panorama stitching

[danwnz]

Has anyone else used autopano giga for stitching panos. I hadn't used this software for a while and it was one of the best a while back, held the world record for the most photos stitched at some point if not still.

I have had great experience seemlessly stitching panos taken from my camera even up to 280deg.

But I can't get it to stitch even 1 mavic 3 21 image 180 deg panorama file let alone some of the other options, any one else had luck or tips?

I see many talking about PTGUI, and may have to purchase this now, but would prefer not to if I don't have to.

 

[Dale D]

Has anyone else used autopano giga for stitching panos. I hadn't used this software for a while and it was one of the best a while back, held the world record for the most photos stitched at some point if not still.

I have had great experience seemlessly stitching panos taken from my camera even up to 280deg.

But I can't get it to stitch even 1 mavic 3 21 image 180 deg panorama file let alone some of the other options, any one else had luck or tips?

I see many talking about PTGUI, and may have to purchase this now, but would prefer not to if I don't have to.

Have you tried Photoshop or Lightroom? I just stitched 21 images from a recent shoot and it took less than 5 minutes.
1. In Photoshop, open your images in ACR (Adobe Camera RAW).
2. CTRL+A. (select all)
3. RIGHT click on any of the images-brings up menu with "Merge to Panorama" in the drop down menu
4. Let the merge occur
5. Next dialogue box- use Boundary Warp slider to fill frame
6. Once filled save it and you Can then edit it to your liking.

The images below should be followed in reversed order( e.g.: right to left-start with right image first).

Hope this helps.

Dale
Miami

 

[danwnz]

I have stumbled across the following for anyone with similar questions, works with PTGUI and Autopano GIGA.

XML Creator Pro, Papywizard Autopano Giga

xml-creator für Papywizard Import in Autopano Giga, PtGui. Unterstützt Litchi, DronePan, DroneBlocks, Phatom3 Pro, Phantom 4 Pro, Inspire, Mavic Pro, Spark

hdrpano.ch

Thanks for the demonstration of photoshop, no I haven't used photoshop to do this for a while because it was just crap at stitching, I guessing its time to see how it has progressed, not sure it will work that well with the loads of geometric shapes in the image but well worth a shot.

 

[Meta4]

Has anyone else used autopano giga for stitching panos.

It's still about the best stitching software available

 

[danwnz]

That is funny, pretty much exactly what I was trying to stitch, but from a different angle and they didn't have part of the bridge lit up, was annoyed by that.



Stitch from the drone

 

[danwnz]

It's still about the best stitching software available

So do you got any tips for the 21 image panos?

 

[Chrislaf]

@danwnz and @Meta4, beautiful images!!!

I looked up Autopana giga and it doesn’t seem to be supported anymore. From what I can tell it seems GoPro bought it and then killed it off. Anyway as has been mentioned PTGui and Photoshop work. I use the pro version of PTGui. I will often process my panos in both photoshop via the Lightroom open in photoshop plug-in and in PTGui Pro and choose the best output as there is often variations and sometimes one program handles the images better than the other.

Chris

 

[danwnz]

@danwnz and @Meta4, beautiful images!!!

I looked up Autopana giga and it doesn’t seem to be supported anymore. From what I can tell it seems GoPro bought it and then killed it off. Anyway as has been mentioned PTGui and Photoshop work. I use the pro version of PTGui. I will often process my panos in both photoshop via the Lightroom open in photoshop plug-in and in PTGui Pro and choose the best output as there is often variations and sometimes one program handles the images better than the other.

Chris

Yes you are correct nothing for a number of years now, is a shame because nothing could touch it that I had used, for pretty much true seemless panos, I paid the same money as PTGUI so I guess it's certainly time to check it out. I had previously never liked the way photoshop did its joining and blending, I am sure it has moved a long way now, but is still looks less intuative, and doesn't seem to give the user much flexability

 

[Meta4]

So do you got any tips for the 21 image panos?

I always shoot my panos manually to have more control.
If you upload your 21 jpg files to dropbox of similar and post a link, I could see how they stitch

I looked up Autopana giga and it doesn’t seem to be supported anymore. From what I can tell it seems GoPro bought it and then killed it off.

Yes, GoPro abandoned it, but it still works perfectly.

 

[Chrislaf]

I always shoot my panos manually to have more control.

Since I got the Mavic 3, I have been shooting most of my panos manually as the long battery time and the AC stability allows me to get very good results even in a brisk wind.

Yes, GoPro abandoned it, but it still works perfectly.

I wish there was some open source link to it or some other company that would have archived it so that it was still available as I would have loved to have checked it out. I have heard so many good things about it. I shoot lots of panos both on my Mavic 3 and on my DSLRs.

Chris

 

[danwnz]

Yeah it was amazing in its time I could not find anything to compare with the quality and accuracy of the stitching. you can try a trial at https://download.kolor.com/apg/stable/history not much good but at least you can try it

 

[Chrislaf]

Yeah it was amazing in its time I could not find anything to compare with the quality and accuracy of the stitching. you can try a trial at https://download.kolor.com/apg/stable/history not much good but at least you can try it

Thank you for the link. I downloaded it and tried it on my older mac laptop. It does seem like a pretty good program -really too bad it was killed off with no option to purchase it anymore. I tried a few difficult to process panos and was surprised at how well they came out. Obviously, since it is trial software, it has a watermark all over the output, BUT there is an option to export to a papywizard xml file which PTGui Pro can import. When imported into PTGui there is no watermark on the resulting output, so AutoPana Giga might come in handy after all.

What surprises me is how different pano software often gets quite different results when processing images, that's why I usually process my important panos through different software so that I can choose the best output. So thank you for giving me another option even though I have to use a work-around to use it.

Chris

 

[danwnz]

I worked out my issue with autopano giga after spending a bit more time with it, all I had to do was unstack some of the images then it stitch flawlessly, I had never seen this behaviour before so wasn't sure what was going on.
@Chrislaf so did autopano giga do a better stitch job than PTGUI? I have always been amazed at the stitching from autopano giga.

 

[Chrislaf]

@Chrislaf so did autopano giga do a better stitch job than PTGUI? I have always been amazed at the stitching from autopano giga.

Yes it did, surprisingly!

Chris

 

[danwnz]

Have you tried Photoshop or Lightroom? I just stitched 21 images from a recent shoot and it took less than 5 minutes.
1. In Photoshop, open your images in ACR (Adobe Camera RAW).
2. CTRL+A. (select all)
3. RIGHT click on any of the images-brings up menu with "Merge to Panorama" in the drop down menu
4. Let the merge occur
5. Next dialogue box- use Boundary Warp slider to fill frame
6. Once filled save it and you Can then edit it to your liking.

Hey Dale, giving you an update, I tried the stitch of the panorama in PS, and to my amazement the stitch seem to have come out amazing, mind you I have not looked at the stitches closely, photoshop definately did a better job of the import of the exposure and colours importing the DNG files than autopano giga, it definately did a 100% better job than the last time I used photoshop and not a dedicated piece of software for the task.

 

[MS Coast]

I always shoot my panos manually to have more control.
If you upload your 21 jpg files to dropbox of similar and post a link, I could see how they stitch

Yes, GoPro abandoned it, but it still works perfectly.

Am I correct in understanding that there's no way to register it to remove the watermark it places on images?

 

[Meta4]

Am I correct in understanding that there's no way to register it to remove the watermark it places on images?

I use the full version so don't have to deal with that issue

 

[danwnz]

Am I correct in understanding that there's no way to register it to remove the watermark it places on images?

Unless you have purcahsed it before, and provided it was in the same versioning as purchased

 

[Chrislaf]

Am I correct in understanding that there's no way to register it to remove the watermark it places on images?

As far as I know Go Pro killed it off so you can no longer buy it or register it. The link above that danwnz provided links to a fully functional trial version. What I have found is that I can use it to process a pano then export a papywizard xml script that I can then import into PTGui Pro. Basically the script provides all the stitching information to PTGui and then I can output the pano in PTGui and it looks exactly the same as the watermarked one (minus the watermark) that Autopano Giga produced. It's not as easy as just using a single program, but it works and it gives me another option for when I have a difficult to stitch pano rather than relying on using control points which is time consuming and tedious.

I'm not sure but I imagine you can probably import the papywizard file into other pano specific software as well.

Chris

 

[danwnz]

Yes Go Pro killed it off, wish they would sell it off or open source it