Hugin saving blank EXR files

[Mitch]

I'm using Hugin 2011.0.0.0f9fdaf56720 64bit for Windows and running
into an issue with bad EXR output. I'm outputting true HDR panos (no
fusion) using built-in hdr_merge during stitch process, but the
resulting image file is only about 720kb for a 8604x4302 image. If I
open it in Photoshop, the resolution is correct but there is no image
data (blank) in either rgb or alpha channels. The ldr jpeg from same
stitch looks fine and is around 40mb. None of the other checkboxes
are on to save intermediate remapped images, etc. (only "exposure
corrected, low dynamic range" and "High dynamic range").

If choose TIFF as my output format for the HDR image I get the same
problem (small file size, all black pixels). My project uses 35
source jpegs - 5 stacks of 7 exposures each. Any ideas what's going
wrong here?

Thanks,
Mitch

[Mitch]

I just downloaded 2011.2 beta rc2 64bit and have the exact same
problem. Then I tried 2011.0 32bit version and the EXR output works!
Has anyone else been able to output hdr EXRs from any of the 2011
64bit Windows builds?

That said, there are a couple of issues with the resulting EXRs they
way Hugin output/merged them. First of all, the alpha is inverted.
This causes all kinds of havoc with how Photoshop opens EXRs (forces
black alpha pixels as transparent). Ideally I would like to force the
alpha of the EXR output to be SOLID WHITE or simply save NO alpha
channel at all.

Secondly, the merged hdr EXR is waaaaay over exposed by default. Is
there some way to control the merged Eevby an offset or something?

Thanks,
Mitch

[realkiran]

I'm having the same problem. I tried the 2011.0 32bit windows version
with no success. HDR output is always blank. If I export to ldr it
seems to work just fine. Has anyone successfully output hdr (.tif
or .exr) panoramas from .hdr input files? Should I use another input
format?

-Kiran

[Lukáš Jirkovský]

On 13 September 2011 16:54, realkiran <real...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm having the same problem. I tried the 2011.0 32bit windows version
> with no success. HDR output is always blank. If I export to ldr it
> seems to work just fine. Has anyone successfully output hdr (.tif
> or .exr) panoramas from .hdr input files? Should I use another input
> format?
>
> -Kiran

The problem is that when you select HDR output, hugin always run
hugin_hdrmerge. However AFAIK hugin_hdrmerge doesn't support HDR
input. Mostly because it doesn't make any sense to create HDRi from
HDRi, it would be just copying the image pixels.

The "traditional" LDR output chain is more suitable in this case.
Actually, I think it should correctly output HDR tiff in case the
input is also HDR. nona can accept and output HDR and so does enblend.
In case it doesn't work, it should be possible to edit a panorama
makefile to force nona output HDR.

Lukas

[Karmadillo]

On Sep 16, 11:31 pm, Lukáš Jirkovský <l.jirkov...@gmail.com> wrote:

I consistently have this problem on Windows 64 bit.
Today I stopped a EXR stitch (EXR files to EXR pano) and examined the
intermediate files. Nona produces pgm files successfully, but all exr
files are fully black and only 700kb in size.
After hugin_hdrmerge has processed these files, they grow to 780kb
but are still all black. Each input files were 19,000kb and scaling
should have seen the output file be about the same size.
It also occurs with 2010.4 versions of hugin

[Bruno Postle]

On Mon 10-Oct-2011 at 04:30 -0700, Karmadillo wrote:
>On Sep 16, 11:31 pm, Lukáš Jirkovský <l.jirkov...@gmail.com> wrote:

>> The problem is that when you select HDR output, hugin always run
>> hugin_hdrmerge. However AFAIK hugin_hdrmerge doesn't support HDR
>> input. Mostly because it doesn't make any sense to create HDRi from
>> HDRi, it would be just copying the image pixels.
>>
>> The "traditional" LDR output chain is more suitable in this case.
>> Actually, I think it should correctly output HDR tiff in case the
>> input is also HDR. nona can accept and output HDR and so does enblend.
>> In case it doesn't work, it should be possible to edit a panorama
>> makefile to force nona output HDR.

>I consistently have this problem on Windows 64 bit.

>Today I stopped a EXR stitch (EXR files to EXR pano) and examined the
>intermediate files. Nona produces pgm files successfully, but all exr
>files are fully black and only 700kb in size.
>After hugin_hdrmerge has processed these files, they grow to 780kb
>but are still all black.

hugin_hdrmerge is only used with the 'High dynamic range' output,
This is for merging photos into HDR format and won't work if you
feed it HDR data (as Lukáš says).

For HDR input and HDR output you need to use the 'normal' workflow,
this is labelled 'Exposure corrected, low dynamic range' (yes I know
this is confusing, the label needs to be fixed).

--
Bruno