Error while creating pano

[Geoffrey LORD]

Hey,
I have been trying to create a 100+ gigapixel pano these past few days. After having waited hours for the import, alignment etc, I got to the Create Panorama stage. 
After 6h of creation and getting very close to filling my SSD with temp files (2TB before creating and 1+TB during creation, for a total of almost 3,5TB. I only had 200GB left, perhaps that's a problem for the software), an error appeared multiple times. See screenshot.
 
However, since the program was still running, I waited and 1h later, the export finished and the tiff was created. 
Is my file ok? Corrupt? I'm asking because I've been trying to convert it to web/openseadragon js viewer for the entire day and the software I'm using, GigaPXTools, is constantly freezing/crashing, which is not behaviour I've seen before, even with a 35 gigapixel image.
Can you specify what that error was and if my file is ok? I could do it again but it would take the entire day and night so I would rather ask first haha...
Thanks, 
Geoffrey

[PTGui Support]

Hi Geoffrey,

Those errors in the popup window originate from the panorama editor. If
an error occurs during stitching, the stitching would be aborted and you
would see a modal error window (which you have to click OK before you
can do anything).

So I the file would probably be fine.

But do note that the TnhspTask errors indicate that something unexpected
happened, related to GPU processing. So there may be a problem somewhere
in your system.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

On 9/2/26 20:25, Geoffrey LORD wrote:
> Hey,
> I have been trying to create a 100+ gigapixel pano these past few days.
> After having waited hours for the import, alignment etc, I got to the
> Create Panorama stage.
> After 6h of creation and getting very close to filling my SSD with temp
> files (2TB before creating and 1+TB during creation, for a total of
> almost 3,5TB. I only had 200GB left, perhaps that's a problem for the
> software), an error appeared multiple times. See screenshot.

> image (19).png
> However, since the program was still running, I waited and 1h later, the
> export finished and the tiff was created.
> Is my file ok? Corrupt? I'm asking because I've been trying to convert
> it to web/openseadragon js viewer for the entire day and the software
> I'm using, GigaPXTools, is constantly freezing/crashing, which is not
> behaviour I've seen before, even with a 35 gigapixel image.
> Can you specify what that error was and if my file is ok? I could do it
> again but it would take the entire day and night so I would rather ask
> first haha...
> Thanks,
> Geoffrey
>

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[Geoffrey LORD]

Ok, that's reassuring! Thanks for the info. 
From what I remember, I tried moving the pano editor window while watching a video and while screensharing in a video call? Perhaps that caused my GPU to have a heart attack, too many heavy visual processes at once. 

Also, I have some questions about temp files:

-from what I've seen, my temp folder is filled with roughly as many files as the number of images taken, and each of these files varies in size but most of them weigh around 1GB. Is that normal?
For reference, my images weigh around 100MB. Just want to check if I'm doing everything right in my workflow or if I can change some settings to reduce that size. 
As you can imagine, the temp folder quickly becomes massive with such a large number of images to work on. 

-for this project, and multiple other projects that involved hundreds or thousands of images, I couldn't afford to spend the time to import, align, edit and export images all in one go (this is my work pc, I sometimes can't use all my other programs while PTGui is doing things + I don't want to slow down PTGui or make it crash by doing something else at the same time).
That means that I sometimes import during the night, then leave the program open during the entire day and align, and then create pano during the next night.
Does leaving the program open for that long create issues with temp files or ram or anything else? What if I put my PC to sleep with the PTGui open?

Another thing that I noticed, thanks to a gadget on my desktop (screenshot), was that my Windows page file would increase in size if I started doing other things with my PC while PTGui is open in the background with images loaded (which I would do in the mentioned scenario during the day). The counter example: if I turn on my pc, only use PTGui and keep the computer focused on it, ram stays full and regular temp files are created, without getting the page file involved. 

Why ask all of this? Well, I really didn't expect to almost run out of space during this project and noticed that there were more temp files being created during pano creation, when I had only ever noticed it during images import or alignment before. I had never noticed that during creation.
My theory was that I had left the program open for too long and had done too many other things, which required PTGui to recreate other temp files because it couldn't use or had forgotten about the previous ones.
I hope, for the sake of my SSD health, that this theory is completely crazy 😊
I suspect that a some (all?) of this behaviour comes down to Windows ram allocation and storage rules, not PTGui. 

Best regards,
Geoffrey

[PTGui Support]

On 9/2/26 23:45, Geoffrey LORD wrote:
> Ok, that's reassuring! Thanks for the info.
> From what I remember, I tried moving the pano editor window while
> watching a video and while screensharing in a video call? Perhaps that
> caused my GPU to have a heart attack, too many heavy visual processes at
> once.

Yes that could be.

> Also, I have some questions about temp files:
>
> -from what I've seen, my temp folder is filled with roughly as many
> files as the number of images taken, and each of these files varies in

> size but most of them weigh around 1GB. *Is that normal? *

No the number and size of the temp files are not directly related to the
source images.

PTGui uses temp files as a giant backing store. It initially creates
smaller files, gradually increasing the size of newly created temp files
as needed.

> For reference, my images weigh around 100MB. Just want to check if I'm
> doing everything right in my workflow or if I can change some settings
> to reduce that size.
> As you can imagine, the temp folder quickly becomes massive with such a
> large number of images to work on.

There's not much you can do to reduce temp size (except for reducing the
size of the panorama).

> -for this project, and multiple other projects that involved hundreds or
> thousands of images, I couldn't afford to spend the time to import,
> align, edit and export images all in one go (this is my work pc, I
> sometimes can't use all my other programs while PTGui is doing things +
> I don't want to slow down PTGui or make it crash by doing something else
> at the same time).
> That means that I sometimes import during the night, then leave the
> program open during the entire day and align, and then create pano
> during the next night.

> *Does leaving the program open for that long create issues with temp

> files or ram or anything else? What if I put my PC to sleep with the

> PTGui open? *

No this should cause no issues. PTGui will only increase temp usage when
needed. If it's done aligning or stitching, it will just sit and wait.
It can release most of the temp space when done.

> Another thing that I noticed, thanks to a gadget on my desktop
> (screenshot), was that my Windows page file would increase in size if I
> started doing other things with my PC while PTGui is open in the
> background with images loaded (which I would do in the mentioned
> scenario during the day). The counter example: if I turn on my pc, only
> use PTGui and keep the computer focused on it, ram stays full and
> regular temp files are created, without getting the page file involved.

> ram gadget.png
> Why ask all of this? Well, I really didn't expect to almost run out of
> space during this project and noticed that there were more temp files
> being created during pano creation, when I had only ever noticed it
> during images import or alignment before. I had never noticed that
> during creation.

Panorama creation requires significant temp space. You can see the
panorama as a giant canvas, which PTGui paints the images on. The canvas
needs to be kept somewhere during stitching. If you have enough RAM or
the panorama is small, then it is kept entirely in RAM. But otherwise,
PTGui will swap parts of this canvas between ram and temporary files.
When done stitching, the canvas is written to the output file and the
space is no longer needed.

> My theory was that I had left the program open for too long and had done
> too many other things, which required PTGui to recreate other temp files
> because it couldn't use or had forgotten about the previous ones.
> I hope, for the sake of my SSD health, that this theory is completely
> crazy 😊
> I suspect that a some (all?) of this behaviour comes down to Windows ram
> allocation and storage rules, not PTGui.

I don't think you need to worry about your SSD, such degradation occurs
but it will take years.

PTGui manages its own temporary files. If it runs out of the
(configured) RAM limit, it will use temp files. If you use other
applications at the same time, then you may run out of RAM and Windows
will start using the page file. This can really slow down your computer,
as the two applications may start to fight for active RAM. You can tell
PTGui to use less RAM in Options/Advanced, but this will of course slow
down stitching.

Joost

[Geoffrey LORD]

I see, thanks for all these insights, it helps understand what's going on!
Geoffrey