![]() Image #1 was not automatically stitched by ST5.5 U. Images 1, 3 and 5 (stitch failure: one image is missing) The errors are seamigingly smaller in size at the Nadir but far too obvious in the Zenit area. Some minor errors in both Zenit and Nadir area could be very easily fixed. No automatic stitch failure and no apparent large stitching error remaining after PTGui bending. My new current workflow is based on the Canon EOS 5D anyhow. Personnal statement: For different reasons and especially since the release of PTGui 5, I use this method very rarely (understatement). BTW: I and Luca Vascon have independently but simultaneously invented about this same concept. I wrote an article (in french) on this subject. This is the only known way to cover the full sphere with only three photographs from a 8 mm fisheye on a reduced size sensor (r =1.5 or 1.6). From these 6 images (# 1, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5 and 6) two sets of 3 images (# 1, 3 and 5 and # 2, 4 and 6 resp.) shall be stitched successively. Six images were shot at 60 degrees interval, each with a roll angle of -34 degrees. Sigma 8 mm on an APS-c DSLR (Canon EOS 20D) camera. This (shaving + adaptation) has uncovered an extraordinary set of optical characteristics that augment dramatically the above described challenge to the automatic stitching. Since early 2006, an other compounding important factor has come in to play: the now famous "shaved" Nikkor 10,5 mm fisheye lens that can be adapted on a FF EOS product line of DSLR by Canon. My intention is to complete the Automatic Stitching (exclusively) engines comparison test. Now, at end of July 2006, both Stitcher 5.5 Unlimited and PTGui 5.8 (PTGui 6 being in beta testing phase at the time of writing), have at last a similar range of stitching ability. Some of the old users of Stitcher were tempted to make the switch as the just released Stitcher 5 was at last fitted with a "manual" process (with Control Points) to take care of difficult stitching situation, as well as an automatic stitching tool, but still not supporting fisheyes and very wide angle lenses images! In September 2005, PTGui 5 was introduced with real integrated automatic fisheye images stitching ability and still associated with Panorama Tools, it offered another complementary powerful way to go. As an exemple, this way of doing allowed to make news action reporting possible on a really productive scale. In this context and for some complementary reasons, it was thought that finding a way to take as less fisheye photographs as possible while still been able to cover the full sphere was the preferable way to go when sharpness, resolution and contrast were not the main driving factors. On the contrary, the second had been based on Panorama Tools that required some manual involvement by the user in the process (since the earliest automatic stitcher ever for fisheye images made by Pr Dersch had short lived in 1999). In my opinion this is due to its reckognized "natural and intuitive workflow" that is easy to approach by not-technies people. ![]() One of the two competitors had elected to forego fisheyes and very wide angle lenses altogether and this relieved the "force-stitch" method that Realviz had managed to offer to a part of the panography making customers with evident success. Until less than a year ago, automatic stitching was still a remote idea for fisheye images at the least. The problem described above did not appear to be so obvious "in the past" due to commercial restriction in the first case and efficient manual preparation of stitching (PTOptimiser) in the other. I shall try to verify these points and evaluate the respective ability of Stitcher 5.5 Unilimited and PTGui 5.8 to cope with these rather difficult cases. unusual shooting configuration (such as large constant roll angle) associated with very small overlap between adjacent images,Īre hurdles against which most stitching software may sometimes fail.distortion that is probably beyond the correction ability of the software) associated with small overlap aera between adjacent images, On this article, I shall present results from more challenging situations to the stitching engines of both programs.įrom my experience with panography, I have noted that This is a complement to the first part that dealt with more common and conservative ways of shooting photographs to make panographies. More precisely images from so-called "circular" fisheyes. The present article shall deal only with Fisheye images. Stitcher_and_PTGui-Comparison_Part-2 Spherical panography PTGui 5.8 and Stitcher Unlimited 5.5 "Automatic stitching" comparison Part 2: the challenges Foreword:
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