Making a panorama movie with PTgui

[Wla]

Is the proces described in http://www.ptgui.com/support.html#5_29 also
working with the follwoing setup:
- 4 full HD movie input sources mounted on a rig
- export the 30fps movie to tiff's and stich the 4 images (frame) to 1
panorama image.
- repeat this steps (offsets are the same) for the other 10.000's of
iamges/frames.

Can PTgui work with these formats and large sets?!

In the end I will combine all the full pano-images to a flash (or
webm) movie and play them in a pano-flashplayer of pano html5 player.

Exact project goals is the same as:

http://punkoryan.com/2011/02/08/shooting-360-degree-video-with-four-gopro-hd-hero-cameras

I understand PTgui is "the" pano tool for images but is it also going
to work with my pano movies!!!

[Misho Ristov]

Try Nuke for this type of work. Stitch the first 4 frames, than match
the output in Nuke. You have a 30-day trial on their site.

m.

--
___________________________
Misho Ristov
VFX Supervisor
FX3X
www.fx3x.com
Jane Sandanski 108/28
1000 Skopje, Macedonia
cell +38970385680
office +38925511901
fax +38925511902

[PTGui Support]

Hi,

It should work fine although you will need some patience.

Manually stitch one frame and save it as a template. Then use the template in the Batch Builder for your other frames. See Tools - Batch Builder (Pro only) and press the Help button there.

Joost

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[matthew ward]

Dear all
I have a problem that .mov files that I have subsequently moved to an external hard drive no longer work (on 2 Mac computers). I made the files a couple of years ago in PTGui and they were definitely working at that point, now Quicktime crashes on opening the file or attempting to navigate.
Any ideas greatly appreciated
Best
Matthew Ward

[Erik Krause]

Am 05.08.2011 14:53, schrieb matthew ward:
> Quicktime crashes on opening the file or attempting to navigate.

What version of QT?
-> http://www.ptgui.com/support.html#3_14

--
Erik Krause

[Matthew Ward]

Thanks
7.6.9 on OS 10.5.8
and
7.6.6 on OS 10.6.8
and
10.0

best
Matthew Ward

[FrankE]

> Try Nuke for this type of work. Stitch the first 4 frames, than match
> the output  in Nuke. You have a 30-day trial on their site.
>
> m.

I'm in the middle of a project with the exact same requirement
(allthough I am stitching 15 full HD movies...)
I'm having a very hard time getting my pano's to align perfectly (we
are also using a vertical dolly move)

I'd be interested in how this would work in Nuke, Misho can you spare
a little more info, or a weblink describing the process (or something
similar) ?

To Joost, do you have any tips that could be helpfull given the above
description : 15 shots around 360°, and each video-frame, thus each
pano, has a very slightly different vertical viewpoint (dolly move)
I'm going through the batch builder, my first pano template looks
good, disabled "generate control points" in project settings and
enabled "do align images" in the batch stitcher options, but my
stitched pano's come out all wrong.

[Erik Krause]

Am 06.08.2011 11:13, schrieb Matthew Ward:
> Thanks
> 7.6.9 on OS 10.5.8
> and
> 7.6.6 on OS 10.6.8

... no idea. Could well be the files are broken. Can you make them
available publicly?

--
Erik Krause

[FrankE]

There seems to be a problem with google groups, two different
discussions are somehow being merged.
Can the moderator of this group separate these two different
discussions ?

I would like to keep the original question going for reasons explained
above, but this QuickTime problem has nothing to do with the original
topic, and I'm afraid the original question might be overlooked.

[PTGui Support]

No I'm sorry, I can't separate an existing thread.

To everyone: when posting about a new subject, please don't reply to an
existing thread but instead post it as a new message.

Joost

[PTGui Support]

Have you opened the project file that was generated by PTGui? Perhaps it
shows you what went wrong?

If you can't figure it out, please post your template project and one of
the generated projects (preferably with images).

Joost

[FrankE]

Hello Joost,

I have been doing new tests over and over again, and I must be
overlooking something.
If you would be so kind to check this project :
http://www.watchkraft.com/panotest.zip
(it is 42Mb)

Inside the zipfile is the template I first set up with the project
settings, and inside the tif's folder are two "batch builder"
resulting project files.
These two project files are my first and last frame of the video's (in
this example you'll see six shots around (not a full 360° circle), one
row only).

The shots are taken on a Nodal Ninja, completely leveled with a laser
level. The video dolly movement has been checked and it is accurate,
the lenght of travel and timing is equal for all shots.
The shots are taken with a Canon 5D Mark II, and a 24mm TS-e Mark II
lens

This is only a rough test, but our actual project will be completely
similar in setup and style.

You will notice that my template makes a good panorama in the panorama
editor, but the first generated project (which should be essentially
the same as the template, as it uses the same first pictures as in the
template) already has stitch errors.
So I must be doing something wrong.
The last project has the same stitch errors as my first project. But
the template is ok.


I can open the projects individually, but only when I generate control
points and optimize do I end up with a perfectly stitched panorama,
but this changes the size and placement and scaling of images, so this
will not work as video frames (my filmed objects need to stay put, and
no artifacts in the intermediate frames are allowed)...so I need exact
same panoramas for each frame in dimension (obviously my viewpoint
changes during the course of the video)

I have done this test at least 20 times the last three days and I'm
slowly starting to get desperate. Can you please take a look and tell
me what I am doing wrong ?
Any help would be very welcome.

[PTGui Support]

Hi FrankE,

If you look at the Image Parameters tab you'll see that both projects
have the same image parameters, so they are stitched in exactly the same
way and PTGui did it's job just fine.

You do seem to have some slight parallax in your images in up/down
direction, which might explain the problem.

Joost

[FrankE]

Hi Joost, thanks for checking.

The parallax I assume is the (d) and (e) parameter in the Lens
settings tab ?
I will try and get those as close to zero as possible.

Is everything else I am doing in my template project ok ?
The reason I ask is that the template stitches a different panorama
than the first project, but they should be essentially the same no ?

Am I understanding this correctly. The template file is stitching with
control points, but all the batch project files will stitch without
controlpoints and thus need to be very precise (parallax, level etc..)
Is the template panorama better stitched because it ran the optimizer
which tweaked the images so they stitch ? and this is essentially what
I don't want in my batch projects to stay consistent, so I need to be
100% accurate when taking the pictures ?

[PTGui Support]

On 9-8-2011 9:54, FrankE wrote:
> Hi Joost, thanks for checking.
>
> The parallax I assume is the (d) and (e) parameter in the Lens
> settings tab ?

No it's not; d and e shift the center of the image. Parallax is
something different, it's a change in viewpoint of the camera.

If you want any kind of good results, all images in a panorama should be
shot from exactly the same viewpoint, that viewpoint being the entrance
pupil of the lens.

See John's tutorial:
http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm

> Is everything else I am doing in my template project ok ?
> The reason I ask is that the template stitches a different panorama
> than the first project, but they should be essentially the same no ?

The images in your second panorama overlap exactly in the same way as
the images in your first panorama. So they are being stitched in exactly
the same way.

Since one panorama looks good and another doesn't look good, there's an
inconsistency in your shooting. Parallax could be the reason for this:
parallax causes foreground objects to be aligned different from
background objects. If one of your panoramas contains foreground objects
and another panorama contains only background objects then I guess you
can understand what the problem might be?

Joost

[FrankE]

a quick follow up (I couldn't edit my previous post).

I copied and pasted all my lens correction parameters from the
template to the batch projects, and now they stitch perfect without
controlpoints.
But why are these lens settings not retained in the batch projects, I
do have "copy lens settings" enabled inside the projects tab ?

[PTGui Support]

Ah, yes, then I think I came to the wrong conclusion in my previous email.

In your template you should go to Project Settings, bottom section:
Disable 'use exif data to set the lens parameters'.

Otherwise all your generated panoramas will be initialized to 24.0mm
instead of using the lens settings from the template.

Joost

[FrankE]

Fantastic, I just tried it, and indeed, now all my pano's seem to be
stitched as they should, even with parallax correction and lens
corrections applied.

Many thanks !!