Spherical Panoramic Photos and Microsoft ICE settings?

[Shon]

Just wondering what settings you use for Microsoft ICE when you are stitching 360 photos. I used "spherical" but the sky is "warped" so I must be doing something wrong...

Thanks in advance.

 

[Meta4]

Just wondering what settings you use for Microsoft ICE when you are stitching 360 photos. I used "spherical" but the sky is "warped" so I must be doing something wrong...

Spherical is what you need.
Here's an explanation: Skypixel 360° Images - WOW

 

[Shon]

Spherical is what you need.
Here's an explanation: Skypixel 360° Images - WOW

Thanks...looks a bit more complicated than I had thought... I was hoping to just stitch in ICE, but it appears that more editing is in order...

 

[kadras]

Thanks...looks a bit more complicated than I had thought... I was hoping to just stitch in ICE, but it appears that more editing is in order...

I use ICE and just follow the 4 steps after selecting Spherical.
This is after importing the 34 images from a Mavic Pro, no post-processing.


Set-up for crop


And the cropped photo, with no other work, exported as jpeg at 25% for this demo.


And a view from Ricoh Theta

 

[Shon]

I use ICE and just follow the 4 steps after selecting Spherical.
This is after importing the 34 images from a Mavic Pro, no post-processing.
View attachment 71694

Set-up for crop
View attachment 71697

And the cropped photo, with no other work, exported as jpeg at 25% for this demo.
View attachment 71698

And a view from Ricoh Theta
View attachment 71699

Thanks...I followed the ICE steps above and got something like this:

In 360 Mode, the Trees look warped. and crazy tall...like they are stretching to fill in the sky. I'm guessing that your photo works much better because there is quite a bit of sky in it...So when the sky stretches...it isn't noticeable.

I attempted to follow the instructions above...but I really don't know how to use Photoshop or any photo editing software really. I used Photopea which is a free app and got the following result:

I just used a "gradient fill. This corrected the image distortion issues I was experiencing in 360...but obviously the sky look strange. I just need to figure out how to Paint the sky and blend it to make it look better. I'm sure I can figure it out...it will just take some time.

I appreciate all the suggestions and support.

 

[Meta4]

Thanks...I followed the ICE steps above and got something like this:
In 360 Mode, the Trees look warped. and crazy tall...like they are stretching to fill in the sky. I'm guessing that your photo works much better because there is quite a bit of sky in it...So when the sky stretches...it isn't noticeable.

If you are talking about a flat strip rather than an all around image, you have to be careful and avoid going too far downwards because the lower part of the image has to be stretched to make a rectangle.
Here are two examples of the same shoot: (the flat strip panorama has about 15° cut off)

Brisbane City

Brisbane City

kuula.co

The flat strip works because I have left out the whole lower row of images and because water doesn't look obviously wrong when it's stretched.
Some subjects will look very wrong when stretched.

 

[webvan]

Thanks...I followed the ICE steps above and got something like this:
View attachment 71700
In 360 Mode, the Trees look warped. and crazy tall...like they are stretching to fill in the sky. I'm guessing that your photo works much better because there is quite a bit of sky in it...So when the sky stretches...it isn't noticeable.

I attempted to follow the instructions above...but I really don't know how to use Photoshop or any photo editing software really. I used Photopea which is a free app and got the following result:
View attachment 71701
I just used a "gradient fill. This corrected the image distortion issues I was experiencing in 360...but obviously the sky look strange. I just need to figure out how to Paint the sky and blend it to make it look better. I'm sure I can figure it out...it will just take some time.

I appreciate all the suggestions and support.

Yes filling in the sky is required for a 360 view in Theta or the Oculus GO. If you want to post on FB you can however get around this by editing the EXIF and giving it the size of the cropped picture vs the 2:1 picture.

Photoshop will let you fill in the sky using "Content Aware" with generally good results, however you'll have to use the offset filter to view the stitch line and then smooth it out. It can take a bit of time...

 

[Shon]

Yes filling in the sky is required for a 360 view in Theta or the Oculus GO. If you want to post on FB you can however get around this by editing the EXIF and giving it the size of the cropped picture vs the 2:1 picture.

Photoshop will let you fill in the sky using "Content Aware" with generally good results, however you'll have to use the offset filter to view the stitch line and then smooth it out. It can take a bit of time...

I followed your advice. I went from the photo I posted above to this one:



I am much happier with the results. I don't have photoshop, but I used "Photopea" which is a free software and used the "spot healing brush" tool, which basically does the same thing as "content aware".

I obviously have much more to learn when it comes to correcting the highs...the lows, shaddows, contrast, etc...but this was a good start.


A 360 Comparison:
Mavic Air Automatically stitched 360 photo:

Feather Falls 5/5/2019

Feather Falls 5/5/2019

kuula.co

Photo stitched using Microsoft ICE:

Feather Falls Updated Photo

Feather Falls Updated Photo

kuula.co

The ICE photo has a bit of a "stitch" line at the top...but I prefer it over the artifacts in the auto photo. Any additional feedback would be appreciated.

 

[webvan]

Looks good ! I tried Photopea, changed the canvas size to 2:1 but can't see how you can fill the big top area with the healing brush tool ?

 

[Shon]

Looks good ! I tried Photopea, changed the canvas size to 2:1 but can't see how you can fill the big top area with the healing brush tool ?

Yeah, it took me some time to figure out. When attempting to use the tool, I kept getting an error message telling me I needed to “rasterize” the photo. One I found “rasterize” in the menu above, the tool started to work for me. I was able to Change the size of the “healing brush” by right clicking the mouse.