ALIGN TO GRID : How to force PTGUI to "USE ALL ROWS"? (PTGUI is not doing so) . . .

[Robin Hood]

Hello Joost / Erik . . .

I've been repeating multi-row pano's (4 x 7 180°) whilst monitoring a construction build for the site manager adjacent to our high-rise.  I've been using 'align to grid' on the assumed premise that the difficult no-parallax issues of the top row of 7 would be forced to align through the full 28 image designation. I also shift-clicked all top 7 images and selected 'include in panorama'. The top 7 images are still skipped. Can this command be given full rights to force the missing row to be used?

All images on the top row have plenty of control points - the pupil entry point is correct, all equipment is 100% level.

I'm baffled as to why PTGUI is so consistently skipping the top row in its entirety? WHY?
I always assumed 'Align to grid' was an emergency measure to be used with problem stitching. I don't understand why, when I've selected 4x7 rows (28), why only 21 rows are implemented.

Could there be a new option added? 'USE ALL ROWS' because selecting the top row and shift-clicking; 'use in panorama', the full row is still consistently skipped . . . If the top row is used successfully then control points can be improved later, but not if none of the top row of 7 images show up. This problem has been consistent throughout the construction monitoring. I need that extra row of sky because the ratio is more pleasing to the panorama when the sky balances everything else - that fourth row makes all the difference (when it works). I could use a wider angle but the site manager prefers the building closer overall.

I did the usual google/DDG searches but there is nothing that addresses this, surely it can't just be subjective to me? . . . I'm using a Manfrotto 303-SPH pano head + self levelling head + full frame camera + 35mm lens. No parallax is optimal, though the higher angles and perspective shift must be confusing PTGUI (hence me trying to force-use all rows to achieve the bigger picture).

(my last searches) :
PTGUI ALIGN TO GRID MISSING OUT TOP ROW - WHY? = NO SOLUTION
WHY DOES PTGUI 'ALIGN TO GRID' MISS OUT THE WHOLE TOP ROW? = NO SOLUTION
HOW TO FORCE PTGUI TO ALWAYS 'ALIGN TOP ROW' (TOP ROW CONSISTENTLY SKIPPED) = NO SOLUTION
PTGUI 4 ROWS OF 7 - ALWAYS SKIPPING TOP ROW = NO SOLUTION
PTGUI TOP ROW CONSISTENTLY SKIPPED = NO SOLUTION
HOW TO FORCE PTGUI TO USE ALL ROWS = NO SOLUTION
PTGUI - ALIGN TO GRID MISSING TOP ROW PROBLEM - NO SOLUTION

Any help appreciated, might be useful to anyone else having similar issues.
No immediate rush on this, I only document the construction sporadically during the working week.

Thanks!
RH

[John Houghton]

RH, You can force all images to be output by double clicking the header to the "Include Images" list on the Create Panorama tab.  When all images are checked, what you see in the Panorama Editor window is what you should get when you run Create Panorama.  If the view is set to a full 36x180, all images should be visible, though some images might be hidden behind other images.  If you turn on the image numbers, you should be able to locate hidden images easily. 

John

[Robin Hood]

RH, You can force all images to be output by double clicking the header to the "Include Images" list on the Create Panorama tab.  When all images are checked, what you see in the Panorama Editor window is what you should get when you run Create Panorama.  If the view is set to a full 36x180, all images should be visible, though some images might be hidden behind other images.  If you turn on the image numbers, you should be able to locate hidden images easily. 

John

That was quick John, your time is appreciated!

I did what you suggested . . .

All images were highlighted in blue. I then created a pano but the top row is still omitted.

Forgive me, I should have perhaps added that images 22-28 are right off to the mid-right, the image numbers forming a close semi-circle mixed up disorganised mush.

Where in the view do I set it to 36x180? (Not 28x180)?

I was hoping the full 4x7 (28) grid would force the rogue images to heel. I guess that's the whole premise of the problem, why do whole rows wander when you told them where to go?

Perhaps this new info may help, it looks like it's probably my fault not knowing how to drag the rogue row of errant images where they're supposed to shape-up in close order.

Once I know this, my panos will improve for the project. (another year to go on the build).

Best regards,

RH

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[John Houghton]

RH, Sorry for the typo, I intended to say set the view to 360x180 degrees (equirectangular projection), i.e. the full spherical stitching area.  Just drag the horizontal and vertical sliders to their maximum extent.  All images must then be located within the Panorama Editor view.  After setting the initial positions of the images with Align to Grid, creating control points and optimizing  should not change the arrangement of images much.  Images that have no control points assigned to them should remain where they are (such as bland blue sky).  If images are moving out of position, this will usually be due to badly placed control points.  This can happen if you have features like clouds, foliage, vehicles or people moving between shots.  Or you might have repeating architectural features confusing the control point generator, with points created between images that don't even overlap.

If images do wander out of position, you can always drag them in the Panorama editor window (one at a time, not whole rows) after clicking the "Edit individual images" mode icon.  See the PTGui FAQ at https://ptgui.com/support.html#5_4 for further advice.

John

[Erik Krause]

Am 18.06.2022 um 10:45 schrieb Robin Hood:
> I've been repeating multi-row pano's (4 x 7 180°) whilst monitoring a
> construction build for the site manager adjacent to our high-rise. I've
> been using 'align to grid' on the assumed premise that the difficult
> no-parallax issues of the top row of 7 would be forced to align through the
> full 28 image designation. I also shift-clicked all top 7 images and
> selected 'include in panorama'. The top 7 images are still skipped. Can
> this command be given full rights to force the missing row to be used?

This should work and it did work for the images you provided to me
privately. Please do the following (and only that!):
- Load all images.
- Do Align to Grid with the correct parameters.

Where are the images in Pano Editor now?

What additional steps do you do usually? Please describe in detail!

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

[Robin Hood]

This would be helpful John, but the panorama XYZ ratio of each blend pane is changing, morphing and expanding uncontrollable when I try to move individual images to the top row. I thought shift-click might constrain them but they're impossible to place without becoming fluidly amorphic as you move them further up. I always use equirectangular projection for accurate perspective. I'm hopeful you'll advise the trick to constrain their correct shapes for the blend panes. I did look at the link you kindly placed but couldn't find an explanation. I still think PTGUI would benefit from a searchable PDF indexed 'Bible', (which could be profitable) as well as limiting the amounts of questions that come through to your kind volunteers in such numbers. I know I would purchase such a resource to limit bothering the team. Now I have the top row roughly at the top I'll run 'align images' and sort the control points. I know the side exteriors of our high-rise is the issue, this is why the pano head is ratcheted outside the building on Gitzo's longer geared lateral arm . . . with trepidation and safety paramount.

Thanks,

RH.

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[Robin Hood]

Thanks for your input Erik,

By parameters do you mean the pitch and yaw values we discussed?

I think this is a slightly different situation.

You can see I was trying to rectify this 'chestnut' by avoiding private contact.

The missing top row is quite a long-standing bugbear for me.

Invariably I give up and send them the cut-down version because I can never force the top row to conform.

It's just an extremely difficult perspective to nail (until I find a hack to force it to align automatically).

Appreciate your time.

regards,

RH.

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[Erik Krause]

Am 18.06.2022 um 15:52 schrieb Robin Hood:
> By parameters do you mean the pitch and yaw values we discussed?
> I think this is a slightly different situation.

I mean the parameters for "Align to Grid", that is input the correct
number of rows and columns and the shooting configuration.

However, I asked you to do the following (and only that!):

- Load all images.
- Do Align to Grid with the correct parameters.

Where are the images in Pano Editor now?

[John Houghton]

On Saturday, June 18, 2022 at 2:44:16 PM UTC+1 md20...@googlemail.com wrote:

This would be helpful John, but the panorama XYZ ratio of each blend pane is changing, morphing and expanding uncontrollable when I try to move individual images to the top row. I thought shift-click might constrain them but they're impossible to place without becoming fluidly amorphic as you move them further up.

RH,  Naturally the images will change shape as you drag them up.  That is characteristic of the equirectangular projection.  The higher up you move them, the more distorted they become.  What you are seeing in the Panorama Editor window is a projection of the spherical stitching surface.  Perhaps you could supply a screen print showing the Panorama Editor window after running Align to Grid,. with the display of image numbers switched on  -  i.e. after doing what Erik asked.

John

[Robin Hood]

Ah, OK Erik, THANKS!

I did as you suggested, (4x7=28 align to rows). Pano loaded (in source images) 22 has rotated clockwise to landscape,

26 has loaded anti-clockwise to landscape. I didn't rotate either individually as they're all hidden anyway.

Whole top row has loaded higgledy-piggledy behind the main centre of the blended composite.

I then ran align images - result is a perfect ¾ pano 1,2 & 3 - (4 being the errant top), the whole of the top being hidden behind the central images.

My biggest headache with PTGUI . . .

kind regards,

RH

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[Robin Hood]

Here's a low-res screengrab John . . .

You'll see that the issue is further complicated by an illegal & dangerous looking teleco '5G Special Operation' dual scaffold assault

(one of two structures on our roof at the moment, Telco ramping up the high-frequency pulse signals of the massive antennae already installed - without permission at peppercorn rent)!!!!!

The cirrus type sky was like this all over but I was up too late :-(5:15am) to capture the full cloud patterns before they dissipated away to clear, bland blue with residual pollution.

(I only wanted the cloud patterned sky but missed it - you have to be fast). Like I said this is usually weekdays only) . . .

Note: the top-row cluster this time is in then middle, as opposed to previously off-right to the far side outside the main blends.

I exposed for the sky and would have sorted the shadows in post . . . oops, sorry the seams aren't showing . . .

regards, RH

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[John Houghton]

Thanks for the screenshots.  The "upper row"  images (21 and above) are obviously incorrectly positioned, but I cannot believe that Align to Grid put them there, assuming your parameter settings were correct..  Did you create control points and optimize or run Align Images after Align to Grid?  The  vertical spacing of rows is not uniform , which seems odd.  I would have expected to see equal pitch increments for successive rows.  

John

[Robin Hood]

Actually John, image 22 is the end shot of row-3 (the right side of our building structure). I sometimes include these ends as it's hard to achieve so I include for that reason(see a 15mm version here).

in the previous screenshot, 21-28 is the top row and it always gets placed arbitrarily no matter when or what I do with align to grid. Manually placing control points within 21-28 and optimizing still won't force the top row (4) up at the top.

This has always been an anomaly with PTGUI (for me with this demanding configuration). Here's the full configuration when I needed to show red light overspill contamination from the tower crane's distracting beacon. During drizzle it bathes the whole locale in warm red light which permeates into the city with refraction. Extraneous waffle! . . . I'm not keen on placing my images in group mails and I only place images low-res. Downscaling is showing some blending portals in the sky, PTGUI seems to have a bit of a problem with twilight blues / blue skies / clouds. The sky blend anomalies were fixed in the gigapixel version. Motion trails really improve these static panos but it's the luck of the draw. Happy to say the new apartment block height is fixed at 5 floors! Rgds,RH

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[John Houghton]

That's a nice stitch, but it doesn't get us any nearer to understanding what is causing the errant top row of images to be misplaced by Align to Grid.  One method that is guaranteed to work is to position that row of images manually by editing the Image Parameters tab. You simply use the information that you already have or can glean from entries already in the table.  All of the images in the top row will have the same pitch value, which you either know or can evaluate from the pitch values in the row below.  Just edit the pitch values of the top row images accordingly.  Then use the fact that all the images in a column will have the same yaw value to determine the appropriate yaw values to be entered for each of the top row images.  Roll values should all be the same.  This is slightly laborious, but should work well enough to position the images nicely for blue sky.

Note that once images are approximately aligned, you may be able to create control points with the Create control points here option:  Drag out a selection box with the shift key held down in one control points window and right click in the box to select the option to generate points there.  That works well if there are clear features available.

Otherwise, a set of images + your saved project file would be needed to investigate further..  I appreciate you not wanting to make them generally available in the forum.

John 

[Robin Hood]

Really appreciate your collective efforts Jon and Erik with valuable input (which I will investigate in the week)!

Enjoy the rest of the weekend!

Best regards, RH

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[Erik Krause]

Am 18.06.2022 um 17:20 schrieb Robin Hood:

> I did as you suggested, (4x7=28 align to rows). Pano loaded (in source
> images) 22 has rotated clockwise to landscape,
> 26 has loaded anti-clockwise to landscape.

That shouldn't happen. All images should be rotated the same. The
arbitrary rotation might be caused by your cameras orientation sensor,
which doesn't work correctly if you point the camera straight up or
down. To prevent this go to the Project Settings tab, Miscellaneous
section, and uncheck the following: 'Physically rotate images with EXIF
Orientation tag upon loading' before loading the images.

Align to grid should load all images according to the settings in the
Align to Grid dialog. Make sure to check "Apply to all images" and
specify the estimated horizontal and vertical spacing. After Applying
you should end up with images in the correct number of rows and culomns
spaced evenly.

If this is not the case, by all means make your source images available
so we can investigate. Use wetransfer, dropbox or similar.

> Whole top row has loaded higgledy-piggledy behind the main centre of the
> blended composite.
> I then ran align images - result is a perfect ¾ pano 1,2 & 3 - (4 being the
> errant top), the whole of the top being hidden behind the central images.

Never use Align Images once the images are roughly aligned! Always do
Optimize (F5) instead (after eventually creating control points
Ctrl+Alt+G). Align Images will reset all image positions. This might be
the main error in your workflow...

[Erik Krause]

Am 19.06.2022 um 00:29 schrieb Erik Krause:

> Align Images will reset all image positions.

Sorry, I was wrong about that. Actually Align Images leaves the images
in place. However, once control points are created Align Images should
not be used. Press F5 instead.

What exact parameters do you enter in Align to Grid?