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How to download sphere panorama photo to PC

hchen

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I want to copy sphere panorama photo to PC. A sphere panorama image on the MicroSD of Mini 2, instead of a single image file, it is saved as a html file with a group of jpg files under a different folder. I tried to send the three types of panorama photos from Album in DJI app, the other two types of panorama photos were sent successfully, but not sphere panorama photo. Are there anyone know the how-to? Thanks!
 
SDCard/DCIM/PANORAMA/100_9999 - jpeg and/or DNG files used to create panorama image. "9999" is a a sequential number assigned by MA2's panorama picture taking process.

SDCard/DCIM/100Media/DJI_9999.jpg - stitched together panorama image. "9999" number corresponds to the same number under "PANORAMA" folder.

Ex. SDCard/DCIM/PANORAMA/100_0079 - individual images for panorama image, SDCard/DCIM/100Media/DJI_0079.jpg - panorama image taken
 
I want to copy sphere panorama photo to PC. A sphere panorama image on the MicroSD of Mini 2, instead of a single image file, it is saved as a html file with a group of jpg files under a different folder. I tried to send the three types of panorama photos from Album in DJI app, the other two types of panorama photos were sent successfully, but not sphere panorama photo. Are there anyone know the how-to? Thanks!
All you can do is grab the flat pano or the 26 individual images and take them into photoshop and sphereize them. There is not enough room here to give instructions. But you will need a program that can stitch together a pano and then you basically make the pano a square and distort it.
I left out several steps but it will get you started in the right direction.
 
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1) There is a (relatively) low resolution version of the sphere saved to the phone's memory by DJI Fly app.
2) Even so, the sphere's metadata is flawed. The photo is not recognized correctly by most of the panorama-aware apps (there are exceptions like RICOH THETA viewer). You need to update EXIF data - there are couple of ways: online sites, exiftool, edit360 app, etc. It's quite simple, but it must be done if you want to use it online. It was discussed here.
3) If you need more megapixels (and results are astonishing when we compare them to the Fly's output) you need to shoot panorama with RAW files (ie. DNG) and use extra software on your PC/Mac. I personally convert DNG to 16-bit TIF and then photos can be stitch in free, but slow Hugin or in excellent but expensive PTgui. PS. I convert DNG to TIF because I had serious problems with colors when I imported directly DNGs. The results have serious "wow" effect ;)

Cheers.
 
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1) There is a (relatively) low resolution version of the sphere saved to the phone's memory by DJI Fly app.
2) Even so, the sphere's metadata is flawed. The photo is not recognized correctly by most of the panorama-aware apps (there are exceptions like RICOH THETA viewer). You need to update EXIF data - there are couple of ways: online sites, exiftool, edit360 app, etc. It's quite simple, but it must be done if you want to use it online. It was discussed here.
3) If you need more megapixels (and results are astonishing when we compare them to the Fly's output) you need to shoot panorama with RAW files (ie. DNG) and use extra software on your PC/Mac. I personally convert DNG to 16-bit TIF and then photos can be stitch in free, but slow Hugin or in excellent but expensive PTgui. PS. I convert DNG to TIF because I had serious problems with colors when I imported directly DNGs. The results have serious "wow" effect ;)

Cheers.
I'd like to see your "wow effect" spheres for comparison. I attached one of mine.IMG_20201213_190745_975.jpg
 
Another way to get the tiny planet is to copy the flat sphere pano either from the SD card or to a PC. Open the latest Gimp Software(a free photo editing software that is IMO comparable to Photoshop). Open the flat pano in Gimp, go to filters on top menu... select Map ... select Little Planet. It creates it for you automatically. No editing or stitching multiple pics together.

Open source ... a beautiful thing!
 
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Another way to get the tiny planet is to copy the flat sphere pano either from the SD card or to a PC. Open the latest Gimp Software(a free photo editing software that is IMO comparable to Photoshop). Open the flat pano in Gimp, go to filters on top menu... select Map ... select Little Planet. It creates it for you automatically. No editing or stitching multiple pics together.

Open source ... a beautiful thing!
Thanks for the suggestion! However, GIMP can make 360 photo from a single photo, Drone's 360 photo consists of 26 photos. How to make the flat pano first?
 
Thanks for the suggestion! However, GIMP can make 360 photo from a single photo, Drone's 360 photo consists of 26 photos. How to make the flat pano first?

I know when I save my sphere panorama, on my iPhone, it saves it as a single flat panorama image. (Outside of the Fly App). But I guess you are right Gimp will do the same with any photo. Truthfully I haven’t looked at the SD card to see the 26 individual images.
 
To summarize this, getting proper 360 degree panoramas with DJI Fly is somewhat of a pain and I have mainly two alternatives:

1) If I don't want to fiddle with the SD card, I can only transfer the stitched panorama via the app to my phone. The quality of the stitching is mediocre and the metadata is wrong, so my phone's auto upload to Google photos will result in Google showing only a flat image.

2) I take out the SD card, so I can manually copy the 12 26 jpgs. No stitched panorama there, as it gets not saved to the SD. I now can use the jpgs to create a better panorama with my preferred software, or just upload them to Google photos which will create a sphere automatically after a little while (after which I have to manually delete the single jpgs from Google photos).

All together this is really not a user-friendly process. It should at least be possible to download the single pictures via the app.
 
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Hello,

ad 1): quality of the stitching is not mediocre. It's ok, but as a source DJI Fly app uses smaller versions of JPGs and the final image has just 32MPix instead of maximum possible 177MPix of 16-bit panorama. Yes, there are problems with metadata (they are missing to be exact) and DJI is ignoring that fact.

ad 2): There are 26 separate pictures, not 12. And you can get not only smaller JPGs but also DNG files which, in my opinion, are essential to get good results from Mini 2. As you mentioned, there will be no stitched panorama on the card, that is true. You have to use stitching app on a computer. Google Photos automatic stitching used to work in 2019, but I have no idea how it works now. For me, waiting hours to get the result was the last valid option so I didn't count on it.

Yes, the process is not user-friendly, and there glitches and problems. Some are, I'd say, rather objective (eg. lack of full sized panorama - phone's and drone's CPUs are way too slow for it, even on much more powerful computer it requires dozens of seconds to make one panorama), some are DJI faults (eg. metadata). Unfortunately, from all well known/biggest companies of the consumer video/photography market in a broad sense (DSLRs, MILCs, action/360 cams, drones) I consider the quality of DJI firmwares and applications to be one of the worst. DJI Fly app or Mimo app are theoretically nice looking and working apps, drones (usually) fly as they should, cameras make videos, but there is an abundance of glitches and small annoyances, and they are ignored. I had a chance to use many brands and that problem is very common with Chinese brands, especially the number of glitches. On the other hand, ignoring the problems is a world wide way of after sale support. It costs real money, and some companies think that their power/financial success/market share is in the sales to a new customer, not in the happiness of a current/returning user. But that's another story.
 
Wow, how do you get the DJI Fly App to render spheres with 32 MP? Mine are 4096x2048, so 8 MP is all DJI Fly on Android creates (in my case).
 
I also still have to figure out how exactly Google Photos works. If I auto-upload the "panaroma" created by the DJI Fly App, Google will show it flat and not create a real 360 degrees image from it. I then manually uploaded all the single files, and Google created the image. But as it seems it did that from the previously uploaded DJI-fly-panorama (it has the exact same size). So maybe the upload of the single images, which obviously overlap the DJI-fly-panorama that Google shows flat, triggers the creation of the 360 degree version in Google photos.

Next I will try out to upload ONLY the 26 photos and see if and what kind of panaroma Google photos creates. Then I will upload a DJI-fly-created panorama and upload one of the 26 shots from that as well, to see if this confirms my theory of that additional photo being the trigger for Google to create a 360 degree version of the flat file.
 
Now I have been using the dji stitched pano in the device (low rez) version and it works.(seen up top) I use topaz gigapixel to make it 6000x6000 when finished and this solves the low rez issue. BUT...
I have found in using photoshop to stitch all 26 together is gives a mish-mash of a pano with pieces missing. I have tried all the different options from auto to spherical and several of the others. None of them stitch all 26 together into one seamless image. If I do the 9 image pano it works ok but the 26 leaves 4 images out and is just not right... If anyone is using photoshop on the 26 images and it gives you the full rectangular pano (flat) like the dji low rez version could you share your setting and process?
Do you rename the images?
do you rename them to process in a different order?
or does it just work for you and not me?
:)
 

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