak: easyhdr & sns-hdr. The first is great but sns is very powerful for big amount of pictures.

ps: i attach an exemple

Attachments

[klausesser]

Re:

by klausesser » Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:25 pm

I think exactly the same when reading this tutorial.
But in the described methode I see a problem.
When dealing with small panos (eg. some hundreds of megapixel) and with bracketings from 3 steps it will work.
But if you are working on a gigapixel panorama with bracketings with 5 up to 9 steps, I guess that there is no
HDR-software that can handle this big amount of data.
Here my hope is still at APG.

I never met a limitation in Photomatix when dealing with large amounts of images. I guess it might be a question of the hardware too?

Photomatix allows splitting large amounts of images into tranches for having them work
if your system´s running out of capacity afaik.

How does APG handle, let´s say, 700 shots x 5 brackets? I´m curious!

Klaus

[klausesser]

Re: Tutorial – Create HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Aut

by klausesser » Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:32 pm

I think photomatix is not the best tool to prepare hdr image for spheric or giga panoramic

What makes you think so?

best, Klaus

I have tested a lot of hdr softwares on windows, osx & linux, only 2 has pano tweak: easyhdr & sns-hdr. The first is great but sns is very powerful for big amount of pictures.

ps: i attach an exemple

Hey dim! ( is that your name? )

How many imgages did you have this pano? How big is it in pixels? Which kind of data is the equi - TIFF, JPG, 8bit, 16bit? What does sns-hdr mean?

Klaus

[Destiny]

Re: Tutorial – Create HDR panoramas with PhotoEngine & Aut

by Destiny » Mon Jun 16, 2014 12:36 pm

Problem for me is the options for HDR software for a Mac.... I will download and try EasyHDR since that is for Mac too.. I read about it a long time ago but never tried it...

Destiny..

I have tested a lot of hdr softwares on windows, osx & linux, only 2 has pano tweak: easyhdr & sns-hdr. The first is great but sns is very powerful for big amount of pictures.

ps: i attach an exemple