This means that basing control points on tree limbs, clouds or water is ill-advised except when absolutely necessary. The best control points are those which are based upon highly rigid objects with sharp edges or fine detail, and are spaced evenly and broadly across each overlap region (with 3-5+ points for each overlap). The example above shows a selection of four pairs of control points, for two photos within a panorama.
With most photographs, best results can only be achieved with manual control point selection (which is often the most time-consuming stage of the software stitching process). Pairs of control points may be manually selected by visual inspection, or these may be generated automatically using sophisticated matching algorithms (such as Autopano for PTAssembler). Panorama stitching software uses pairs of control points to specify regions of two camera photos that refer to the same point in space. STAGE 2: CONTROL POINTS & PHOTO ALIGNMENT PTAssembler incorporates a fully-automated one-click stitching option, in addition to providing for nearly all possible custom stitching options available in other programs.Īt the time of this article, other notable programs include those that come packaged with the camera, such as Canon PhotoStitch, or popular commercial packages such as Autostitch, Hugin Panorama Photo Stitcher, Arc Soft Panorama Maker, Panorama Factory and PanaVue, among others. This tutorial aims to improve understanding of most software stitching concepts by keeping the discussion as generic as possible, however actual software features may refer to a program called PTAssembler or PTGui (front-end for PanoTools or PTMender). Generally speaking, fully customized stitching software will always achieve better quality than automated packages, but this may also result in being overly technical or time consuming. The biggest difference between options is in how they choose to address the tradeoff between automation and flexibility.
In order to begin processing our series of photos, we need to select an appropriate software program. Selection of perspective and projection typeĬomputer shifts, rotates and distorts photos to conform with requirements of stages 2 and 3 Selection of desired photo alignment and input of camera and lens specifications Equipment setup and acquisition of photographs