I think I wasted my money on PTGui

[Wanderer]

Some months ago I sold some gear and bought an 18Mpx Canon 550 D with
the proceeds. Similarly I sold gear and ought a Sigma 8-16 mm
rectilinear zoom lens, with which I am very impressed. I hoped to
photograph church, and particularly, cathedral interiors, no longer
having a 5”x4” that enabled me to shift the lens, and take multiple
images and stitch them. I use the lens only at the 8mm end.

I had photographed panoramas some years ago and stitched those in
Panorama Factory but I don’t have the wall space.

I have been trying to do this task for a couple of months ago. I
availed my self of PTGui’s free trial but was not successful.

I contacted PTGui and had, on 21 March 2011, a reply that said:

“The misalignments are due to parallax, so you do need to use a
panoramic
head for nodal point correction. This is always necessary regarding
of
the focal length.

Then after optimizing (Project - Optimize) you should be able to get
PTGui to report an average error in the order of 2 pixels or less.

Kind regards,

New House Internet Services BV
Joost Nieuwenhuijse”

I carried out the nodal point set-ups and persevered and was not
successful. I thought the problem was with me but, so that I could
see the images better, I bought the non-pro version paying £85.20 for
it. I think I have worn out my welcome at the church so am
photographing a high ceiling room at my house with black exposed
internal rafters and white panels with a small loft, flat soffit of
pine strips.

I have now spent the past week re-reading the web pages and trying to
make successful stitches but the seems always show and I cannot align
the by more and more accurate points. Optimiser seems to worsen
results not improve them. I find PTGui a very frustrating program
indeed.

So I cut back on my objectives to work with a landscape image and the
one above with a 30 degree upward tilt. This should give me fields of
view of 106 by 106 degrees, or thereabouts.

Still no success, whatever I try, the seems still show. Do I hear
you say that my nodal point must be wrong? Could be but, out of
frustration, I tried stitching in PS CS3 and in Panorama Factory. The
result: brilliant results but with a wider FOV in PS than PF.

So PTGui was a waste of money for me. It seems that I am similarly
frustrated as ‘realtyshoots’ in his post “is ptgui pro no good for
interior photos?”

Can someone prove I am wrong in all this? I am retired and cannot
afford to throw away £85.20 on software that does not work for me.

Wanderer

[John Houghton]

I'm sorry to hear you have had so little success with PTGui. If you
can upload a set of images somewhere (half size jpegs will be
sufficient) I'm sure I and others will be able to attempt a stitch and
come to some conclusions about the possible reasons for your
failures. Otherwise, we will just be guessing.

John

[PTGui Support]

Hi Wanderer,

If you just want your money back then let's not waste our time and
contact me at sup...@ptgui.com. I only want happy customers.

On the other hand if you're interested in solving the problem: If your
images are taken properly (no parallax faults) then PTGui will be able
to stitch them just fine, indoor or outdoor. My guess is that PTGui
assumes your lens is a fisheye while it is a rectilinear lens. See 3.3
for details:
http://www.ptgui.com/support.html#3_3

But that's just a guess. If you can make a zip file with your images
available I'd be happy to take a look. If you don't have a web server to
publish the file, use e.g. yousendit.com and send the file to
sup...@ptgui.com

Joost

On 17-4-2011 14:19, Wanderer wrote:
>
> Some months ago I sold some gear and bought an 18Mpx Canon 550 D with
> the proceeds. Similarly I sold gear and ought a Sigma 8-16 mm
> rectilinear zoom lens, with which I am very impressed. I hoped to
> photograph church, and particularly, cathedral interiors, no longer

> having a 5�x4� that enabled me to shift the lens, and take multiple

[wkaemena]

You never wasted money on PTgui!!

I am sure you are making a tiny error while working with PTgui and
this community is able to help you in no time to overcome your
initial problems.

Please be so kind and provide a set of pictures in Jpg for download
so that we can try to make a perfect and seamless panorama out of it
and/or instruct you what you have to do differently.

Willy

[Roger D. Williams]

On Sun, 17 Apr 2011 21:19:37 +0900, Wanderer <colinco...@aol.com>
wrote:

> Some months ago I sold some gear and bought an 18Mpx Canon 550 D with
> the proceeds. Similarly I sold gear and ought a Sigma 8-16 mm
> rectilinear zoom lens, with which I am very impressed. I hoped to
> photograph church, and particularly, cathedral interiors, no longer
> having a 5”x4” that enabled me to shift the lens, and take multiple
> images and stitch them. I use the lens only at the 8mm end.

I am glad you chose to share your disappointment with this group,
rather than just write off your purchase as a waste. You make the
comment in the right place... but don't be surprised if people
leap to the defence of PTgui, as this group consists mostly of
VERY satisfied users, like myself.

I too am retired, although I bought PTgui v2.0 years ago when I
had a great deal more disposable income. I can assure you that I
have seen PTgui regularly upgraded and become a truly superb
and very sophisticated tool for creating panoramas. I have bought
each upgrade when I was no longer entitled to free upgrades, and
have never regretted a single one. We are now up to v9.3!

Since there are so many of us who are happy with our purchase
it should occur to you that you may be doing something wrong, or
for some reason not getting the best out of it.

One thing immediately occurs to me. Most lenses with an 8mm
focal length are fisheye, not rectilinear. And PTgui assumes
that they are fisheye and sets things up accordingly. Most
of your problems might be solved by overriding the default
setting (which will work for most people who DON'T have an
8mm rectilinear lens), and selecting the correct "rectilinear"
setting.

Let's take it from there. I have been amazed and humbled by
the generous expert help I have received over the years in this
group. If you hang around, and can take and follow advice,
then you will probably become very happy with your purchase.

Roger W.

--
Work: www.adex-japan.com

[Wanderer]

Hi, Joost et al

I would like to shoot larger interiors, using PS CS 3 freeform etc. if
necessary, so I would like to see what you come up with. Two Jpegs
will follow shortly.

Let me describe my workflow. For portrait oriented images I use
Novoflex nodal point equipment with a Manfrotto micrometer slider.
For the landscape images that I will send to you, nodal point was
determined using an ‘L’ bracket on a sliding Manfrotto adjuster.
Please note that I am an Engineer so am fairly confident of the setup.

In both cases the adjusters are as level as I can make them for the
base image. I calibrated the images as set out in your FAQ and used
rectilinear for the 8mm saved settings of the lens, which I use in
PTGui processing.

I shoot raw and synchronised convert in Lightroom 3 ACR to TIF. The
parameters chosen are to use the ACR Sigma lens settings, no
sharpening, clarity at 60, linear tone control, noise reduction
suggested by Martin Evening as a good starting point. If and when I
get a good result I will merge bracketed images using Photomatix fuse.

I want to be a happy customer, but if not I would appreciate the
refund.

Wanderer

[Wanderer]

Hi, I have tried to load the two images to my website but they have
not appeared yet: maybe they are too large

http://www.colinconwayphotography.com/Galleries/Technical_Matters/index.html

What dimensions should the images be? Where do I upload them to?

Wanderer

[John Houghton]

If you haven't any private web space of your own, you can upload your
images to a free file hosting service such as:

http://sharesend.com
http://www.dropbox.com
http://www.filedropper.com
http://zshare.net

The images should be reasonable quality jpegs and can be full size or
half size. For handling convenience, you can zip them together into
one file (e.g. with 7-zip file manager).

John

On Apr 17, 3:46 pm, Wanderer <colinconway...@aol.com> wrote:
> Hi,  I have tried to load the two images to my website but they have
> not appeared yet: maybe they are too large
>

> http://www.colinconwayphotography.com/Galleries/Technical_Matters/ind...

> > > > Wanderer- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Joergen Geerds]

On Apr 17, 9:55 am, Wanderer <colinconway...@aol.com> wrote:
> I shoot raw and synchronised convert in Lightroom 3 ACR to TIF.  The
> parameters chosen are to use the ACR Sigma lens settings, no
> sharpening, clarity at 60, linear tone control, noise reduction
> suggested by Martin Evening as a good starting point.  If and when I
> get a good result I will merge bracketed images using Photomatix fuse.

Colin,

I assume you already have tried to set the lens type in ptgui:
in the project assistant or in the (advanced) lens settings tab, set
your lens to rectilinear (normal) lens and optimize again.

joergen
360nyc.com

[Wanderer]

Hi,

I think the images are here http://sharesend.com/u2vcs

Wanderer

On Apr 17, 3:57 pm, John Houghton <j.hough...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> If you haven't any private web space of your own, you can upload your
> images to a free file hosting service such as:
>

> http://sharesend.comhttp://www.dropbox.comhttp://www.filedropper.comhttp://zshare.net

[=Riefa=]

Hi Colin,

I am definitely not an expert, but here is what i get using your image:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/24956786/Colin.zip

Included also the PTGui pts file.

After loading the files to PTGui, I change the lens type to Rectilinear and set the focal length to 8mm. Then after aligning image, I set some manual control point plus vertical control point. Rectiliear projection also chosen at Panorama Editor window, then cropping on each side, and all done.

The original output could reach >8000pixels in height, but i resize to 2000pixels for easier uploading.

Hope it helps...and I'm pretty sure John, Willy, anyone which have replied in this thread will definitely give better solution for your case..:)

On 17 April 2011 22:28, Wanderer <colinco...@aol.com> wrote:

Hi,
 I think the images are here http://sharesend.com/u2vcs
 Wanderer

 

--
Riefa - IDP 117
www.idVR360.com

[John Houghton]

Thanks for uploading the images. Actually, they don't stitch too well
owing to parallax problems, visible in this area:

http://www.johnhpanos.com/wanderer.gif

These problams can be hidden to some extent, but the setup of the
panorama head needs to be improved to eliminate the parallax - or at
least minimize it. The entrance pupil may not be at a single point
for this ultra wide angle lens.

John

On Apr 17, 4:28 pm, Wanderer <colinconway...@aol.com> wrote:
> Hi,
>

> I think the images are herehttp://sharesend.com/u2vcs

>
> Wanderer
>
> On Apr 17, 3:57 pm, John Houghton <j.hough...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > If you haven't any private web space of your own, you can upload your
> > images to a free file hosting service such as:
>

> >http://sharesend.comhttp://www.dropbox.comhttp://www.filedropper.comh...

> > > - Show quoted text -- Hide quoted text -

[Joergen Geerds]

On Apr 17, 12:08 pm, John Houghton <j.hough...@ntlworld.com> wrote:
> http://www.johnhpanos.com/wanderer.gif
colin,
yes, that looks indeed like bad parallax error/bad NPP.

here are some tutorials how to find the NPP:
http://www.outline.be/quicktime/tuto/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWdIP67UZ0k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0HaRZi-FWs

florian's tutorial series about shooting panos, and stitching them in
ptgui:
http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=15B8C737F69319BE

and last, but not least, john's collection of great tutorials:
http://www.johnhpanos.com/tuts.htm

if all that doesn't help, ask for a refund from joost.

joergen
360nyc.com

[Wanderer]

The problems also show up in the pelmet of the left of the picture
window on the right (see John Houghton's result. These are the
problems I have been getting, and worse when the stitch occurs in
complex image areas, or more images than just two. As I wasn't able
to open his .pts file I don't know where his stitch lay. How do I do
this?

I am glad you have confirmed my problem. But how to solve it?


Wanderer

PS I won't be able to get back to this tonight.

[John Houghton]

On Apr 17, 5:41 pm, Wanderer <colinconway...@aol.com> wrote:
> I am glad you have confirmed my problem.  But how to solve it?

I'm not clear on how the camera is mounted. For these shots, the
camera needs to be rotated up and down about the entrance pupil
position so that the entrance pupil remains fixed. It's weird that
the parallax shift is horizontal yet the camera rotation is vertical!
A photo of your setup would clarify things, perhaps.

John

[Erik Krause]

Am 17.04.2011 18:08, schrieb John Houghton:

> http://www.johnhpanos.com/wanderer.gif
>
> These problams can be hidden to some extent, but the setup of the
> panorama head needs to be improved to eliminate the parallax - or at
> least minimize it. The entrance pupil may not be at a single point
> for this ultra wide angle lens.

I doubt this large parallax is caused by NPP (no-parallax-point) shift.
The objects are several meters away and the distance between background
and foreground objects is less than the distance from the camera to the
foreground object. This would mean that the NPP was changed more than
the apparent movement of the foreground object relative to the
background. I suspect the NPP was moved at least some centimeters
between the shots. Which would indicate that the panorama head was set
up completely wrong.

Wanderer, could you show some images from your panorama head setup?

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

[Willy Kaemena GM]

I stitched the 2 photos here is the result:

http://homepage.mac.com/wkaemena/Forenfotos/CanonLensWanderer.jpg

Willy

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[John Houghton]

On Apr 17, 11:05 pm, Erik Krause <erik.kra...@gmx.de> wrote:
> I suspect the NPP was moved at least some centimeters
> between the shots. Which would indicate that the panorama head was set
> up completely wrong.

I suspect that the entrance pupil movement was largely backwards, as
would happen if a pan & tilt head was used to pan upwards for
example. In efect, the angle of view would tend to increase. I tried
optimizing with individual lens parameters for the upwards shot and
that improved matters. Smartblend was then able to find a good route
for the seam and produced a very good stitch:

http://www.johnhpanos.com/wanderer.jpg

John

[Wanderer]

First, I would like to thank all those who responded positively to
identifying and providing tips towards resolving my problem – I truly
appreciate it.

Prompted by John Houghton I have reviewed my set-up. The gear that I
bought some years ago now will continue to serve me well with my
horizontal panoramas but it is not well suite to large rotations
around the horizontal nodal point, particularly with such a wide-angle
lens – the distance moved is too great. If I could afford it I would
upgrade.

Mindful of Joost’s offer to refund my money if the matter is closed
quickly, I will ask for him to refund my money. In turn I will remove
my licensed version of PTGui from my PC and never reinstall it without
paying the fee.

If I do buy the required hardware at some time, I shall use the trial
version to see how I get on.

It is apparent to me that this list has some very helpful members, but
I will not contribute to this thread again.

Sincerely,

Colin Conway aka Wanderer

[Willy Kaemena GM]

you should have bought a 8mm fisheye lens e.g. Sigma, then you could have captured the whole room in only 4 shots.... instead of this weird Canon Zoom lens

Willy

[ozbigben]

Before you give up completely, if the exposure times aren't too long
to make shooting handheld impractical you could try doing it handheld
with some very low tech (cheap) equipment. e.g.
http://archive.bigben.id.au/tutorials/360/photo/tripod.html I still
use my "philopod" for most of my outdoor work. The one photographed
on this page lasted 10 years until the string eventually became too
worn. I now use a slightly modified version using a hair tie (lasts
longer than a rubber band), a keyring-sized carabiner (easier to
attach/detach than a small curtain hook). The fishing sinker is the
only remaining original bit of kit ;-)

You will still get some parallax errors but they will be much smaller
than any tilting from a tripod head.

Ben

[gravityimage]

Hi, I would be happy to help you put together a rotator at almost no
cost so you could enjoy the fun and rewarding challenges of VR
photography. Email me at gravit...@mac.com
Bill

On Apr 18, 6:08 am, ozbigben <ozbig...@gmail.com> wrote:
>  Before you give up completely, if the exposure times aren't too long
> to make shooting handheld impractical you could try doing it handheld

> with some very low tech (cheap) equipment.  e.g.http://archive.bigben.id.au/tutorials/360/photo/tripod.html I still

[Huck]

Although I don't really have anything concrete to offer I just wanted to say that as a very unsophisticated user of PTGui, I have gotten very good results over several years, even when I was terrible about setup (taking many panoramas handheld).  I just wanted to say that I love PTGui and I'm sorry to hear that Wanderer had a bad experience.

 

Huck