Panorama Photos Stitched Badly with no Wind?

[Point Zero]

Hi all,

I've had my Mavic 2 Pro for a month and at first all the panoramas i took looked great. By that I mean they were stitched together seamlessly. Now for the last few weeks all my pano's are just terrible with major discrepancies across the horizon line. So my question is what could have thrown this function off and can I fix it by re-calibrating the camera?

Today there was pretty much no wind at all for the time I took some shots and they seem to be the worse yet, so i don't think i can blame it on the wind.

Finally is this something I should look into doing myself with the saved out RAW files and if so can anyone recommend a good software package for the job?

Any advice would be most appreciated...
Pz

 

[CanadaDrone]

Were you by chance up high where there might have been more wind than you realized just because there was no wind on the ground? Often times wind is much stronger in the air than we experience on the ground. You could also try re-calibrating the gimbal, but if there are no issues anywhere else with the gimbal, it probably isn't that.

As for your second question - yes - using the RAW images and editing them yourself and stitching them yourself is vastly superior to anything done inside the drone, should you be so inclined. Photoshop/Lightroom is the obvious choice for a software package unless you have some other specific requirements.

 

[Meta4]

I've had my Mavic 2 Pro for a month and at first all the panoramas i took looked great. By that I mean they were stitched together seamlessly. Now for the last few weeks all my pano's are just terrible with major discrepancies across the horizon line. So my question is what could have thrown this function off and can I fix it by re-calibrating the camera?

Without seeing examples, we can only guess.
Wind is unlikely to have been a problem.
The thing that makes stitching difficult for the software is not being able to find corresponding pairs of points to match.
Large relatively featureless areas can be difficult.

 

[CanadaDrone]

Without seeing examples, we can only guess.
Wind is unlikely to have been a problem.
The thing that makes stitching difficult for the software is not being able to find corresponding pairs of points to match.
Large relatively featureless areas can be difficult.

I think you'd be surprised how good some software is, maybe not in the Mavic itself but moreso on a PC. As long as there is some image overlap between frames, most software will do a perfect job even on images with very little unique detail. What may look similar to the naked eye is not similar to an algorithm

 

[Meta4]

I think you'd be surprised how good some software is, maybe not in the Mavic itself but moreso on a PC. As long as there is some image overlap between fraes, most software will do a perfect job even on images with very little unique detail. What may look similar to the naked eye is not similar to an algorithm

As someone who shoots a lot of panoramas and orthophotos, spending a lot of time with three different stitching programs, I'd be surprised if I was surprised at how good the software is.

 

[sar104]

Hi all,

I've had my Mavic 2 Pro for a month and at first all the panoramas i took looked great. By that I mean they were stitched together seamlessly. Now for the last few weeks all my pano's are just terrible with major discrepancies across the horizon line. So my question is what could have thrown this function off and can I fix it by re-calibrating the camera?

Today there was pretty much no wind at all for the time I took some shots and they seem to be the worse yet, so i don't think i can blame it on the wind.

Finally is this something I should look into doing myself with the saved out RAW files and if so can anyone recommend a good software package for the job?

Any advice would be most appreciated...
Pz

You will get much better results post-processing the RAW images anyway. I previously used Photoshop but I've switched to Affinity Photo.

 

[Point Zero]

Thanks guys, in answer to CanadaDrone I was shooting really low today around 4 foot off the ground, I will check Lightroom out and see what I can do with all these RAW files lol. Thank you for your input dude. Now come to think of it all my first set of panoramas were from the centre of a massive park nearby and all around is housing and road etc. These stitched together really well. All my recent panos have been on the coast facing out to see and as Meta4 has pointed out, is relatively featureless!

So the M2P takes a great photo but cant really stitch them together if there is not much info!

Thanks guys will go and start playing around with LR...
Pz

Here is a photo from earlier to illustrate my problems

 

[Point Zero]

As someone who shoots a lot of panoramas and orthophotos, spending a lot of time with three different stitching programs, I'd be surprised if I was surprised at how good the software is.

lol dude

 

[Meta4]

Thanks guys, in answer to CanadaDrone I was shooting really low today around 4 foot off the ground, I will check Lightroom out and see what I can do with all these RAW files lol. Thank you for your input dude. Now come to think of it all my first set of panoramas were from the centre of a massive park nearby and all around is housing and road etc. These stitched together really well. All my recent panos have been on the coast facing out to see and as Meta4 has pointed out, is relatively featureless!

So the M2P takes a great photo but cant really stitch them together if there is not much info!

Thanks guys will go and start playing around with LR...
Pz

Here is a photo from earlier to illustrate my problemsView attachment 57643View attachment 57643

Yes ... a lack of matchable points between the pairs of photos is the problem.
The sea surface texture is moving between shots so the software can't match anything.
There's just nothing for it to lock onto.

 

[CanadaDrone]

As someone who shoots a lot of panoramas and orthophotos, spending a lot of time with three different stitching programs, I'd be surprised if I was surprised at how good the software is.

I do as well and do not run into issues even with very plain landscapes - YMMV as always. I think we can at least agree that dedicated software would be better than anything built into the Mavic. For example the image posted above would be no problem to stitch.

 

[AeroJ]

As far as I know, @Meta4 is right, and you can't expect any panorama to work when primary stuff changes throughout the photos, so anything involving the ocean won't auto stitch properly in any application because the ocean was different in every frame taken, so the control points are looking for stuff that is no longer where it used to be. I use Hugin (my go-to stitcher), MS ICE and Photostitcher, and all 3 fail on ocean scenes I find.

For example the image posted above would be no problem to stitch.

Please do tell me what you'd do to make this stitch successfully ! I'd very much like to be wrong !

 

[CanadaDrone]

As far as I know, @Meta4 is right, and you can't expect any panorama to work when primary stuff changes throughout the photos, so anything involving the ocean won't auto stitch properly in any application because the ocean was different in every frame taken, so the control points are looking for stuff that is no longer where it used to be. I use Hugin (my go-to stitcher), MS ICE and Photostitcher, and all 3 fail on ocean scenes I find.


Please do tell me what you'd do to make this stitch successfully ! I'd very much like to be wrong !

Photoshop would probably do it, I have stitched lots of similar ones successfully. As long as there is some detail (like the suns rays and clouds) it should work. Nothing is guaranteed but in my experience that image would likely be stitchable. If you have a photo with literally no detail, like just of the sky for example, or just water, then yeah it is going to be really hard or impossible to stitch but there is usually something it can pick up on in a normal photo.

 

[AeroJ]

Photoshop would probably do it, I have stitched lots of similar ones successfully.

I'm quite good in PS but I can't persuade Photomerge (I presume that's what you're using ?) to do it on its own. As you say, that aligns that bits that don't change, but remains as confused as anything else about the bits that do. Very keen to learn what I might be doing wrong. If I zip and upload an 18 shot panorama at the sea side, would you be kind enough to try and stitch it for me ?

 

[CanadaDrone]

I'm quite good in PS but I can't persuade Photomerge (I presume that's what you're using ?) to do it on its own. As you say, that aligns that bits that don't change, but remains as confused as anything else about the bits that do. Very keen to learn what I might be doing wrong. If I zip and upload an 18 shot panorama at the sea side, would you be kind enough to try and stitch it for me ?

I had assumed each frame had detail from the sky and land in it, if it's a 18 shot pano with frames that have zero detail (i.e. just sky), it will be more difficult. I am happy to try, but if there are entire frames with no detail I can't guarantee a different result.

 

[dylanthecat]

You will get much better results post-processing the RAW images anyway. I previously used Photoshop but I've switched to Affinity Photo.

I would have to second Affinity. I had not heard of it and just tried it. (free trial) Walked outside and took three photos north to south with my iphone. The software stitched them together in about 3 seconds with very nice results. Spent about 20 minutes with other features and I think i'm gonna buy it. On sale now for $39.

 

[ff22]

You will get much better results post-processing the RAW images anyway. I previously used Photoshop but I've switched to Affinity Photo.

If you don't mind my asking about Affinity: Can you apply "edits/changes" to multiple images without having to do them manually for each image? For either a panorama or hyperlapse series?

 

[sar104]

If you don't mind my asking about Affinity: Can you apply "edits/changes" to multiple images without having to do them manually for each image? For either a panorama or hyperlapse series?

You can put adjustments into a macro and then run it as a batch job on multiple files.

 

[jimmythejock]

Thanks guys, in answer to CanadaDrone I was shooting really low today around 4 foot off the ground, I will check Lightroom out and see what I can do with all these RAW files lol. Thank you for your input dude. Now come to think of it all my first set of panoramas were from the centre of a massive park nearby and all around is housing and road etc. These stitched together really well. All my recent panos have been on the coast facing out to see and as Meta4 has pointed out, is relatively featureless!

So the M2P takes a great photo but cant really stitch them together if there is not much info!

Thanks guys will go and start playing around with LR...
Pz

Here is a photo from earlier to illustrate my problemsView attachment 57643View attachment 57643

Hi mate, when you are taking panoramic shots if something in the shot is moving quite a bit it is hard for the software to match the edges up

 

[AeroJ]

I am happy to try, but if there are entire frames with no detail I can't guarantee a different result.

I think every frame has enough detail in it, and you would be most welcome to try ! Here's the link. Thank you.
Note: this Pano was shot on a Yuneec Typhoon H, so you might need to know the FoV, which is 115 degrees.

 

[daveatpdx]

I have been using PTgui to stitch pano shots together, with some good results, some not so good. How does PTgui stack up against other similar software? Should I be trying a different product?