Parallax Errors "Best Practices?"

[Jan Steinman]

Yes, I know what parallax is, and me and my Kaidan KIWI heads and a tripod and PTGui Pro can make it go away.

But it's not always possible to have that much gear — for example, The Vatican does not allow tripods. And it can be difficult getting such gear onto an airplane when you're packing for over a month!

So I have some lovely spheres of churches and cathedrals, all shot by hand. I attempted to rotate around the lens, and diligently used the camera's levelling aids, but the nadirs suck, and they often violate the "perfectly flat" criteria for Viewpoint Optimization. (The zeniths do, too, but they're more easily dealt with.)

1) Is there a way to "force" a prominent line to stitch properly?

For example, I put multiple control points on the red cord (and deleted other nearby control points), but it spans both the nadir and at least three scene images, and nothing I've tried gets it to connect!

In this case, I put numerous control points on the red cord, but they seem to be ignored in the Panorama Editor view above.

I don't think I can use "Viewpoint Optimization" for this, as a long section of the cord is only in the nadir, so I can't really mask it out. Or is there some trick I can use?

I've looked at the Viewpoint Optimization video several times. Maybe I missed something important?

2) Any good strategies for dealing with things like human feet and legs in the nadir?

Or even tripods, if there are other parallax issues in the image or if they cast shadows on the flat surface, so Viewpoint Optimization can't help.

I can  try to eliminate them in a photo editor, but on floors with distinctive patterns (as opposed to random texture), it doesn't seem like the Patch Editor is helpful.

3) Any good tips for using the Mask Editor (or anything else) to deal with parallax errors on walls?

Several distinct vertical areas on this sphere are unhappy. I try masking out all but one image containing a problem vertical, and I still seem to have it show up. I also tried using vertical control points, which didn't seem to do anything — I think they're just for levelling?

4) Is there any way to explicitly force placement of a seam?

Or does this fall under the "control" of masking? I've had the seam placement ignore my masking, for example, when I wanted to exclude the shadow of the photographer, but the seam placement included it anyway.

Thanks for any help offered!

Jan

[John Houghton]

On Wednesday, August 13, 2025 at 7:44:04 AM UTC+1 Jan Steinman wrote:

Several distinct vertical areas on this sphere are unhappy. I try masking out all but one image containing a problem vertical, and I still seem to have it show up. I also tried using vertical control points, which didn't seem to do anything — I think they're just for levelling?

Jan,  You need to use the option at the bottom of the Optimizer's Advanced page: Hor/vert points: Include in single pass .  Unless you do that, the points are just used for levelling the aligned panorama image in a second pass.  You might also use straight line control points for straightening long straight features that ought to be straight in the chosen projection.

John

[Jan Steinman]

Thank you, John! That absolutely worked wonders!