How to import control points from Autopano Giga 3.08 to PTGUI 10

[Tom]

I am using PTGUI  - currently version 10.0.2 -  for stitching gigapixel panoramas (of 2000 and more images). In summer the landscape panoramas are often a bit hazy and contrast is lacking - in particular near the horizon. Here PTGUI  has still difficulties finding control points.  I found that Autopano Giga in this case does a significantly better job, often it can find  control points even on a cloudy sky (some structure is necessary of course...).
So, I tried to use  the Autopano control point import functions in the "Control Points" menu of PTGUI.  However, there is a problem. Autopano Giga starts, shows the selected images, calculates the control points and finishes the search (the window remains open) ... Only PTGUI doesn't seem to recognize that Autopano has finished the control point search. The progress bar in PTGUI newer reaches the 100 percent. I've also tried with a very small number of images -  even with 5 images doesn't finish the job. Should the control points be transferred automatically to PTGUI, or do I have to save the control points on the Autopano side?

Maybe I could use Autopano at the begin and export the autopano project with the control points to PTGUI. Is this possible?

Best regards

Tom

[PTGui Support]

Hi Tom,

AutoPano in the Plugins menu is intended for this old autopano plugin:
http://autopano.kolor.com
It certainly doesn't work with AP Giga. They might have an export to
Panotools format, but I'm not sure. The panotools format can be opened
by PTGui, or you could just copy/paste the control point data into a
PTGui project file in a text editor.

Also could you provide me with a couple of images for which the control
point generator is failing to find control points?

Kind regards,

New House Internet Services BV
Joost Nieuwenhuijse

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[Michel Thoby]

Le 9 août 2014 à 11:02, PTGui Support <sup...@ptgui.com> a écrit :

Hi Tom,

(….) They might have an export to Panotools format, but I'm not sure. (….)

(Tested with APG 3.0.8 and 3.6.3 => PTGui Pro 10.0.3)

Indeed APG proposes [export to PanoTools] format as an option. And the resulting project script file ('.pts' is the default suffix) can be subsequently opened in PTGui. 

Some "post-PT era" features, written by APG on the project file can be weirdly mis-interpreted by PTGui (e.g. different lenses or lens types, viewpoint correction, etc.). However and especially in a typical canonical case (i.e. rectilinear lens, single focal length, panorama shot from the center of the sphere at the lens NPP…), an acceptable starting configuration is thus created:  all APG-detected CP are preserved at the correct location and ready to be used by PTGui.

 

The CP distance error column in the Control Points tab table is however empty at this stage in PTGui: an optimization run (after rectification of wrongly-interpreted various settings) is thus required if one wants to continue with the nominal process in PTGui from there on.

Michel

[Tom]

Hi Joost, Michel,

thanks for quick replies.
I got it working, and the result looks very nice (though I have only seen the preview with reduced resolution).
I used the regular grid feature (gigapan import) of APG to find the CPs in the 2000 images. Then I did the export to panotools.
PTGui can read  the file, however initially i had some problems with the image orientations...I realized that it can be necessary to change the image orientation in the EXIF file... That was the only problem. Since APG did actually find only a few control points in the sky-parts of the image I had to do a few minor adjustments - i.e. I've shifted a few images to "align the clouds".Then I did an optimization. Finally I applied the vignetting correction - which is working fine in PTGui. Currently I am stitiching the complete panorama with a size of 200000x43756 pixels - PTGui 10 is really fast..........

@ Joost:
I've uploaded  a few colums of the panorama (only available as JPGs) to my dropbox folder:
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/1006uce1pqa9zvq/AADgiKLxkLImRIO7C8C1IwfUa

Best regards
Tom

[Eranga Fernando]

Hi Tom,

I know this is an old question. But I am facing a similar problem when importing the APG projects to PTGui. I exported the projects to PanoTools but the images are rotated. I tried several combinations of rotations, but I couldn't get it right. Can you tell me how you rotated your images?

Regards

Eranga