Architectural autostitch

[Alan T]

This is the tower of Castle Rushen, Castletown, Isle of Man, where we went on holiday last Easter. I'm posting it here...

(a) because I wanted an excuse to put this picture somewhere here for folk at the 'Biweekly Shootout' on 'Timepieces' to see this clock in context, but it's not a very good picture of the clock face itself on the left wall, (see the very old clock at...
http://forums.steves-digicams.com/fo...846236#p846236 );

(b) because it's an example of what free demo 'autostitch' from UBC (http://www.autostitch.net) can do. This is four landscape format shots, taken from thewall walkof the castle at aboutone-third heightup the tower, as seen on the left;

...and (c)because not much happens in this forum, sadly, given the eruption of cameras with a built-in 'panorama' facility.

Have fun!

[Alan T]

Here's another in the inner courtyard, using 3 vertical shots, strikingly demonstrating that more horizontal format shots as in the one above is much better for distortion than fewer vertical ones.

Wife & son are peering down from the battlements.

These were using my last digicam (Casio EX-Z750)plus 'autostitch'. My present Kodak Z712is has a built-in panorama facility that'sexcellent when I can fool it into giving & locking the correct exposure, but it's limited to horizontal format and three shots. So for tall, thin shots when I can't get far enough away, I'll still need my external stitching software.

I must experiment with lots of greatly overlapping horizontal shots and autostitch, in the hope that this would minimise distortion. Would this work, I wonder? It would take a long time on my machine. I often set it running on my son's computer, when he's out at school!

Note about typing 'autostitch': When downloading it, beware of mistyping the 'itch' as 'ich', which I have done many times. The equivalent website with the third 't' missing is a fraudulent hijack site.

[BillDrew]

Even though I have not used it, lots of folks seem enthusiastic about it.

Alan T wrote:

...
I must experiment with lots of greatly overlapping horizontal shots and autostitch, in the hope that this would minimise distortion. Would this work, I wonder? ...

If you are refering to the sight buldge in your first image, I suspect that is a projection distortion. If Autostitch allows it, try several different projections.

[panostar]

No, Autostitch only uses equirectangular projection for its output. For the sides of the tower to be parallel, you needrectilinear projection. Autopano Pro would handle it ok. It uses Autostitch technology but is much more flexible. PTGui can remap the image to rectilinear format image without difficulty, but of course itwould be betterto stitch the original images with it.

[Alan T]

panostar wrote:

Autopano Pro would handle it ok. It uses Autostitch technology but is much more flexible.

Thanks very much for the corrected image and timely reminder to a look around at proper stitching software. The presentation of Autopano Pro on their website is wonderful! ( http://www.autopano.net/ )

I can't help wondering how slow it would be on my 2.8GHz, 0.5GB machine. They recommend 1GHz, 1GB RAM. I've being toying with adding more RAM, but I'd have to replace all the chips, not just upgrade. Because the machine is only a couple of years old and fine for all my non-stitching needs, I am loth to replace it, as I'm a photography enthusiast not a computer one. I'm happy to wait half an hour or more for results, and use my son's machine when he's not there!

Does anyone have any idea how the speed of the commercial products would compare with demo autostitch on a less than 2-year old antique machine like mine? (I doubled the RAM when I bought it.) Would the demo version of Autopano Pro befunctional enough to give me an idea of stitching speed, anyone?

[panostar]

The trial Autopano Pro is fully functional, but the output will be watermarked.

[BillDrew]

Alan T wrote:

...
I can't help wondering how slow it would be on my 2.8GHz, 0.5GB machine. They recommend 1GHz, 1GB RAM.
...

My old 0.85GHz, 512MB PC handled Panorama Tools with the PTGui front end so I suspect yours would work just fine. You might go out for a couple of beers while it does some stitching a large number of images, but not a long enough delay to be able to brew a batch.

[Alan T]

Thanks very much, panostar & Bill.