Best panorama stitching software?

bmoore1118 · Monday at 5:49 PM

I am an adobe editor and for most of my drone panorama and stitching. Their software works pretty well. I have heard there are some more specific panorama old stitching software that you can use either being its own standalone software or a plug-in for the Lightroom classic. I’m just looking for some recommendations if anybody has used any of them and likes them. Thank you for any suggestions

waynorth · Monday at 6:05 PM

My favourite by far is PTGUI: Photo stitching software 360 degree Panorama image software - PTGui Stitching Software
It's fast and flexible, and very accurate. And it can stitch RAW-files, that's imortant for me. It also works with 16-bit files all the way.
It does not have a direct plug-in for Lightroom, but can be integrated in LR as an external editor. Have a look here:

Support / FAQ - PTGui Stitching Software

PTGui is image stitching software for stitching photographs into a seamless 360-degree spherical or gigapixel panoramic image

ptgui.com

Another option is Panovolo, which I haven't tried myself. The developer is active on this forum, search for user Panovolo.

bmoore1118 · Monday at 6:14 PM

waynorth said:
My favourite by far is PTGUI: Photo stitching software 360 degree Panorama image software - PTGui Stitching Software
It's fast and flexible, and very accurate. And it can stitch RAW-files, that's imortant for me. It also works with 16-bit files all the way.
It does not have a direct plug-in for Lightroom, but can be integrated in LR as an external editor. Have a look here:

Support / FAQ - PTGui Stitching Software

PTGui is image stitching software for stitching photographs into a seamless 360-degree spherical or gigapixel panoramic image

ptgui.com

Another option is Panovolo, which I haven't tried myself. The developer is active on this forum, search for user Panovolo.

Thank you. I wish it wasn’t so expensive.

AeroJ · Monday at 7:18 PM

bmoore1118 said:
I wish it wasn’t so expensive.

Well, if you wanna get all 'hardcore depths' about it, Hugin is free and as good as any of them, and even, I might venture, arguably better than ALL of them, including DJIs famously brilliant stitcher you get in the FLY app, which is not infallible.

I did all my Typhoon H panos in that. Unlike most other pano creators this one has manual options if the auto-stitching fails, but you do have to take a little time to read up on the workflow !

Quick(ish) tutorial on that below...

Felix le Chat · 2024-08-13T00:23:25-0400

AeroJ said:
Well, if you wanna get all 'hardcore depths' about it, Hugin is free and as good as any of them, and even, I might venture, arguably better than ALL of them, including DJIs famously brilliant stitcher you get in the FLY app, which is not infallible.

I did all my Typhoon H panos in that. Unlike most other pano creators this one has manual options if the auto-stitching fails, but you do have to take a little time to read up on the workflow !

Quick(ish) tutorial on that below...

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Agree wholeheartedly. Hugin is the grand-daddy (literally) of all the pano stitchers and still arguably the best. Autopano Giga is also excellent and fully featured. Best of all? They're both freeware. Close third place for speed, accuracy and ease of use: Microsoft ICE v.2.

waynorth · 2024-08-13T05:04:51-0400

AeroJ said:
Well, if you wanna get all 'hardcore depths' about it, Hugin is free and as good as any of them, and even, I might venture, arguably better than ALL of them,

Hugin and PTGUI are both based on the underlying engine "Panorama Tools", a suite of programs developed in the late 90's by Helmut Dersch.

Hugin and PTGUI have written a graphical interface (GUI) to these tools, instead of having to use the command line to stitch photos.
I believe Hugin does not have built-in support for RAW-files, but needs an external RAW-developer to work with the files.
I am not sure if Hugin can work with 16-bit files from start to finish.

Microsoft ICE is an interesting option, but Microsoft stopped developing it many years ago, and it now seems a bit outdated compared to newer panoramam stirichers. To find and download ICE you need to search the net. The last version is 2.01, it works on 64-bit OS, incl. Windows 10. It can work with 16-bit files.

Autopano Giga was discontinued in 2018, but the developers decided to give it away for free. You get a licence key on their website when you download it. It does not support RAW directly, but does work with 16-bit files.
Users have reported problems with running it on Windows 11, you need to do some modifications to some files to make it work.

PepperBird · 2024-08-13T10:42:26-0400

Hands down the best is PanoramaStudio Pro 4
It allows you to create extra large panorama and creates all the HTML you need to host it on your own site!

snapdog · 2024-08-13T11:47:24-0400

I use a simple one that works well for me. I'm on both Windows and iPad. But use the free Windows app. Microsoft ICE. I had to down size the sample image to load it up here . . .

waynorth · 2024-08-13T12:17:57-0400

snapdog said:
I use a simple one that works well for me. I'm on both Windows and iPad. But use the free Windows app. Microsoft ICE. I had to down size the sample image to load it up here . . .

ICE is a good panorama stitcher. It can work with, and save, 16-bit TIF-files, which is a huge advantage. It is also fast, and you can choose between several projections. It can not open RAW-files directly.
Version 2.01 is the latest and by far the best, previous versions may not work on Windows 10/11. It can be hard to find, as it is not avalible at Microsoft anymore.

PanoVolo · 2024-08-14T07:10:18-0400

try PanoVolo and see if you like the algorithm and workflow that was actually optimized for drone panoramas : PANOVOLO : Panorama Stitching Tool for Drone Photography