Insta360 Pro 2 AEB Stitching

[Pete Wagner]

Hello Everyone,

On the Insta360 Pro 2 I am trying to get the stitching to work with multiple exposures, like 3 and 5 for HDR. On the Insta360 website they provide a PTGui profile but it only works for one exposure of 6 images, not multiple exposures. I know the Pro 2 arranges it's various exposures out of an ordinary order as opposed to a DSLR.

Does anyone have a profile that works with AEB for this camera? I read there are parallax issues with PTGui but it does stitch fine with just one exposure set of 6 images with the profile provided on the website. I just don't want to separate them all into different folders to stitch each exposure set!

Thanks in advance,

Pete

[PTGui Support]

Hi Pete,

I think all you need to do is to rearrange the images such that all
image positions are grouped together in the same exposure sequence. Do
this before pressing Align Images. PTGui should ask you if you want to
enable HDR mode.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

> --
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google
> Groups "PTGui Support" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send
> an email to ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com
> <mailto:ptgui+un...@googlegroups.com>.
> To view this discussion on the web visit
> https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/6bb09cc8-ccbb-4bf5-addd-4021acf270cen%40googlegroups.com
> <https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/ptgui/6bb09cc8-ccbb-4bf5-addd-4021acf270cen%40googlegroups.com?utm_medium=email&utm_source=footer>.

[Pete Wagner]

Joost,

I've tried that and what ends up happening are stitching issues in the dark exposures due to minimal control points. It's time consuming to rearrange the files when there can be up to 50 panos to stitch. Thanks for the suggestion either way. I'll keep playing with the software.

Regards,

Pete

[John Houghton]

On Monday, August 23, 2021 at 11:46:53 AM UTC+1 cap...@gmail.com wrote:

Joost,

I've tried that and what ends up happening are stitching issues in the dark exposures due to minimal control points.

Pete,  If you are shooting with the camera mounted on a firm support, then you link the images in each bracketed set so that they will be automatically precisely aligned with each other.  Any stitching issues should affect all images in a set equally.  It is to be expected that grossly over/under exposed images in a bracketed set will likely have few features visible for control points, but that shouldn't matter provided that there are adequate control points created on other images.

John

[Pete Wagner]

John,

Yes, the camera is mounted firm - the beauty is it takes all six 360 angles all at once. To compare, with my dslr I would take 3 hdr of four angles (12 exposures). PTGui would take all 12 images and produce an equirectangular image that's hdr'ed and stitched, all in one process which is what it's designed to do and does a great job. However with with Pro 2 sequence of 6 images and the aeb exposures, PTGui doesn't know what to do with them. It will stitch a set of 6 only if they are the same exposure and only if there are 6 images. This PTGui profile was provided on the Insta360 website. It's when you introduce the other aeb exposures that throws it off.

I'm using the default Insta360 Stitcher and it stitched fine but the output is not sharp and there are no hdr controls. I've been using PTGui for years and know it's a great platform to hopefully continue using.

Thanks for imputing your ideas!

Pete

[John Houghton]

Pete, Joost has already explained what you need to do.  You can take a project that stitches just the 0ev set of images (using the available template project file), and then add all the remaining images of the individual bracketed sets.  They then need to be ordered such that the sets of bracketed images each have the images in the same ordered sequence of exposures and therefore can be linked together.  Can you explain the file naming convention used for the camera images, or better still - make a complete set of jpeg images  available for download.  It may be that you can batch rename the images using a script or utility such that when all the renamed images are loaded into PTGui, they end up sorted into the required order for HDR processing.

John

[Pete Wagner]

John,

Per Joost's recommendation that does work with the exception of the darkest exposures where it cannot find ample control points. I have separated the exposures and have somewhat successfully made it work. Another concern is the prep time organizing and batch renaming the files. Here is my current workflow:

1. Batch export each stitched aeb equirectangular image with Insta360 Stitcher.

2. Batch hdr process each stitched aeb equirectangular set (from step 1) in Photomatix.

This workflow creates a great looking image to my specs. I will continue doing it this way if needed but I was actually hoping PTGUI could do all this in one shot like with my dslr pano images. The only control I don't have with the Pro 2 is the parallax adjustment. With my dslr it's dead on and PTGui has zero stitching issues. I have read that the Pro 2 software is designed for this model and have the parameters to adjust for the parallax offset. On this thread I was basically looking for someone that has already created a similar profile that works.

I'm in the field today but will send a few screen shots tonight to illustrate what I'm referring to.

Pete

[Philip Chong]

If this is shot in DNG (better  dynamic range), you can make as many smart copy of that one photo, say one to do the highlights and shadows using luminosity masking. I usually do double or triple processing.

[PTGui Support]

Hi Pete,

On 23/08/2021 16:41, Pete Wagner wrote:
> John,
> Per Joost's recommendation that does work with the exception of the
> darkest exposures where it cannot find ample control points. I have

This should not happen.

Make sure the images have been reordered in the repeating exposure
sequence as expected by PTGui. Then do Images -> Link HDR Bracketed
Exposures. In the dialog box, select the option for linking the
positions of the images. If PTGui says it couldn't detect a repeating
sequence, then the order must be wrong.

The same happens if you press Align Images: PTGui should pop up a
message about bracketed exposures. If not, the order is wrong.

When the images are linked, the darkest exposures don't need to have
control points.

> on and PTGui has zero stitching issues. I have read that the Pro 2
> software is designed for this model and have the parameters to adjust
> for the parallax offset. On this thread I was basically looking for
> someone that has already created a similar profile that works.

To be honest I don't think PTGui is suitable for stitching Insta360 Pro
images, the parallax is just too severe, especially indoors.

Joost

[Pete Wagner]

Joost,

I just read elsewhere and after trying several new adjustments with lens parameters that you're correct about the parallax issue. The Insta360 Stitcher does compensate for this and is a factor PTGui appears to be unable to adjust. I also found Mistika VR does the job and is an insta360 software. I will however continue to use the PGTui platform for my dslr images.

Thanks to all for taking the time to assist with this matter.

Regards,

Pete

[Erik Krause]

Am 24.08.21 um 02:43 schrieb Pete Wagner:

> The Insta360 Stitcher does compensate for this and is a factor PTGui
> appears to be unable to adjust.

They call it optical flow stitching, which is a technique mainly used in
video stabilization and synthetic slow motion. That is, they try to warp
the images such, that they fit. For this to work foreground and
background need to be warped differently. This can work well in some
cases but horribly fail in others, especially since parallax can hide
details in one image that are needed in the other.

PTGui in contrast tries to route seams around details such that they are
not cut. This can fail, too, if f.e. a detail that doesn't fit runs
across the whole image.

So it depends, as always. However, PTGui won't stretch or compress image
details like optical flow would.

--
Erik Krause

[Pete Wagner]

That explains it. I see the term optical flow stitching frequently. Thanks.