Feature request: Exclude unused images.

[Erik Krause]

Hello Joost,

A way to exclude unused images would be great!

Background: Shooting handheld panoramas involves shooting with large
overlap. After aligning, masking, etc., some images may become
superfluous, the blender will not use them. Removing those images from
the panorama might improve the result, since unnecessary control points
are also removed. Finding these images manually is tedious. Therefore,
an option (menu item) to remove unused images would be desirable.
--
Erik Krause
http://www.erik-krause.de

[PTGui Support]

Hi Erik,

I'll add it to the wish list. Removing those images would affect the
seams though, so it will have side effects.

Kind regards,

Joost Nieuwenhuijse
www.ptgui.com

[Erik Krause]

Am 08.07.24 um 13:31 schrieb 'PTGui Support' via PTGui Support:

> I'll add it to the wish list. Removing those images would affect the
> seams though, so it will have side effects.

I wouldn't expect that, since if seams are placed optimally (and only in
this case it makes sense) a superfluous image has no seams to other
images at all. How would this influence other seams? However, if this is
the case, it clearly shows that there will be no holes if the image is
omitted, so even if seams are routed a bit differently there will still
be no holes.

But I'm aware that there are problems with control points. I just had
the case that two images were connected only by control points in a
third one, which didn't contribute to the result. But removing this
image, on the other hand, would simplify the project and hence possibly
improve the result. Of course it would be best to first exclude them, to
see what goes on.

I had this effect in one of my multi-viewpoint panoramas, shot from
different locations around a mountain top. I shot 50 images in total and
after I removed 27 superfluous ones the result improved dramatically.
Thanks to the highlight contributing images feature in v13b8, I could at
least identify them, but it was still tedious.

Of course I had to generate CPs between the then orphaned images. They
were probably not generated automatically because 13b8 now doesn't
create CPs between non-adjacent images. Hence it might be a good idea to
have this feature configurable.

--
Erik Krause

[PTGui Support]

On 08-07-2024 15:05, 'Erik Krause' via PTGui Support wrote:
> Am 08.07.24 um 13:31 schrieb 'PTGui Support' via PTGui Support:
>
>> I'll add it to the wish list. Removing those images would affect the
>> seams though, so it will have side effects.
>
> I wouldn't expect that, since if seams are placed optimally (and only in
> this case it makes sense) a superfluous image has no seams to other
> images at all. How would this influence other seams?

The superfluous image does take part in the seam calculation process,
even though it gets discarded. I think there are cases PTGui might have
chosen a different seam without it.

And if you remove the image and its control points, the alignment
changes, which will certainly affect the seams.

> Of course I had to generate CPs between the then orphaned images. They
> were probably not generated automatically because 13b8 now doesn't
> create CPs between non-adjacent images. Hence it might be a good idea to
> have this feature configurable.

Yes I think that's the reason. You can disable this in Project Settings,
under Align Images behavior.

Joost

[Erik Krause]

Am 08.07.2024 um 23:12 schrieb 'PTGui Support' via PTGui Support:

> The superfluous image does take part in the seam calculation process,
> even though it gets discarded. I think there are cases PTGui might have
> chosen a different seam without it.

Ok.

> And if you remove the image and its control points, the alignment
> changes, which will certainly affect the seams.

That's the goal. In those high-parallax situations, any superfluous
image might degrade the alignment of the others.

>> Of course I had to generate CPs between the then orphaned images. They
>> were probably not generated automatically because 13b8 now doesn't
>> create CPs between non-adjacent images. Hence it might be a good idea to
>> have this feature configurable.

> Yes I think that's the reason. You can disable this in Project Settings,
> under Align Images behavior.

Sorry, I should have looked before posting.