PTGui calculates the control point distance by projecting the control
point from the second image into the first image. It's possible that the
projected control point ends up somewhere between two pixels so you can
have a distance that is not a whole number, or less than 1 pixel.
As John explained 'too good to be true' often means just that, but if
you have control points well spread over the entire overlap area then it
just means that the images are aligned extremely well.
Joost
>It's easy for the optimizer to
>align a few points in the middle of the overlap areas, but this does
>not ensure that the image alignment will be equally good in those
>areas devoid of points.
Absolutely.
The trick is to use a conservative number of points and make sure
those are spread relatively well across the whole overlap area.
Clustering points together won't help with real accuracy, that's no
more effective than hanging a picture by putting a dozen nails into
one side.
I know people sometimes put in loads of points because they're not
confident about individual point accuracy. That just averages out the
uncertainty to some uncertain amount, it doesn't guarantee any
improvements. One well-placed point is far more use than a collection
of imprecise ones, so spend time on those.
With my fisheye shots I aim for four points per image pair, spread
right down the overlap area. I often get very low single-figure
values straight off, sometimes in the zero-point range, and I've seen
"too good to be true" a handful of times. (And yes, the stitch has
been damn perfect in those cases, so I think the cynical message was
misplaced. :-)
k
But the value displayed after optimization ('average control point
distance') actually is a true average (i.e. arithmetic mean).
Joost
>Fisheye lenses (like the Sigma 8mm) tend to have control
>points bunched up along the horizon.
That's if you ask PTGui to create control points for you
automatically, right? I rarely do that these days; I find that
creating a few points manually gives excellent results, and it
doesn't take any longer than generating them automatically and
cleaning up the results.
>It is more about looking at the finished
>panorama than relying on a set of numbers.
Definitely. The numbers help a lot, but always look carefully at test
stitches and the final output.
k