PTGui Blend vs Enblend vs Smartblend (updated comparison)
enridp
differents blending options in PTGui (PTGui, Enblend and Smartblend),
and I found that smartblend is better for correcting parallax
problems, but all the articles/posts are from 2006 or even older.
What is the situation now? are really differences between them? what
about pros and cons?
Thanks!!
Enrique.
Erik Krause
Smartblend hasn't been updated since a long time but it still is best in
optimizing a seam line that doesn't cause ghosts. Well, photoshop
autoblend is actually better and much faster but it doesn't recognize
the 360� boundary. Smartblend has a relatively bad memory management and
hence isn't suitable for very large images.
Enblend also has a seam optimization (by default) now, but the results
often are not as good as smartblend.
PTGui does no seam optimization, but favors the image center, which
usually gives good results as well.
Both enblend and smartblend are not usable for HDR stitching in PTGui,
since they might find a different seam line for each exposure step,
which might cause additional ghosting and double edges.
All three blenders use multi resolution blending, which means that the
transition between two images are large for large details and small for
small ones at the same time. This for itself reduces ghosting, double
edges and "smearing" a lot.
--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de
enridp
I've tested Smartblend and I can add that it's much slower than PTGui,
but maybe it's the only solution for parallax or ghosting errors.
I searched about auto-blend in photoshop and I found this article:
http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/CS3/CS3-autoblending3.html
It's not new, but how you said, Photoshop wins the battle between
blends.
And here there are more examples and a trick for using photoshop with
360 images:
http://www.panoramas.dk/panorama/CS3-autoblending.html
The problem is that we can't automate the process if we use photoshop
for blending :(
On 21 ene, 19:05, Erik Krause <erik.kra...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Am 21.01.2011 16:42, schrieb enridp:
>
> > Hi! I was searching about the differences (pros and cons) of the
> > differents blending options in PTGui (PTGui, Enblend and Smartblend),
> > and I found that smartblend is better for correcting parallax
> > problems, but all the articles/posts are from 2006 or even older.
> > What is the situation now? are really differences between them? what
> > about pros and cons?
>
> Smartblend hasn't been updated since a long time but it still is best in
> optimizing a seam line that doesn't cause ghosts. Well, photoshop
> autoblend is actually better and much faster but it doesn't recognize
Sacha
carpeting etc without putting in a lot of effort to achieve a pixel
perfect stitch.
Ptstcherng also has seam optimization and very good detail handling.
On Jan 21, 5:05 pm, Erik Krause <erik.kra...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Am 21.01.2011 16:42, schrieb enridp:
>
> > Hi! I was searching about the differences (pros and cons) of the
> > differents blending options in PTGui (PTGui, Enblend and Smartblend),
> > and I found that smartblend is better for correcting parallax
> > problems, but all the articles/posts are from 2006 or even older.
> > What is the situation now? are really differences between them? what
> > about pros and cons?
>
> Smartblend hasn't been updated since a long time but it still is best in
> optimizing a seam line that doesn't cause ghosts. Well, photoshop
> autoblend is actually better and much faster but it doesn't recognize
Erik Krause
> Ptgui smears a lot and is not suitable for some textures, asphalt,
I've made some tests with grass floor. In some cases smartblend was a
bit better but sometimes it simply puts the smear in a different
location. After all the seam line has to be somewhere.
> Ptstitcherng also has seam optimization and very good detail handling.
That's true. It works very well, but according to
http://webuser.hs-furtwangen.de/~dersch/PTStitcherNG/Changes.txt section
(8) it might as well fail miserably.
enridp
it's blender?
Also, I saw that a lot of people says that PTSNG works better and
faster than PTGui, is this true? do you recommend to use PTSNG for
stitch+blend with PTGui?
Erik Krause
> Do we need to use to use PTstitcherNG for the stitch process to use
> it's blender?
Yes.
> Also, I saw that a lot of people says that PTSNG works better and
> faster than PTGui, is this true? do you recommend to use PTSNG for
> stitch+blend with PTGui?
It works faster on most machines, since it doesn't need as much memory
as PTGui. However, if you use a fast SSD RAID 0 as temp storage PTGui
will be faster. Sometimes it might work better if you switch on seam
optimization, but this depends. Unfortunately it doesn't work very well
for HDR stitching.
Roy
I am using Mac OSX(10.6.5), under "Create Panorama" tab only options I
have in "Blend Using" are PTGui, Enblend & Smart Blend. I can not find
PTStitcherNG blender. I have chosen "PTStitcherNG" under "Stitch
usin".
Please help.
Thanks
Roy
Roy
have PTOptimizer Application set to /Applications/PTOptimizer/Mac/
ptoptimizer
Erik Krause
> I am using Mac OSX(10.6.5), under "Create Panorama" tab only options I
> PTStitcherNG blender
There is no separate PTStitcherNG blender. PTStitcherNG does stitching
and blending in one go.
Sacha
"(-b 1) seam optimization"
I stopped using it after ptgui 9 came out since I don't pre enfuse
anymore and ptgui is roughly the same speed now or perhaps some other
reason and went to PS/layers for hard cases which also performs well.
Joost could prevent this need simply by setting feather to 0.
I can't stand the blurry stitch line that happens on pixel detail
textures.
If you're 1-2 pixels off in your stitch it just looks terrible.
Erik Krause
> Joost could prevent this need simply by setting feather to 0.
There is nothing like "feather" in multi resolution blending. If with
"feather to 0" you mean no blending at all: You can have it with old
PTStitcher. It features "feather" indeed, available on Panorama Settings
tab if you choose "PTStitcher / nona / PTMender" on create panorama tab.
But I doubt you really want *that* ;-)
> I can't stand the blurry stitch line that happens on pixel detail
> textures.
I agree that PTGui could find better stitch lines. However, to my
experience smartblend and enblend both produce the same smearing, only
in different places. But of course they don't produce it if they place
the seam line somewhere where there is no texture. In PTGui you can use
masking to move the stitch line manually...
Sacha
reassembly of cube faces.
Photoshop (yes) and PtstitcherNG (I think I remember) don't produce a
smear.
I seam to remember smartblend being less obtrusive but I may be wrong.
I'll re-examine what works and what doesn't shortly to follow up.
In my opinion this is the biggest weakness of PTGUI left in an
otherwise near perfect product.
Erik Krause
> Photoshop (yes) and PtstitcherNG (I think I remember) don't produce a
> smear.
I don't know about photoshop but PTStitcherNG surely will produce smear
since it uses multi resolution blending like enblend, smartblend or
PTGui. At least if it's inevitable to place the seam line into
smear-prone texture.
Sacha
multiresolution blending and hard edged everything, no gradient
blending... Trying to use basic alpha channels for single images were
ignored, and using seam optimization crashes for VP or some other
reason. Which is probably why I went back to PS blending hard cases.
Sacha
zenith defect.
I remember my NG workflow now, it was everything but the nadir which
was blended in PS.
PTGui 9 precluded using NG for speed, and masking made things
wonderful.
Using Smartblend / and a PTGui blend in conjunction leads to good
results.