Stitching 360 timelapse footage

[Chris Erskine]

Hi,

I've recently just done a first test with an automated tripod head I've built with the help of a few people. its just a single axis rotator that connects to my manfrotto 303sph.

I've got it setup with 10.5mm + d200, with the idea of just capturing a 360 timelapse of the sky.

for this test i just did it by timing (1 photo per second, 6 second per 360 rotation), so the photos arn't in the exact spots but should be close. I was trying to get the motor controller to take the photos on the camera to get exact angles repeated but I didn't get this working in time so its going to make the post a bit harder. but i plan on getting this working before i do another shoot with it.

So for now I'm at the point that i need to start scripting ptgui to process thousands of photos. I've got a template with the 6 photos stitched together (60 degree spacing).

should i separate process's? eg. lens correct all images first. then stitch?

then i guess i need to use something like perl to edit the ptgui saved file to create a new project per frame with source images changing so every 6 photos is a new frame.

also is it possible to queue up jobs and start renders from the command line?   

it would be nice if it was possible to just load up all the images in ptgui and then link every nth photo, and then render out stitched layers based on the time the photo was taken :) though understand if there not much a need for this yet.

anyway this is all new to me so if anyone has some tips on workflow it would be great.

Thanks

Chris Erskine   
  

[Mick Crane]

I imagine that hoping to batch stitch 8x60x10 panoramas without an
accurate register will be difficult or time consuming. I think that is
why people use more than one camera locked together.
Mick

[Chris Erskine]

well for this test i expect it to be a bit jumpy. but once i get the motor controller talking to camera properly I'll be able to take the photos in a repeatable way.

and from there it should just be a matter of replacing photos in a template.

but i don't expect this test to be perfect. though having a quick look the photos seem like line up pretty well. though there will need to some optimization for each set in this test.

Chris

[michael crane]

2009/8/13 Chris Erskine <stupid....@gmail.com>:

> well for this test i expect it to be a bit jumpy. but once i get the motor
> controller talking to camera properly I'll be able to take the photos in a
> repeatable way.
>
> and from there it should just be a matter of replacing photos in a template.
>
> but i don't expect this test to be perfect. though having a quick look the
> photos seem like line up pretty well. though there will need to some
> optimization for each set in this test.

what is it you are testing ?

mick

[Chris Erskine]

its a 360 timelapse of clouds. its been shot in a single row with the 10.5mm facing 55degrees up. so you only get the top half, which i plan on using as a background for 3d animations.

[Miso Ristov]

for that u can point the lens to the zenith and simply shoot a timelapse. then in 3D stretch a bit to cover for a whole hemisphere. Even HDR works like this. Although I shot this setup with a full frame




--
___________________________
Misho Ristov
VFX Supervisor
Fx3x
Skopje, Macedonia
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[Chris Erskine]

yeah I'm on a crop sensor so i can't really do that. and besides I'm getting 10k x 3k ish frames doing it this way. once i get the controller working properly I'll have exact locations for the photos so it shouldn't be a problem batch stitching using a template. I just need to work out the scripting side to make all the ptgui project files and then send those off to render via command line.  

[Chris Erskine]

so i guess i should clarify what i need to know.

are there any comand line functions you can run ptgui with? mostly thinking about sending jobs off and starting the render queue. or do i need to hack together a custom ptgui file with all the renders myself with perl. (i assume its xml or plain text, i don't have ptgui here to check).

my other option would be to use hugin/panotools. though I'd want to at least use ptgui to make the template file. 

[jschrader]

Chris, have you had a look at PTGUIs batch builder?
That already might save you a lot of time.
Best
Jürgen

On 14 Aug., 08:33, Chris Erskine <stupid.tour...@gmail.com> wrote:
> so i guess i should clarify what i need to know.
>
> are there any comand line functions you can run ptgui with? mostly thinking
> about sending jobs off and starting the render queue. or do i need to hack
> together a custom ptgui file with all the renders myself with perl. (i
> assume its xml or plain text, i don't have ptgui here to check).
>
> my other option would be to use hugin/panotools. though I'd want to at least
> use ptgui to make the template file.
>

> On Fri, Aug 14, 2009 at 11:54 AM, Chris Erskine <stupid.tour...@gmail.com>wrote:
>
>
>
> > yeah I'm on a crop sensor so i can't really do that. and besides I'm
> > getting 10k x 3k ish frames doing it this way. once i get the controller
> > working properly I'll have exact locations for the photos so it shouldn't be
> > a problem batch stitching using a template. I just need to work out the
> > scripting side to make all the ptgui project files and then send those off
> > to render via command line.
>

[Wim Koornneef]

Hello Chris,

Before I will try to answer your question I need to be sure that I
understand your setup.
You have a motor drive that is continuously rotating with a cropped
sensor camera and a 10.5 lens.
I assume that to cover zenith you have tilted the camera approx. 15
degree or so and you shoot 6 images with a varying yaw in approx. 6
seconds.

If there is little wind then you have a chance that you can get away
with this setup but in stormy weather you will have problems.
I will explain why.
You want to shoot the sky with moving clouds, between the first and
the last shot there is a time difference of 6 seconds.
Because you don't shoot with a high precision system you have to set
PTGui to align the images with automatically placed CP's.
When the clouds are moving fast there will be lots of alignment
errors, especially between the first and the last shot.
The result will be a bunch of panos that will be jump from left to
right and shrink and expand.
Please keep in mind that even a very small jump between the frames
(=pamos) of only 2 or 3 pixels is very annoying.

If you don't mind the left/right jumping and the shrinking and
expansion of the frames then you can easily create individual
templates for each pano with PTGui's Batch Builder.
First you create a projekt template with the proper lens params, then
you set in the Projekt tab file that PTgui have to optimize the pano
and in the Optimize tab you disable all settings except for Yaw, Pitch
& Roll.
I theory you could only optimize for Yaw if your setup is rock solid
and without any wobbling of the camera.
When all other settings of the base template are right (pano size,
file format etc.) you can use the Batch builder to create the
individual templates based on your projekt template and then sent all
the templates to PTGui's Batch Stitcher. After a very long time your
panos are ready and then you can convert them to a panoramic timelapse
video movies, f.e. with Pano2VR.

I have some experience in making timelapses of the sky and I stopped
converting them to panoramic video because the extra processing time
of the process to make panoramic video isn't worth for me the efforts
so now I make "simple" and not very interactive movies.
To see what I mean you can take a look at a posting about this subject
on the Nodal Ninja forum.
Its easy to shoot, its fast and the full circular view gives an extra
dimension to the viewing experience (btw, go for the 700px version).

http://nodalninja.com/forum/index.php?topic=860.0

Success,
Wim

[Chris Erskine]

I haven't looked at the batch builder yet, though that sounds like it might do the trick.

I'm not expecting to have this one run smooth. though once i get the motor controller directly talking to the camera, I'll have the photos being taken at the exact degrees. which will hopefully will produce a smooth timelapse.

thanks for you help 

Chris