some minor GUI ideas

[Thomas Steiner]

I enjoy the functionality of hugin very much, it's a great piece of software!
Some thoughts that have come to my mind and which would be IMHO minor
improvements -– call them wishes, but I am not in the position to
wish...

* sort the controlpoints table by distance by default
* add a default name for the pano if I stitch it. it could be eg the
same name which is proposed when I save the project.
* in the Images tab add the short cut "Crtl+A" to select all images.
* in the control points tab change the colors from simply red&green to
dark/light red/green depending on the quality
* add a matix of fitting quality of images: the image in column i fits
to image in row j with "quality" a_ij. set a_ij to zero/grey if the do
not have control points in common. the red entries in this matrix are
the places when I probably should improve by adding ctrl pts hand
* in the crop tool of the fast preview add this functionality:
doubleclick (left) sets the left (/upper/right/lower) crop side to the
leftmost "black" pixel, ie everything left from this line has at least
one colored pixel. a right doubleclick sets it such that there is at
least one colored pixel to the right and none to the left.
* set jpeg as default output format for panoramas, not tif
* give my some errormessage (for greenhorn-users like me) if there was
not enough disk space during stitiching and so it broke up
* change the image-load behavior: if I click cancel when there is no
exif data, the loading is canceled, not only the exif reading. and if
I say "no idea", hugin optimizes of the hofv as well. see
http://groups.google.at/group/hugin-ptx/browse_frm/thread/65630defbe53c520
* let me choose the hfov somewhat more than 360°: then it will be
obvious that it's really the "full circle", like you show it on the
hugin website on this topband of background images above the menu bar.
I know I can do this in GIMP or anywhere else, but changing an angle
in hugin is easier ;)

just some quick ideas for a john-doe-user...

Thanks again for this great software,
Thomas

[Andreas Metzler]

Thomas Steiner <finbre...@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]

> * set jpeg as default output format for panoramas, not tif

[...]

Better: Add some way to set the prefered output format. (I wonder why
tif with *no* compression is used by default. Is there any downside for
using tif with any of the three lossless compression methods?)
cu andreas

--
`What a good friend you are to him, Dr. Maturin. His other friends are
so grateful to you.'
`I sew his ears on from time to time, sure'

[Guido Kohlmeyer]

I know only one drawback of using the lossless compression methods of
TIF file format: Some applications do not support all three methods, but
I expect "Packbits" and "LZW" are supported by many ones. A preselection
in the preferences would be fine to match the own workflow.

Guido

Andreas Metzler schrieb:

[Harry van der Wolf]

With regard to the preferred output option: I would like Hugin to defaultly save in the input format.
If I feed jpeg's to Hugin, the preferred output format is jpeg.
If I feed tiff's to hugin, the preferred output format is tiff.

Harry

2009/6/28 Guido Kohlmeyer <d...@gekko-design.de>

[RueiKe]

When a control point is deleted from the control point table, it
should go to the next point in the list instead of the first point in
the list.

Rick

> > > cu andreas- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[rew]

On Jun 27, 6:43 pm, Thomas Steiner <finbref.2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * sort the controlpoints table by distance by default

* Allow the user to set a preference for what metric to use for
sorting the control points table by default.

> * add a matix of fitting quality of images: the image in column i fits
> to image in row j with "quality" a_ij. set a_ij to zero/grey if the do
> not have control points in common. the red entries in this matrix are
> the places when I probably should improve by adding ctrl pts hand

Oh! This display would be nice!

It could display, after a first optimization step, which images
overlap but
don't have control points (and the other way around).
Also, a click at a_ij would mean go to control-point editor with left
image
i and right image j.

> * in the crop tool of the fast preview add this functionality:
> doubleclick (left) sets the left (/upper/right/lower) crop side to the
> leftmost "black" pixel, ie everything left from this line has at least
> one colored pixel. a right doubleclick sets it such that there is at
> least one colored pixel to the right and none to the left.

No other program does "right doubleclick".

> * set jpeg as default output format for panoramas, not tif

Not good for people who like quality, and expect to edit the
pano after final stitching in hugin. So this should be a user
preference as well.

Roger.

[Yuv]

On Jun 27, 12:43 pm, Thomas Steiner <finbref.2...@gmail.com> wrote:
> * in the control points tab change the colors from simply red&green to
> dark/light red/green depending on the quality

not exactly that, but I applied a patch that will change the color /
filling depending on the quality - from red to orange to green like a
semaphore :)

SVN3975

I needed a test case for <http://code.google.com/p/nautilussvn/> -
first impression: the functionality is there :)

will get back to this thread / these ideas later on when I have more
time.

Yuv

[T. Modes]

On 30 Jun., 13:08, Yuv <goo...@levy.ch> wrote:
> not exactly that, but I applied a patch that will change the color /
> filling depending on the quality - from red to orange to green like a
> semaphore :)
>
> SVN3975
>
> I needed a test case for <http://code.google.com/p/nautilussvn/> -
> first impression: the functionality is there :)
>

Hi Yuv,

I don't like the gradient fill in the bar. It's too much color,
especially red.

When there is only a small CP error the bar is green, yellow and red.
The red is for me a sign for a warning, but there is all alright.

Also it is more difficult to distinguish between the different image
pairs because all have the some colors. I've used green and red like a
traffic light to get a fast overview about the CP errors. With the
gradient this isn't so easy because all bars have the some colors and
you have to look twice to see the difference.

I think the single-colored bar is better. Maybe we can use three
colors - red, yellow and green.

Thomas

[finbref.2006]

> > * set jpeg as default output format for panoramas, not tif

> I would like Hugin to defaultly
> save in the input format.

I agree, this is even better!

> > * add a matix of fitting quality of images: the image in column i fits
> > to image in row j with "quality" a_ij. set a_ij to zero/grey if the do
> > not have control points in common. the red entries in this matrix are
> > the places when I probably should improve by adding ctrl pts hand

> Also, a click at a_ij would mean go to control-point editor with left
> image i and right image j.

good point, I second this ;)

> > * in the crop tool of the fast preview add this functionality:
> > doubleclick (left) sets the left (/upper/right/lower) crop side to the
> > leftmost "black" pixel, ie everything left from this line has at least
> > one colored pixel. a right doubleclick sets it such that there is at
> > least one colored pixel to the right and none to the left.

> No other program does "right doubleclick".

Okay, then let's say shift + click or so.

Thank you for all your positive reactions,
Thomas

[Yuval Levy]

T. Modes wrote:
> I think the single-colored bar is better. Maybe we can use three
> colors - red, yellow and green.

agree on single-colored bar.

For now I've kept the nuance of the colors from the gradient.

I am still not 100% happy - an improvement could be to move away from
the linear color scale (as now) to an exponential or logarithmic one.

Yuv

[finbref.2006]

> > * add a matix of fitting quality of images: the image in column i fits
> > to image in row j with "quality" a_ij. set a_ij to zero/grey if the do
> > not have control points in common. the red entries in this matrix are
> > the places when I probably should improve by adding ctrl pts hand
> Also, a click at a_ij would mean go to control-point editor with left
> image i and right image j.

to be more precise:
hugin should then calculate not only the distance between two points,
but between two images. This could be either the maximal point
distance or the mean or the sum of squares or whatever norm/metric.
(Is the already done right now? Which distance is used?)
I posted a similar idea two years ago: http://groups.google.com/group/hugin-ptx/msg/a39be5363ee5399d
and http://groups.google.com/group/hugin-ptx/browse_thread/thread/c8b853433df3a5b6/39c7e464571ae04b

and some more things that came into my mind:
* why is the "celeste" button in the control points tab? it acts on
ALL images. so to be consistent with the "add ctrl points" (for all
images) it should be in the images tab. or it should only act on the
currently shown pair.
* the "default" number of control points that are added (in the form
in the images tab) should be the number which is given in hugin
settings, no? (now it's not)
* when I delete control points it would be nice if I was aksed if I'm
sure and that I'm informed that I am just deleting 15 images.
* when I optimimze the popup dialog shows me what the ne distance etc
is and asks if I want to apply the new positioning. it would be cool
to see the old vales there as well: So I do know wheather the
optimizsation did improve the result or not (and how much).
* I like Yuv's gradients in 3975 very much, but the bar should only
have the (final/most right) color. If I understood correctly this is
the case in the very last version.
* If Ichange the projection in the (fast) preview, the optimal size
and field of view should also be set to the "right" values.
* If I go to the about window, please allow me to copy eg the version.
I use 0.8.0.3975 from Ad under Vista.

Perhaps you find one or two of those also useful ;)
Thomas

[J. Schneider]

> * when I optimimze the popup dialog shows me what the ne distance etc
> is and asks if I want to apply the new positioning. it would be cool
> to see the old vales there as well: So I do know wheather the
> optimizsation did improve the result or not (and how much).

And it should have a "Don't ask this again" checkbox. Or it should only
ask in case the new result is worse. I find this dialogue absolutely
annoying.

regards
Joachim

[finbref.2006]

On 30 Jun., 13:08, Yuv <goo...@levy.ch> wrote:

> will get back to this thread / these ideas later on when I have more
> time.

Could you have a look? I'd be very curious!

And I can add another one:

* The preview window should have a "close" or "ok" button. When i do
something (eg crop) in the preview it is not intuitively clear at
first sight that if I then just close the window (in Windows) that it
will save/appy my changes. If there is a "done" button, this would be
more explicit...

Thomas

[Bruno Postle]

Hi these are all good ideas, but they are going to get lost on the
mailing list, they really need to be added as separate items on the
'feature request' tracker:

http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=77506&atid=550444

--
Bruno

[Yuval Levy]

finbref.2006 wrote:
> Could you have a look? I'd be very curious!

as Bruno noted, many of these are very good ideas and it would be an
even better idea to save them in the feature request tracker.

<http://wiki.panotools.org/Hugin_Trackers#Feature_Request>

the one feature I would like to see implemented is Python bindings. User
interface in Python/wxPython with the Hugin functionalities accessible
via some API. Sort of what is being done with Blender too.

A scriptable UI will lower the barrier for smart people like you to go
and make these kind of changes by themselves.

Yuv

[finbref.2006]

On 12 Jul., 00:35, Bruno Postle <br...@postle.net> wrote:
> Hi these are all good ideas, but they are going to get lost on the
> mailing list, they really need to be added as separate items on the
> 'feature request' tracker:
>
> http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=77506&atid=550444

Ok, Bruno.
I added them (15), starting with
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2820559&group_id=77506&atid=550444
I tried to sort and summarize ideas from the thread, for some feature
requests I added later comments...
My original intention was not spam the mailinglist or the feature-
tracker, so a simple prioritysation would have been great. I like all
my ideas, so I added everything ;)
I hope that this helps a little to improve hugin even further. Have a
great week,
Thomas