Open Source Panorama Stitching Software

[Nicks Pics]

I have been monkeying around with GIMP, trying to stitch a panorama manually, but I'm not even certain it's possible with certain panoramic situations given the tools in GIMP. So sticking with the Open Source theme, I came across Hugin- Panorama Photo Stitcher. Do any of you use it? If you have had experience with it, please let me know if it works, if you like it, etc. That would be very appreciated.

Thanks

_Nick

Providing a Link to it - http://hugin.sourceforge.net

[george013]

I have been monkeying around with GIMP, trying to stitch a panorama manually, but I'm not even certain it's possible with certain panoramic situations given the tools in GIMP. So sticking with the Open Source theme, I came across Hugin- Panorama Photo Stitcher. Do any of you use it? If you have had experience with it, please let me know if it works, if you like it, etc. That would be very appreciated.

Thanks

_Nick

Providing a Link to it - http://hugin.sourceforge.net

Microsoft ICE, I still wondering how they fix it.
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/...roups/ivm/ice/.
You can open and save in TIFF, and continue working in GIMP.
I remember vague I tried yours too.
George

[Nicks Pics]

George,
Thanks for the reply. Do you like Microsoft ICE? I hadn't heard of it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

[inkista]

I've used Hugin, but prefer using the PTGui commercial package instead. Microsoft ICE, obviously, isn't open source or multi-platform, but may be a simpler alternative than Hugin. Hugin is essentially a GUI front-end for a ton of open source command line utilities for manipulating graphical images, most of which come in very handy for panorama stitching, but which can have a ton of "off-label" uses, as well (e.g., HDR, exposure fusing, focus stacking, lens correction, perspective correction, remapping, etc.). So, the interface can be a bit cryptic at times.

If you're sticking to the default usage of a rectilinear/cylindrical panorama and a handful of images, though, the interface shouldn't be too bad. I use it for spherical panorama stitching, at which point, you mess about with a whole lot more crazy. However, unlike ICE, you can get to the stitching "guts", as it were, and made adjustments to correct for some shooting errors which may cause ICE not to be able to correctly stitch an image. It's up to you how much control you need or want.

Since they're both free, it wouldn't hurt to try both of them and see which one fits your needs better. Since I'm stitching together fisheye images to make 360x180 spherical panos that I remap into stereographic little planets:



I need something a bit more full-featured like Hugin or PTGui. If you're stitching for high-res landscapes, gigpixel images, or Brenizer-Method fun, however, your needs could be different enough that another package would work better for you.

[Nicks Pics]

Hi Kathy,

Thanks for your helpful response. You obviously have a more advanced understanding of these programs than I do. basically I am looking for a program that would satisfy the needs of a photographer, not so much for other sophisticated graphical purposes. I like free programs, but I am a little wary of extremely technical un-user friendly software as I'm probably not a true geek. BTW is an interesting image you've posted, not the sort of thing I plan on doing everyday

[IzzieK]

I used to have Hugin before I formatted my C Drive. Somehow I do not want to do so because I am more happy with PTGui too like Kathy. Mine is also the commercial version.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks Izzie. I'm not planning to drop any digits on this software acquisition, so I might not be going with PTGui for now.

Was Hugin technical and frustrating? Or did you like it OK?

[NorthernFocus]

I've used Hugin a bit. For straightforward stitching of a few frames into a pano it works fine. I haven't tried multiple rows. I couldn't even figure out how to get it to do a vertical pano. I got around it by rotating the shots and then stitching like a normal pano. It is kind of quirky but not rocket science as they say... I think it is a very capable program so more complicated than need be for simple stuff but it's free and it works. I previously just used PSE but it won't do 16bit images which Hugin will. Give it a shot. Doesn't cost anything but a little time.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks, Dan, I'm not much in to advanced panoramas, if it can do something simple and do it well it might work.

[george013]

George,
Thanks for the reply. Do you like Microsoft ICE? I hadn't heard of it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

Not so long ago I was looking for pano software like you. I tried several among the ones mentioned here. ICE was the most simple and fastest. It did a 3 row pano with total 32 images just like that. Open a new project, load the images and get yourself a drink. Finished. The results of the other programs where much less.

It's not open source, it's Microsoft, but it is free, and good.

George

[PhilT]

Like most of the people here I used Ice and it is really the easier and straightforward of all the the bunch I found (and i think Microsoft is a source you can rely on for not being a Trojan , isn't it? ). BTW I was surprised to find a so nice freeware from Microsoft, I thought they are more greedy. I tried Hugin also and feel it more complicated, including for saving the result (but I'm not a star for this kind of stuff).
Enjoy,
PhilT

[revi]

First off, I don't know Microsoft ICE (I use linux, so I'd have to jump through a few hoops to get it running).

I do use Hugin, and it is rather powerfull. Basic use with good quality input is very easy, as you can just use the basic panel and ignore the rest, but if you need more, the options are there. One that can be very handy is the masking function, hiding parts of images (can help avoiding ghosts from persons walking through your scene, or even remove them completely)

What I have noticed is that although you can get away with some errors when taking the base shots, it is worth-while to get those as good as possible, i.e. with no or minimal camera movement (except the required rotation of course). So, use a tripod or monopod.

[IzzieK]

Thanks Izzie. I'm not planning to drop any digits on this software acquisition, so I might not be going with PTGui for now.

Was Hugin technical and frustrating? Or did you like it OK?

No not actually -- I have not done many pano nowadays...but it is only January, my photo bulk starts from June onwards when I get dragged to see air shows and national fly-in and a succession of it until end of autumn...Winter time is either renovation time or cleaning time (basement, attic, name it...) that is when I take advantage of doing pano while there on location. Hugin is simple to operate. You can watch some videos on Youtube to learn or in my early days (before KimC told me it is easy to just watch the video and follow it) I love text instruction learning. Nowadays I have SnagIt to capture video and play them later at my convenience. PTGui is good at support. But I will look at Microsoft Ice. I used to have it before when I was looking for pano softwares but I forgot all about it...any software all have learning curves. Just need patience. When you get good at one section, it is time to move on to "what does this button do?" sort of thing...

[ajohnw]

HUGIN, Kathy mentions a gui to command line routines. True but it's very similar to MS dll's really other than that they can be used directly if needed. It also uses library files at a lower level. Those are very much like dll's.

The only irritation I found with Hugin is that it doesn't default to rectilinear projection - "the normal one". I used it recently and didn't notice any difference in that respect but it may be possible to set it in preferences. At least it's not so tucked away now. They have added 3 levels of use. Normal, advanced and expert. It also now reads lens data from the exif info if it can. In terms of panoramas it will align and stitch images while also correcting perspective/lens distortion problems and exposure variations. it's even possible to mix different focal length lenses but pass on how. I mostly use it for correcting single images as I am still playing with panoramas. I have done a portrait mode one as I feel that is more interesting than wide thin strips but it has it's own set of problems when very wide angle lenses are used.

They have also now added a separate lens calibration interface. This has always been buried in it as it has to work this out to correct lens distortion in shots. Previously extracting the information may have been a bit obscure.

Some old posts on the web mention problems with vertical panoramas. The fix seems to be to drag the images around in one of the views or maybe that isn't needed any more. Not sure but I believe that it will also stitch horizontally and vertically at the same time. In either case it has no way of knowing which images go next to each other so some dragging around may be the only solution.

The tutorials on it's web site are out of date but things haven't changed sufficiently to make them useless. There are also plenty of examples on youtube. It will generate previews. The main run can take some time depending on what it has to do. Much the same with all packages.

I believe the main reason that some use PTgui is that it offers more weird projections. This was mentioned last time this cropped up. Personally I have strong feelings about people taking open source software and adding to it and subsequently charging for it. All of the hard work as been done for them for free and they really aught to pay something towards maintaining it. There is a lot more of this going on than people may realise. All these companies do is publish the open source fully and their often tiny addition as executables only. Then sit back and laugh while drawing in the money.

John
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[Nicks Pics]

George, PhilT, Remco, Izzie, John, Thanks for the great replies. Truly helpful.

[HaseebM]

George,
Thanks for the reply. Do you like Microsoft ICE? I hadn't heard of it. Thanks for letting me know about it.

I have been using ICE for three years now and not sure if I was the one who suggested this earlier. Anyway its fast and no hidden ad / spamwares.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks, good to know if it doesn't pack spamware!

[jcuknz]

Early on I read a comment about stitching that doing it manually gave more control, so although I have /had three free programmes which came on discs with cameras purchased I never use them and rely on Paint Shop Pro, various versions, to do the job.
I am sure that something like PTgui is essential for the complicated stitching that Kathy does but I simply have never done multi-level stitching and most complicated would be 360 degree single level with perhaps 20 or so frames.

PSP has a feature that one can reduce the density of a layer to see the layer below to help in registering, I never use a tripod or other gadget ... just sensible hand holding more or less simulating how a tripod would do it.

A couple of versions ago PSP introduced a limit on the number of pixels permitted in the final stitch which was a real PITB in these days of higher resolution cameras and I was fortunate to still have PSPv8 available to me. I started stitching with a 3Mp camera so that wasn't a problem but with a 16Mp I have to reduce resolution by /4 to fit anything more than a simple three or four frame stitch.

To me the problem with simple programmes was that they mixed or dissolved between frames whereas manually one can select "which version of reality" one wishes to use ... that is assuming you have shot plenty of overlap and are reasonably competant in using the tools the programme has.

So I use PSP for just about everything I do in PP and it need not be that expensive on Amazon, couple of years ago I bought v.X3 for US$15 when I was visiting and found it little different to V.X4 when I got home ... latest version is X6 [v.16] or maybe X7 but anything from v.8 onwards will do everything you are likely to want in the normal run of events.

[inkista]

... To me the problem with simple programmes was that they mixed or dissolved between frames whereas manually one can select "which version of reality" one wishes to use ... that is assuming you have shot plenty of overlap and are reasonably competent in using the tools the programme has....

Actually, this was the one feature of PTGui that has saved me the most time. When I used PTMac, I could get layered .psd output so I could mask things in and out in Photoshop to eliminate ghosts/clones or specify which parts of the member images I wanted, but it was time-consuming work, especially if I needed to adjust stitching parameters as well. PTGui went one better by building their masking feature in. Hugin also has a masking feature, but it's much clumsier and not as intuitive.

But yes. Ghosts/clones, correcting parallax errors, or specifying member image placement in the pano, are the tasks where less sophisticated stitchers tend not to give you any control. If you don't need that control (and most folks don't), they're great.

[Nicks Pics]

Thanks John,

I have done some panorama-type work manually, but I can't do some of the complex calculating a program could.


I decided to give Hugin a try. If I don't like it well enough I might try one of the others that have been suggested here. So thanks to all for the response to my inquiry here!