Stitching 2 hemispherical (Kodak PixPro SP360) photos

[gh...@gmx.at]

I am using 2 Kodak PixPro SP360 cameras to record 360x180 degree video. The cameras have a field of view larger than 180 degrees, and each outputs a hemi-spherical image.

How can I use PTGUI to stitch the 2 images? I have entered the focal length (0.85mm) and manually added control points along the overlapping edges of the images, but I can't seem to get the stitching to work.

Any help is very much appreciated!

[PTGui Support]

Hi,

You need to have the calibrated lens parameters, these cannot be
determined from the 2 back to back images because the overlap area is
very narrow.

So first take a panorama with 4 images around. Take care to rotate the
camera around the no parallax point (and just to be sure place control
points on far away objects only).

Once you have the lens parameters, use them for your 2 image project and
only optimize the yaw/pitch/roll of one of the two images.

Keep in mind that parallax is inevitable, you will get visible stitching
errors on nearby objects.

Kind regards,

New House Internet Services BV
Joost Nieuwenhuijse

-----------------------------------------------
PTGui - Photo Stitching Software

www.ptgui.com
For support see: http://www.ptgui.com/faq/
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[gh...@gmx.at]

Thank you for your reply! I took 4 images as you suggested, but PTGUI was unable to find any control points in them. After adding control points manually, stitching failed.

To check whether the problem was there not being enough overlap, I took 2 images rotated just 20 degrees relative to one another: PTGUI still couldn't find any control points. Is that to be expected?

The images I used are here: http://ge.tt/47ijE8Y2

Thanks again!

[John Houghton]

See project file uploaded to https://www.sendspace.com/file/85kh8z .  The alignment is quite good, and the lens parameters ought to be a good starting point for aligning with the 90 degree images to establish the parameters more effectively.  I used the "generate control points here" option after assigning a few points manually in order to get a wide spread of points. 

John

[Michel Thoby]

Hi John,

I got a nearly identical result by alternately using an other project file (also based on Kodak 360 images) as a template.

It seems that you had posted a link to such a file of yours on January 5th: among other SP360 script-files: I discovered it in my PTGui templates databank

!)

Michel

[gh...@gmx.at]

Hi John,

thank you very much, that worked perfectly! I was able to stitch the whole panorama and use the project to stitch 2 video files.

For future reference, in case someone else might find this useful:
Here are the steps I performed to stitch the videos of the Kodak PixPro SP360 4K Dual Pro Pack camera set:
- follow steps outlined above by John Houghton to stitch 2 images rotated 20 degrees relative to one another
- add additional images to create whole panorama (this step may be optional?)
- save the calibrated lens parameters to the PTGUI lens database
- create a new PTGUI project with 2 still images taken with the back-to-back mounted SP360s
- load the calibrated lens parameters, generate control points, align, save project
- the stitching of the videos was done using VideoStitch Studio, by loading the PTGUI project to calibrate the cameras

The resulting panoramic video is stitched much better compared to the output of the stitching software that comes with the SP360.
Thanks again!

[John Houghton]

Just one extra thing that you should be aware of:  the optimum lens parameter values will vary according to the setting of the crop circle (size and position).  However, saving the lens parameters to the lens database does not also save the current crop settings. It's therefore usual to copy both the lens parameters and crop settings into a new project by applying a template instead of just loading in lens parameters from the lens database.  (Visit the Project Settings tab of the template project to choose what gets copied over).  Alternatively, you could maybe make the current settings the default for new projects by File->Make Default.

John

[Joe Ripley]

Hi,

Im not sure if this is where to post this...

Ive edited a 360 video using premier pro and 1 sp360 4k camera. I want to ad a title in the black space that isnt covered by the footage. 

Ive tried to make a title .mp4 and stitch it with the edited .mp4 in sp stitch software but it does not recognise the file types even though I've exported them with identical properties as the raw footage.

Can anyone shed some light on how I can ad a title to the black part of the video?

Thanks

Joe

[Media Ecologist]

I would suggest using Pano2VR software since it is actually designed for this. i am sort of driving one of my editors crazy now truing to figure out all the answers to editing 360 video.

[Media Ecologist]

On Sunday, April 2, 2017 at 6:29:51 AM UTC-4, Media Ecologist wrote:

I would suggest using Pano2VR software since it is actually designed for this. i am sort of driving one of my editors crazy now trying to figure out all the answers to editing 360 video.

On Friday, June 10, 2016 at 11:09:38 AM UTC-4, Joe Ripley wrote:

Hi,

Im not sure if this is where to post this...

Ive edited a 360 video using premier pro and 1 sp360 4k camera. I want to ad a title in the black space that isnt covered by the footage. 

Ive tried to make a title .mp4 and stitch it with the edited .mp4 in sp stitch software but it does not recognise the file types even though I've exported them with identical properties as the raw footage.

Can anyone shed some light on how I can ad a title to the black part of the video?

Thanks

Joe

On Thursday, February 18, 2016 at 5:18:14 AM UTC, gh...@gmx.at wrote:

I am using 2 Kodak PixPro SP360 cameras to record 360x180 degree video. The cameras have a field of view larger than 180 degrees, and each outputs a hemi-spherical image.

How can I use PTGUI to stitch the 2 images? I have entered the focal length (0.85mm) and manually added control points along the overlapping edges of the images, but I can't seem to get the stitching to work.

Any help is very much appreciated!

Are you trying to do video or still panoramas? PTGUI doesn't do full motion stitching yet. I have tried using the Kolor software for full motion but have found it a bit hard to use but the Kodak stitching software is really poorly designed. as to using PTGui for still panoramas one of the keys is to be sure to take 2+ images (the more the better) and set the lens at the nodal point of the lens which is actually just a bit in front of the actual screw mount on the PixPro360s..