Aligning multiple image stacks in the same pano - any way to do this automatically?

[Geoffrey Liu]

I have a panorama, 42 images in total, 14 frames of 3 exposure stacks each. As part of my workflow, I align the 3 images in each stack.

So far the only way I've found to do this is to:

Group by Stacks

Select Stack 0

Select: Feature Matching -> Settings -> Align image stack

Click "Create control points"
Select Stack 1

Click "Create control points"

.

.

.

Select Stack N

Click "Create control points"

As you can see this gets quite tedious!

For some reason I cannot Ctrl+A (Select all stacks), and click "Create control points". It usually gives me a stupidly low number like "8 ctrl points created". Among 14 stacks, 42 total images? come on!

Maybe there is some philosophy behind why this is the behavior. But I would really like a way to align the images in all my stacks at once without having to go through this laborious process! Anybody aware of something I might be missing?

[Greg 'groggy' Lehey]

On Friday, 19 October 2018 at 19:42:34 -0700, Geoffrey Liu wrote:
> I have a panorama, 42 images in total, 14 frames of 3 exposure stacks each.
> As part of my workflow, I align the 3 images in each stack.
>
> So far the only way I've found to do this is to:
>

> ...

I do something very similar. I used to merge the exposure stacks with
align_image_stack and enfuse. This has the advantage that it can be
embedded in a Makefile and made completely automatic. The script is
at http://www.lemis.com/grog/src/HDR , but it's rather tied to my way
of processing things. If you try it, feel free to ask me private
questions.

I no longer use this method. It doesn't handle ghosting At All, and
I've finally given in and used a Microsoft-space program, Photomatix
(http://www.hdrsoft.com/), which seems to do a good job with batching.

Greg
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[T. Modes]

Am Samstag, 20. Oktober 2018 08:41:15 UTC+2 schrieb Geoffrey Liu:

Maybe there is some philosophy behind why this is the behavior. But I would really like a way to align the images in all my stacks at once without having to go through this laborious process! Anybody aware of something I might be missing?

Unlink the image positions in the stacks. Cpfind multirow strategy already handles stacks. But when the position of the images is linked it assumes the images in the stacks are already aligned and does not search cp inside each stack.

If you insist on align_image_stack there is the setting "Cpfind (multirow/stacked)" which runs align_image_stack on each stack and then link all stacks with cpfind. Or you can create your own setting in the control points detectors.

[J. Schneider*]

Hello,
it's been some time since I last made a pano of stacked shots and now I'm struggling to find out my previous workflow. I have been googeling and searching through hugin-ptx and found this older post of which the content seemed familiar. But in the current version (2022 on Windows) doesn't have "Cpfind (multirow/stacked)" as a setting any more.

So the task is:
6 images, handheld!, consisting of 2 stacks of 3 images each, as a (vertical, in this case) panorama.
When adding the images, hugin doesn't yet recognise by itself that there might be stacks involved.
Ist there a way to
1) make hugin align the images inside the stacks first and
2) then align the 2 stacks as a panorama?

There must be a tutorial somewhere that I haven't found. Could someone be so nice to point me there?
If there is, you needn't read further to tell me what's wrong with the workflow I thought up myself which doesn't work as expected.


Apart from the fact that it doesn't work as expected, this workflow would be extremely laborious for more stacks.

1) Images are added, but not yet defined as stacks (so they are 1 separate stack each). Select the images of 1 stack by hand and align them with CPFind.
2) Optimise the stacks by switching on only the images of the current stack and define one of them as anchor, optimise.
3) Define the stacks 0 an 1.
4) Let CPFind add control points for aligning the panorama. It generates points between images 0 and 3 as expected.
5) Optimise. Unexpectedly, the images inside the stacks are optimized again, they fit worse than before.

Best regards
Joachim

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[T. Modes]

Hi Joachim,

j-sc...@gmx.de schrieb am Sonntag, 24. September 2023 um 21:23:40 UTC+2:

  But in the current version (2022 on Windows) doesn't have "Cpfind (multirow/stacked)" as a setting any more.

This feature has been integrated into cpfind multirow strategy. So just use cpfind --multirow .

But you need to assign the stacks and unlink the positions when shooting handheld before running cpfind. Cpfind needs this information for the decision which images belong to which stack.

So the task is:
6 images, handheld!, consisting of 2 stacks of 3 images each, as a (vertical, in this case) panorama.
When adding the images, hugin doesn't yet recognise by itself that there might be stacks involved.
Ist there a way to
1) make hugin align the images inside the stacks first and
2) then align the 2 stacks as a panorama?

Just optimise all 6 images at once. This should work.

If you want to do it manually, it is just vice versa.

1.) Optimize only the single pano layer first. (disable all other images in the stacks)

2.) Then fix the position of the images of this pano layer and optimise only the other images of the stacks.

Thomas

[J. Schneider*]

Okay,

>  you need to assign the stacks and unlink the positions when shooting
> handheld before running cpfind. Cpfind needs this information for the
> decision which images belong to which stack.

This sounds plausible.
So I guess I have to set Optimise - Geometric (on the Photos tab) to
"Custom Parameters" to get the Optimiser tab. But once the stacks are
defined, I can't do anything to the positions any more. There are
checkboxes only for the stack as a whole. Or what am I missing?
And "cpfind --multirow" is not in the dropdown menu. I guess the whole
approach has to be done on the command line, right?

Best regards,
Joachim

[David W. Jones]

Sorry, accidentally replied just to original poster.

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:	Re: [hugin-ptx] Re: Aligning multiple image stacks in the same pano - any way to do this automatically?
Date:	Mon, 25 Sep 2023 18:57:50 -1000
From:	David W. Jones <gnome...@gmail.com>
To:	J. Schneider* <j-sc...@gmx.de>

Hmm, my thought about it... Assign photos to stacks. For each stack. select only those photos and use align_image_stack to align them. After that, then select only the photos at the top of the stacks, and optimize those for position?

Or vice versa?

-- 
David W. Jones
gnome...@gmail.com
wandering the landscape of god
http://dancingtreefrog.com
My password is the last 8 digits of π.

[T. Modes]

j-sc...@gmx.de schrieb am Dienstag, 26. September 2023 um 00:10:20 UTC+2:

Okay,
>  you need to assign the stacks and unlink the positions when shooting
> handheld before running cpfind. Cpfind needs this information for the
> decision which images belong to which stack.
This sounds plausible.
So I guess I have to set Optimise - Geometric (on the Photos tab) to
"Custom Parameters" to get the Optimiser tab. But once the stacks are
defined, I can't do anything to the positions any more. There are
checkboxes only for the stack as a whole. Or what am I missing?

As I already written, you need to unlink the position in the stack. This can be done on the photos tab or on the optimize tab.

Display the image position and open the context menu on the image position, there you can it unlink (or link) the image position.

And "cpfind --multirow" is not in the dropdown menu. I guess the whole
approach has to be done on the command line, right?

No, it can also be done in the GUI. The default cpfind settings includes already the multirow setting.

You can also create your own settings for the control point detectors in the GUI.

Thomas

[J. Schneider*]

Hello Thomas,
did I understand correctly, the images can be members of a stack and their positions can be unlinked at the same time?

"Display the image position" - is this?:
Okay, done so.

Is this the place where I should do the unlinking?
"... on the image position" - is there a particular spot where I have to click to get the according context menu entry? Or is it only that I don't recognize it?
In the screenshot I have selected the images that have already been assigned to stacks 0.


On the Optimiser tab the context menu is the same. I tried checking the boxes also of the first stack, selecting the images and then optimize..

Now the optimisation actually seems to do something, but applying the results doesn't yield any change - obviously because I haven't unlinked the images.

Sorry for my dumb questions, I feel like a beginner, in spite of having used hugin for some 20 years.

Best regards
Joachim

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[T. Modes]

Hi Joachim,

j-sc...@gmx.de schrieb am Dienstag, 26. September 2023 um 19:22:50 UTC+2:

Hello Thomas,
did I understand correctly, the images can be members of a stack and their positions can be unlinked at the same time?

Yes, in this case the stack is an indicator for e.g. cpfind which images it should match with other images in the stack.

 

"Display the image position" - is this?:
Okay, done so.

Is this the place where I should do the unlinking?
"... on the image position" - is there a particular spot where I have to click to get the according context menu entry? Or is it only that I don't recognize it?
In the screenshot I have selected the images that have already been assigned to stacks 0.

I forgot to mentioned that you need to group by stack for this. Then open the context menu on yaw/pitch/roll/… (not on the filename or image number) because it affects the image position parameters but not the filename.

On the Optimiser tab the context menu is the same. I tried checking the boxes also of the first stack, selecting the images and then optimize..

You can also unlink the images here. Open the context menu on the checkbox or the number beside and select unlink.

The checkboxes in the tree should present which position/parameters is optimized - only one parameter for all images of the stack or each image individually.

 Thomas

[J. Schneider*]

Hi Thomas!
Wow! Now I know why the expert interface is called like that.
Thank you very much. I would never have found this!

Is my use case so unusual that such a function is so hidden?

Best regards
Joachim

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[T. Modes]

Hi Jochiam,

j-sc...@gmx.de schrieb am Montag, 9. Oktober 2023 um 23:25:57 UTC+2:

Hi Thomas!
Wow! Now I know why the expert interface is called like that.
Thank you very much. I would never have found this!

Is my use case so unusual that such a function is so hidden?

Hugin is very flexible. But that means also many options. So we can't show all on one page.

So this option is only shown when you see the actual stacks. Otherwise you don't see direct the effect when linking/unlink the position.

Beside this there are 2 other options:

* when adding the images the user is asked if the stacks should be linked or not. (In the current version (also in 2023.0 beta 1) there is a bug in the stack detection code. This will be fixed in 2023.0 rc1.)

* when setting the stack size the user can also choose to link or not the position.

Thomas