Correcting Parallax With Warp-To-Fit

[Tom Sharpless]

It is possible stitch good panoramas with PTGui even when there is considerable parallax error.

The key is using viewpoint correction to warp all images so that they fit together well.  This is 

a tricky process needing careful control to prevent visible distortion of the panorama.  It can be 

done by hand, on a limited scale, but to realize the full power of warp-to-fit  you need software 

assistance.

Nowadays I shoot most of my panoramas from a monopod, many in stereo, and an increasing number

freehand.  As soon as I started doing stereo, I felt the need for software to facilitate warp-to-fit stitching.

Being a s/w engineer,  I developed PT3D for stitching stereoscopic panoramas with PTGui.  

Today I am happy to announce the arrival of a new family member, PTMP for 2D panos.  PTMP goes

beyond PT3D in that it uses a "multi-patch" method.  Individual photos can be split into several patches, 

each of which is warped separately.  That allows better parallax correction with less overall distortion,

when the patches are well matched to the structure of the scene.  

Both programs work by generating a specialized PTGui project, starting from a normal one.  The initial

project represents the best alignment that can be achieved without warp-to-fit, and its geometry is used

as a framework to stabilize the warp-to-fit project against excessive distortion.  So warp-to-fit is really

a separate, second step, applied to an already well aligned set of photos.

To learn more about PTMP and multi-patch warp-to-fit, please visit http://panini-pro.com/PTMP/ and

have a look at the online manual.  If you want to try it, download the mac or windows version, then

follow the link to the customer login page; register as a customer (or log in); go to the license page 

and request a 30 day free license.  You will receive an activation code by email.  

The program may run for a few days without activation, however it could take a week or two to

learn how to use it effectively.  PTMP automates a great deal, but needs intelligent guidance.  Once

you master it I expect you will be surprised at how easy it is to fix moderate parallax problems.

[Jos van Riswick]

Interesting... is this still available? I was able to find panini on github and compile it. But thats a different thing ?...

Op maandag 12 maart 2018 om 15:15:07 UTC+1 schreef Tom Sharpless:

[Erik Krause]

Am 12.02.2022 um 23:54 schrieb Jos van Riswick:

> Interesting... is this still available? I was able to find panini on github
> and compile it. But thats a different thing ?...

Yes, it's different. As far as I remember, PTMP tried to automate a
workflow, where you load images several times and stitch (and warp) the
background and the foreground (and eventually the middleground) separately.

I remember having tried it and found it an interesting approach, but in
the end more tedious than doing it manually, where I can restrict it to
images with problems (PTMP would do it for all images). It only works on
the old project file format (up to PTGui 10). So if you want to use it
with PTGui 11 or 12 you would need to export to the old format in order
to use it (loosing nice new features that way).

I still have a copy on my hard drive, but it won't start any more, since
it can't reach the licensing server. Perhaps if you ask Tom Sharpless
directly he can tell you more.

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

[Jos van Riswick]

Hi Erik,

 

aha, thnx. Oh well.. and PT3D ? have you tried that? It also seems impossible to find.

Maybe it is not necessary anymore with the current ver. of PTgui? I dont know....

Op zondag 13 februari 2022 om 22:12:45 UTC+1 schreef Erik Krause:

[Erik Krause]

Am 13.02.2022 um 22:20 schrieb Jos van Riswick:
> aha, thnx. Oh well.. and PT3D ? have you tried that? It also seems
> impossible to find.

No, sorry. Tom is in the process of recreating his websites, so they may
come back up at some point.

> Maybe it is not necessary anymore with the current ver. of PTgui? I dont
> know....

I don't even know what it did, but most certainly it worked on the
project files too, and hence might not be fully compatible with recent
PTGui. However, I found something on archive.org:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/http://panini-pro.com/PT3D/*

[Jos van Riswick]

thnx ! I hope this gets picked up again...

Op zondag 13 februari 2022 om 22:44:27 UTC+1 schreef Erik Krause: