Spherical Panorama with Samyang 14mm - not working at all

[Jan Offert]

Hello,

I am using a Samyang 14mm lens on a Canon 5dMKII. All setup on a tripod with panohead. Nadir and Parallax should be correct (maybe not. I am a total beginner). I am shooting all manual using 6H+1Z+1N Images. I also tried two rows with +30/-30° and N+Z. Result: Even more chaos *g*

After import into PTGui I'm disabling automatic lens parameters and enter a focal length of 14.(I also set Tools>Options>Exif to 10mm). After "Align Images" I do get missing control points. I have to add quite a lot but event then no matter how hard I try I am not even getting close to a panorama. The images are sometimes not correct linked as well (they are not beside each other). The control points have very large distances like sometime over 120 but lots of 20+. The "matching" control points are sometimes even in a black area with no image at all.

I have here a test shot (5MB): https://copy.com/BFdR4tudg34NTgBW. I guess createing a spherical panorama with these images is near to impossible because setting control points for nadir and zenith are hard to find if not impossible. Not sure about that. But even if I try to create a normal 360 cylindrical panorama I don't get anywhere.

What am I doing wrong? Can anyone provide some test images made with the Samyang 14mm and maybe a template file for PTGui. Maybe I can "reverse engineer" my problem.

Best,
Jan

[PTGui Support]

Hi Jan,

Sorry for the delay, your posting got caught in Google's spam filter and
I only just noticed.

I managed to get a decent stitch, here's my project file:
http://ge.tt/2wnd8bC2/v/0
You can place the .pts file in the folder with your source images and
open it in PTGui.

The main problem is that PTGui assumes your 14mm lens is a fisheye,
while it in fact is a rectilinear (regular) lens. For details see 3.3:
http://www.ptgui.com/support.html#3_3

With the correct lens type Align Images will get a decent alignment,
except for the sky and floor images. You need to add control points
manually.

Further I've masked out the tripod and applied a bit of tone mapping
(but this only works in the Pro version).

Hope this helps, if you still run into problems just let us know here.

Joost

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[John Houghton]

Jan, I got a good stitch and the project file is uploaded at http://ge.tt/11DDibC2/v/0?c .

One thing that you should be aware of is that one of your two nadir shots appears to be upside down.  This is due to the orientation sensor not working when the camera is pointing directly up or down.  You would expect the vertical rail to be on the same side of the image in the two shots if all you are doing is rotating the head round between the shots.  The reason it matters is that the lens shift parameters need to be consistently applied to the two images.  If one is upside down, the corrections are applied in the opposite direction.  I assumed that the camera was mounted to the left of the vertical rail (looking from the back).  So I rotated image 7 by 180 degrees before input to PTGui.  That does improve the optimization results significantly.  (NB. My project file uses the rotated image 7).

John

[Erik Krause]

Am 20.03.2015 um 11:17 schrieb PTGui Support:

> The main problem is that PTGui assumes your 14mm lens is a fisheye,
> while it in fact is a rectilinear (regular) lens

Joost, since this problem occurs quite often, wouldn't it be a good idea
to have an optional warning (turned on by default), if focal length is
in the "twilight zone" (lets say between 11mm and 17mm)? Something along
the lines of "If your panorama looks weird, PTGui possibly assumes the
wrong lens type. Either choose the lens type manually or go to Tools ->
Options..."

regards
Erik

[John Houghton]

Oops, I just realised  that the project file I uploaded was the wrong one.  This is the proper version: http://ge.tt/4zVR1cC2/v/0?c 

[Roger D Williams]

A simpler and therefore possibly clearer message would be "PTgui associates this focal length with fisheye lenses. Click (here) if yours is not."

Roger W.

Sent from my iPad

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[Jan Offert]

Joost,

thank you for your kind help and reply. However I am still getting nowhere. I already had the lens set to recilinear. But after I click align images I get the note "PTGUI has analyzed your images but was not able to match all of them". Even by adding some control points - which is quite hard for the Nadir and Zenith - I can't get a working stitch. Is there anything else I could check?

Jan

[Erik Krause]

Am 23.03.2015 um 18:52 schrieb Jan Offert:

> I can't get a working stitch. Is there anything else I could check?

You got two working project files. Did you try them? You also got advice
from John to rotate the nadir image manually, since it has the wrong
orientation. Did you do that?

I get a good stitch automatically if I omit the zenith and nadir images.
I add them later and position them roughly in the pano editor. There is
a green object in the corner of both nadir images and in image 0 you can
set one or two control points on, then optimize to roughly align the images.

Then on Control Points tab I image 7 in the left pane and use "Generate
Control Points Here" feature to generate control points at the bottom of
images 0-5 in right pane (shift drag an area in the image, then right
click into it). Repeat with image 8 or better generate control points
for images 7 and 8 only (open in left and right pane and press Ctrl+Shift+G)

Even without rotating the second nadir image I get a "Good" from the
optimizer. If I choose Viewpoint Correction on Optimizer tab (Pro
version only) for the nadir images, I get a "Very Good".

BTW.: With the long protruding arm in both directions the second
opposite nadir image is almost useless. Better shoot the second image at
90° from the first one.

--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[Jan Offert]

Eric,

thank you for your help.
Yes I tried the project file. It works flawlessly. But if I try it on my own even if I omit zenith and nadir I just end up with a mess. The focal length in the first tab switches from 14mm (what I entered and of course "rectilinear (normal lens)") to some rediculous values of over 100 or 200 mm plus the control point assisant says that some points have a large optimization error. I find it also very confusing why the result changes each time I click on "align images" (of course after changeing back to the correct lens settings first). Plus even if I restart and redo everything the result differs - showing another strange lens value after align images.

Thank's for the nadir image tip. Will do in the future. Makes sense.

Jan

[Erik Krause]

Am 23.03.2015 um 23:17 schrieb Jan Offert:
> But if I try it on my own even if I omit zenith and nadir I just end up
> with a mess.

If I do the following I get a nice result:
- Load the first 6 images.
- Set Lens to rectilinear and focal length to 14mm.
- Don't press Align Images!
- Press Ctrl+E to go to Pano Editor
- Set output to spherical by pressing Ctrl+Shift+H
- Generate control points for all images by pressing Ctrl+Alt+G
- Press F5 to optimize.
(All keystrokes have corresponding menu entries)

Then add the missing images and proceed as written before.

[John Houghton]

On Monday, March 23, 2015 at 10:17:23 PM UTC, Jan Offert wrote:

Eric,

thank you for your help.
Yes I tried the project file. It works flawlessly. But if I try it on my own even if I omit zenith and nadir I just end up with a mess.

Jan, Using the  _MG_6202x image set, I also get a good result from using Align Images after loading in only the first six images. Things going awry is usually down to control points generation/assignment and the difference between the results obtained by you and Erik and myself might be due to the number of points generated.  I normally have the maximum number of points generated per image pair set to 20 on Tools->Options->Control Point Generator.  You probably have a different value specified by default.  I tried setting a limit of 100 and I then found that Align Images produced a bad result, so you might want to try using 20 and see if that makes a difference.

Otherwise, see the detailed instructions for manual stitching that I posted in your previous topic "PTGUI Spherical Panorama Problem" - March 17.

John

[PTGui Support]

Hi Jan,

If you would like me to take a look: after every step save the project
under a new file name. Make the set of pts files available for download.
If I open the pts files in sequence I can follow along.

And please try without the nadir and zenith images first for simplicity.

Kind regards,

New House Internet Services BV
Joost Nieuwenhuijse

-----------------------------------------------
PTGui - Photo Stitching Software

www.ptgui.com
For support see: http://www.ptgui.com/faq/
-----------------------------------------------

> <https://copy.com/BFdR4tudg34NTgBW>. I

> > guess createing a spherical panorama with these images is near to
> > impossible because setting control points for nadir and zenith
> are hard
> > to find if not impossible. Not sure about that. But even if I try to
> > create a normal 360 cylindrical panorama I don't get anywhere.
> >
> > What am I doing wrong? Can anyone provide some test images made
> with the
> > Samyang 14mm and maybe a template file for PTGui. Maybe I can
> "reverse
> > engineer" my problem.
> >
> > Best,
> > Jan
> >
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> > Groups "PTGui" group.
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> > ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com <javascript:>

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> files
> > at a file sharing site (for example http://ge.tt/ ) and include a
> link
> > in your message.
> > For more options, visit this group at
> http://groups.google.com/group/ptgui
> <http://groups.google.com/group/ptgui>
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[a.re...@gmail.com]

Hello Everybody,

It worked! Thank you all for your patience! Haven't expierenced this kind of help for quite a while in other forums out there.

I tried the other proposals of Eric and John and still couldn't get results. So I thought there must be something totally wrong. I uninstalled it and also realized I was still on version 10.0.11 so I downloaded the latest version as well. Uninstalled erverything plus registry entries. Reinstalled the new version and boom! Result without any problem. Anyway with your tips I will try to improve my nadir shots now.

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