Control Point Assistant - Clusters

[Eric O'Brien]

Working on a project, I thought I'd see what the Control Point
Assistant had to say.

I can't really make sense of this:

Clusters

The following groups of images are linked by control points, but
these clusters should still be linked together by control points.
Please add some control points between images of each cluster:

- 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 21,
22, 23, 24 and 26
- 18, 19 and 20

All images in a PTGui project should be linked by control points.

After a lot of clicking around in that dialog, I *think* that the
message is that images 18, 19 and 20 do not have ANY control points
between them and any of the other listed images.

(Maybe) it would help my understanding of the dialog message if I
knew what a "cluster" was.

eo

[PTGui Support]

I though it would be pretty clear. How would you describe the problem to
the user?

Joost

[Thomas Mottl]

Hi,
I think this is no problem, at least for me
Cluster = Group
never had any problem to understand this, even the number of pictures
which are grouped are showing me, that in my panorama are 2 stitched
groups which are not connected.
Cheerio
Thomas

[Thomas Mottl]

Hello Joost,
the Panorama Editor on the Mac is becoming always "crazy" on the Mac
when dealing with big panoramas.
No problem that it is very slow, but when touching the sliders for
the vertical and horizontal view, it is often the case that after
releasing and moving the mouse somewhere else, the slider is moving
with the mouse(As it seems glued to the mouse) and the result is a
panorama with 1°x1° and it is nearly impossible than to get the
panorama in the Editor back to a normal view.

Maybe my Computer is to slow I don´t know but that is one of the most
annoying things in the Mac version for me
This is the case in every Mac Version
Dual G5 2.5GHZ, 4.5 GB RAM

[PTGui Support]

Hi Thomas,

You can always disable 'Auto Update Warped Thumbnails'. A Command+U will
then update the panorama editor.

Setting the thumbnail update priority to low (Prefs, Advanced) may also
help.

Joost

[Eric O'Brien]

Perhaps I was confused because of the apparent conflict between "are
linked together by control points" and "still be linked together by
control points." A quick read left me thinking that the message was
that they WERE connected by control points but still NEEDED to be
connected by control points. Huh?

The other thing is using both "groups" and "clusters" to refer to the
same thing. I was misled into thinking that they were two DIFFERENT
things.

This is all getting very fussy but you might consider something like:

In the following groups, images are linked by control points
within each group, but there are no control points that link
between an image in one group and an image in another group.
Please add some control points between images in each group
----------------------------

Or maybe that isn't what you're saying! All the numbers in that
dialog are links (in the sense of "hotlink"). Clicking any of them
displays the Control Point Editor, with a particular set of images in
view. I can't figure out the rules though -- sometimes the pairs of
images share control points, sometime not; sometimes clicking a
number changes both the left and right images, sometimes not.

In each bulleted list (is that a group, or a cluster??) there is a
series of numbers, the word "and" then a SINGLE number. Do items in
each bulleted list relate to each other? SHOULD they?

I previously had thought that the message was that there needed to be
control point pairs between items in each LIST, but is the message
actually telling me that there should be a control point pair between
the last item in a list (the one after "and") and any of the other
items in that same list??

In the case of this particular project, it happens that there are NOT
any control point pairs between image 15 and image 0 (I carefully
managed to put a smooth blank wall at at image pair overlap!). This
project has bracketed images so actually the missing control points
would be between 15-0, 16-1 and 17-2. That would be valuable to
know... it that information somehow available in the display I
described?

----------------------------
While I'm playing editor here, I'll say that I think THIS is a little
bit misleading/confusing too:

All images in a PTGui project should be linked by control points.

This *could* be read as saying that every image must contain a link
(a control point pair) between it and every other image. (Which is
not the case and it will hurt your brain trying to figure out how
that could be done.)

Instead it is perhaps saying something out of topology or graph
theory: It must be possible to "travel" from any image to any other
image by hopping across pairs of control points.

No, I would not suggest using that in place of what you have!!

By the way, although I've owned PTGui for almost two years, I think
this was about the third time I've looked at the Control Point
Assistant. ;)

Thanks,

eo

[PTGui Support]

Eric O'Brien wrote:
> This is all getting very fussy but you might consider something like:
>
> In the following groups, images are linked by control points
> within each group, but there are no control points that link
> between an image in one group and an image in another group.
> Please add some control points between images in each group
> ----------------------------

Ok, I like it. Thanks.

yes, cluster==group.

> Or maybe that isn't what you're saying! All the numbers in that
> dialog are links (in the sense of "hotlink"). Clicking any of them
> displays the Control Point Editor, with a particular set of images in
> view. I can't figure out the rules though -- sometimes the pairs of
> images share control points, sometime not; sometimes clicking a
> number changes both the left and right images, sometimes not.

The idea is that if you click one hyperlink from one cluster, and then
one hyperlink from another, they will open next to each other in the CP tab.

> In each bulleted list (is that a group, or a cluster??) there is a
> series of numbers, the word "and" then a SINGLE number. Do items in
> each bulleted list relate to each other? SHOULD they?

Each bulleted list forms one cluster. Or group.

> I previously had thought that the message was that there needed to be
> control point pairs between items in each LIST, but is the message
> actually telling me that there should be a control point pair between
> the last item in a list (the one after "and") and any of the other
> items in that same list??

Between at least one item in one group and one item in another group. So
that the groups are linked with control points. They then form a single
group. The message will be gone once there is only one group.

> In the case of this particular project, it happens that there are NOT
> any control point pairs between image 15 and image 0 (I carefully
> managed to put a smooth blank wall at at image pair overlap!). This
> project has bracketed images so actually the missing control points
> would be between 15-0, 16-1 and 17-2. That would be valuable to
> know... it that information somehow available in the display I
> described?

It's actually quite difficult to detect whether a 360 degree panorama is
closed. Just assuming that the last image should be linked to the first
is not always right.

> While I'm playing editor here, I'll say that I think THIS is a little
> bit misleading/confusing too:
>
> All images in a PTGui project should be linked by control points.
>
>
> This *could* be read as saying that every image must contain a link
> (a control point pair) between it and every other image. (Which is
> not the case and it will hurt your brain trying to figure out how
> that could be done.)

I'll add something like 'either directly or indirectly (through control
points between other images)'.

Thanks
Joost

[Blendenteufel]

Why not just say

"All images that overlap in a PTGui project should be linked by
control points."

that makes the message clear and keeps it short...

[PTGui Support]

But it is not a requirement..

Suppose images A, B and C all overlap with each other. It's sufficient
to have control points between A and B, and between B and C.

A and C overlap, but do not need to have control points.

Joost

[John Houghton]

It's one thing to alert the user to the absence of control points,
it's quite another to say that all overlapping images should be linked
by control points, which is not true. Control points are not
mandatory for stitching, only for running the optimizer. There are
occasions when individual images (and, indeed, all images when a
template is used) will not have control points assigned.

John

[Blendenteufel]

I get your points... then we have to find a better wording, that will
assist users and does not "offend" advanced users ;-)

I thought we were strictly speaking within the context of the "Improve
results" section in the CP-Assistant ? If we dont need CP's we don't
bother to be here...

The point is that if the clusters overlap, they should be connected
with CP's to improve the results.