Stitching multiple close-up photos of hand-drawn family tree together.

[Jonathan H]

There are 79 photographs of close-up sections of a large handwritten family tree with all the lines etc (I believe it's called a "dropline").

The photographs were taken by moving a camera back and forth, row by row, left to right, taking overlapping photographs.

The person who took the photographs is not very technical and each photograph not an exact distance along the page or away from the page.

I have followed pretty much every tutorial, eg: https://hugin.sourceforge.io/tutorials/multi-row/en.shtml

I've also tried asking all the AI's for ideas and settings, but I always end up with each photo getting "curved". The only tutorial that seems to get close is the one for scanned images at https://hugin.sourceforge.io/tutorials/scans/en.shtml, but again the problem seems to be with the varying distance from the paper of each photo. Plus the apparent need to "tweak" each one makes 79 photos not a fun proposition!

Any ideas at all?!

PS - Here are the average camera settings of each photo:

F1.8
Focal length 5mm
35mm focal length 25

[wirz]

Hi Jonathan,

Conceptually, the scan tutorial is what you need, not the multi row
tutorial. Hugin can handle two different setups: 1) a 3D scene, while
all images are taken from the same position; 2) a flat 2D object, while
the photos are taken from arbitrary positions.

You shouldn't need to manually tweak any parameters such as the
distance, the optimiser should manage that. From my experience,
however, the optimisation of this scenario is much less robust. I
normally have to add a few vertical / horizontal lines, and it can often
be helpful to first optimise a small subset of images, lock their
parameters, add a few more, optimise, etc.

cheers, Lukas Wirz

[Marius Loots]

Hallo Jonathan

There is a tutorial to stitch flat scanned images. If you follow this, you should get the results you want. 

There are sometimes issues with this approach, depending on the scan and control points. To solve this, I stitch two images at a time, and add one or two after each alignment. This allows you to find problematic control points and remove them before trying again. 

Let me know if I can assist. I have a few command line batch files to run through part of the process. 

Regards

Marius Loots

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[Paul Womack]

If the family tree print was flat (or very near to it) on the table (or floor!), this should be doable.

If the paper (or support) has any real curves or folds, you may have an impossible task.

I have done a few panoramas of old (circa 1820) maps, and they're tricky.

[Jonathan H]

Thanks for everyone's ideas - I think the limitation is with the quality of the paper, as Bugbear points out.

I hope attachments are OK here - I've posted a few of the 79 photos that make up the image, and those edges and lines are really going to be problematic.

I think, in this instance, (and given the non-technical level of the person who is trying to be helpful with the photos), I think it might be quicker and easier for me to physically drive there and do my own copy of it.

However, I've learnt a fair bit about Hugin and can see it being of use in the future!

[David W. Jones]

Small suggestion. If you go to make your own photos of it, maybe bring a paper-sized sheet of glass with you. I pulled one out of a broken-down scanner. Flattens paper and you can take photos through it.

Might help.

David W. Jones
gnome...@gmail.com
exploring the landscape of god
http://dancingtreefrog.com

Sent from my Android device with F/LOSS K-9 Mail.

[Jan Steinman]

Probably not the "solution" you were hoping for, but I would take the paper to a services shop that has a large-format scanner. Call around first. If they have a large-format scanner, it shouldn't be too expensive, and no stitching would be required.

Second thought, you have way too many images to deal with. With a modern digital camera of 20 megapixels or more, you should be able to get a decent photo "scan" in considerably fewer images. Depending on the size of the original, I would hang it on a wall, and try multiple approaches. First, take one photo of the entire thing. Then, try to fit it in progressively closer images, perhaps in powers of two. You can make things a lot easier for hugin: 1) use a tripod and make sure the camera is "square"— level in two dimensions, 2) very carefully centring each shot, 3) use an adequately high shutter speed and a delayed "silent shutter" setting on your camera to eliminate camera shake, 4) avoid wide-angle lenses or zoom settings; use as much telephoto as you can get away with to avoid edge distortions.

Hugin is a wonderful tool, but you'll get better results if you feed it good material.