Feature Request - Direction setting

[Geoff G8DHE]

As more cameras are now including GPS and Compass information see;

http://www.solmeta.com/dede/index.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13639_3-9978212-42.html
http://gizmodo.com/5442073/sonys-gps+-and-compass+enabled-camera-knows-where-you-photograph
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2376192,00.asp

Would it be possible for an option button on the "Load Images" dialogue to include the use of the EXIF field GPSImageDirection to be loaded into the Yaw field thus setting the direction of each shot almost automatically ? 

At present most of us would use a template and a fixed shooting pattern, however I find that its often the case that I will take either additional shots at similar angles over time to allow people / objects to move or to go back after the initial round to take additional shots.  By taking into account the direction info available it ensures that these shots will be placed roughly in the right direction at first attempt.

I suspect at some time the EXIF will also include Pitch and Roll information as well, it is already available within the Solmeta Pro device, but has nowhere to reside in the EXIF at present, this of course would then allow all three directional parameters to be set auto-magically ;-)

[PTGui Support]

Hi Geoff,

Yes that might be useful, I've added it to the wish list.

Almost all cameras already have an accelerometer built in but I'm not
aware of any manufacturer already incorporating this data into the EXIF.
They are quite slow to do these kind of things unfortunately.

Joost

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[Geoff G8DHE]

The Solmeta Pro includes the direction info. directly into the EXIF currently, see the attachment, on any camera its attached to.

I've just persuaded Jan over on 360Cities to include the GPS ImageDirection on the uploaded Pano's for use as the Heading info. (its under development he tells me :-)

The next thing would be to ask if it would be possible to add the same EXIF field to the resulting Pano output from PTGui, not as easy I appreciate as it would be necessary to interpolate between the values from all the images which might be altered somewhat after optimisation but an "average" value for the centre of the image would be most helpful in automating the processing  ??

[Erik Krause]

Am 08.08.2011 16:01, schrieb Geoff G8DHE:
> The next thing would be to ask if it would be possible to add the same EXIF
> field to the resulting Pano output from PTGui, not as easy I appreciate as
> it would be necessary to interpolate between the values from all the images
> which might be altered somewhat after optimisation but an "average" value
> for the centre of the image would be most helpful in automating the
> processing

Not difficult: Since PTGui knows the yaw of any image relative to each
other it should be able to calculate the direction of the resulting
panorama center from any source image along the horizon.

--
Erik Krause

[Geoff G8DHE]

I'm thinking of the situation where each of the image directions has some error in the compass heading (typical  Accuracy ±5° & Resolution 3°), so that when they are aligned the difference between the EXIF values doesn't match the difference on the image!  I have done some measurements here between the original shots and the final Pano and yes a difference of more than 5° has appeared on several occasions between the two sets of figures.  Also of course you really only want to use images that have pitch close to 0° as the accuracy of compass bearings reduce as the pitch value increases, Zenith  and Nadir suffering the same sorts of problems with the camera orientation settings!

[Support - Global Telecom]

That is really helpful thanks

Do you know when stitching and the small square bow open magnifying the
images do you know any easy way of moving the stitching point in mm as when
I use the mouse it keeps jumping

Regards


Luke Norris
Support Department
Global Telecom
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Tel: +44 (0)845 276 8000
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--
Erik Krause

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[Erik Krause]

Am 10.08.2011 10:59, schrieb Support - Global Telecom:
> do you know any easy way of moving the stitching point in mm as when
> I use the mouse it keeps jumping

You can slow down the mouse pressing the Alt key and even more
additionally pressing the Ctrl key. If you hold the left mouse button
down you can fine tune the point with the arrow keys. See Help for more...

--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[Erik Krause]

Am 09.08.2011 16:55, schrieb Geoff G8DHE:
> I'm thinking of the situation where each of the image directions has
> some error in the compass heading (typical Accuracy �5� & Resolution
> 3�), so that when they are aligned the difference between the EXIF
> values doesn't match the difference on the image!

GPS data is always unreliable, so averaging or even better: use a median
filter (which eliminates extremes) would be appropriate indeed.

For fine tuning there are applications like GeoSetter which allow to set
direction visually using google maps.

[Ken Warner]

That also seems to have gone missing in the W7 beta.

Pressing Alt used to slow the mouse down nicely -- in the beta it doesn't.

[Erik Krause]

Am 10.08.2011 11:13, schrieb Ken Warner:
> Pressing Alt used to slow the mouse down nicely -- in the beta it doesn't.

Same here. As a workaround you can click the middle mouse button to
switch to 100% zoom (and back) quickly...

[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Just an update on this Phil Harvey has now included GPSPitch and GPSRoll into the EXIFTools program from version 8.75.  So any GPS device that records the $PTNTHPR sentence can now add Pitch and Roll into the metadata.
GPSImageDirection is already a standard EXIF field, so that is already handled.
Discussion of how to include and make use of the feature is available here on the EXIFTool forum its simply a case of adding the two new Fields into the configuration file, which is shown in the discussion.

Joost, I wonder where on the wish list this sits ?  360Cities now support GPS Direction as well, this enables you to set the centre of Image direction before uploading the file along with the normal Geotagging info so that the Image direction is automatically set.

[PTGui Support]

Hi Jeff,

Thanks for the pointer. It's on my radar, that's all I'll say..

Joost

On 31-1-2012 0:39, Geoff - Spherical Visions wrote:
> Just an update on this Phil Harvey has now included GPSPitch and GPSRoll
> into the EXIFTools program from version 8.75. So any GPS device that
> records the $PTNTHPR sentence can now add Pitch and Roll into the metadata.
> GPSImageDirection is already a standard EXIF field, so that is already
> handled.
> Discussion of how to include and make use of the feature is available
> here on the EXIFTool forum

> <http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,3780.msg17600.html#msg17600>

> its simply a case of adding the two new Fields into the configuration
> file, which is shown in the discussion.
>
> Joost, I wonder where on the wish list this sits ? 360Cities now support
> GPS Direction as well, this enables you to set the centre of Image
> direction before uploading the file along with the normal Geotagging
> info so that the Image direction is automatically set.
>

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[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Joost, just an update on progress on using the GPSImageDirection, GPSPitch & GPSRoll data.
I have put together a very quick page on logging and using the above data to provide an initial alignment of images within PTGui, hopefully the last step will be unnecessary soon ;-)
The process with the current hardware is never going to act as a perfect template, but it does at least build an "automatic grid" to show the images in roughly the right locations from the very start.

[Joergen Geerds]

I would totally like to see external yaw, pitch and roll adjustment 

[luca vascon]

I'd like to know which GPS you use!!!

:-P

And I'd totally agree it would be a great plus.

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Luca Vascon.

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[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Its the Solmeta Geotagger Pro Luca, the normal GPSLatitude/Longtitude/Image direction is stored directly by the Nikon D300, but as Pitch and Roll aren't in they EXIF2.2 standard the camera on its own can't store the data.  However that's where ExifTool comes in as it allows you to define custom fields, and then we can create GPSPitch and GPSRoll, then this data can then be added from the Log file that the device creates as well, into the original image taken. Then we have an Image file with all the metadata present in one nice little bundle ;-)

[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

That is why I am asking Friedmann who wrote the Geosetter program to enable editing of the new custom fields, whilst they can be edited within ExifTool itself using the command line or within the ExifTool GUI, it would be nice to have the ability to do it within one of the more common Geotagging applications as well!

[PTGui Support]

Hi Geoff,

It's still on my list..

Joost

[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Many Thanks Joost !

[luca vascon]

Yeppp...

Nothing for Canons, uh?

2012/4/28 Geoff - Spherical Visions <geoff....@gmail.com>

Many Thanks Joost !

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[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Well the logging feature will work just the same and so long as you sync the camera clock, or use the -Geosync option in ExifTool to align the clocks after the event then it will work just the same!  Doing it that way you can skip the first two ExifTool commands but would need to work out the difference between Camera clock and GPS clock so as too align the clocks as precisely as possible.  Best option is show the time on the LCD and take a photo of the LCD at the start of a session.

[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Joost, Just realised that with my current means of importing the attitude data into PTGui I don't of course have the benefit of the what I term the "Grid Lock", you describe as

It does this by comparing the optimized panorama to the panorama prior to optimization (as set up by Align to Grid) and moving all images without control points in such a way that the grid setup is preserved as much as possible. And of course if an image contains only pure blue sky, small positioning errors will not be noticable so this method works well in practise.

 If its possible to include that feature when importing Exif with Attitude it would be great to resolve the sky problems with no CP's :-)

[PTGui Support]

Hi Geoff,

Actually you do. It's a feature of the optimizer, not of the Align to
Grid dialog.

So your own import replaces Align to Grid, and the optimizer will still
attempt to keep orphaned images aligned with the rest.

Joost

[Geoff - Spherical Visions]

Right I'll experiment a bit more, must admit I only spotted it on one Pano of 123 images before commenting maybe there were more CP's then I realised at the time.