Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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PTGUI Control points
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 17:14 GMT
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Hi, I shot a pano froma roof top today. The light was very bad as it was very cloudy but I shot it anyway.
Im stitching it in ptgui and Ive just realised I dont know what the procedure is to assign control points to the bottom and up shot (zenith and nadir). Normally you have one image and on the other side the next image and you assign control points, but how do you go about it with these 2 shots (up and down)?
Ive tried as smooth suggested to set the lens to 1.8 and aperture 11(although I thought it was supposed to be at 8) Ive also set an ISO and a White balance selection as well as shooting in Manual (M). Normally the panos stitch quite well, although in this case the control points info isnt very good. I have exported it to .mov and surprisingly, although the control points info is bad, its stitched well enough in my opinion.
As always The hardest thing for me at the moment is the down shot, what I do is pick up the tripod, move backwards a little bit and take the picture. Its difficult because in this case Ive also got tiles(lines) and they dont match....but I think with a little work either assigning control points or in photoshop I can get it fixed.
Another thing, does anyone have any info about converting the equirectangular image into cube faces for FPP using pano2qtvr? Info about settings, cube face sizes, etc?¿
thanks for all!
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John Houghton
Posts: 3412
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 31 Jan 2010 at 18:12 GMT
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Assign control points between the horizontal shots and the zenith where they overlap. You'll find it helpful to rotate the zenith shot in the Control Points tab to facilitate finding matching features. You don't need a huge number of control points.
If you have PTGui Pro, you can stich the nadir image in with the viewpoint feature. There's a tutorial on the PTGui web site, and also one at www.johnhpanos.com/ptgvpt.htm .
John
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Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 1 Feb 2010 at 18:17 GMT
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Thanks John,
Ive been trying it out, although Im having difficulty because I didnt follow the same process as in the tutorial....Ive got 6 images....not 9...etc.
Im going to upload my images, incase you have some time Ide really apreciate if you could stitch them and provide me with the ptgui file, so I can see the process, where the control points are on which images, etc.
www.elchevirtual.com/test_images/test_images.rar
Cheers,
Jose.
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Smooth
Posts: 3729
Location: Mount Panorama, Australia
Registered: 21 Jul 2004
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Hans Nyberg
Posts: 2760
Location: Denmark
Registered: 28 Aug 2005
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 1 Feb 2010 at 19:33 GMT
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This is a typical pano where taking zenith at 60-70 degree helps a lot.
You would probably got automatic controlpoints added by PTGui if you done that.
Hans
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Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 1 Feb 2010 at 20:08 GMT
updated: 1 Feb 2010 at 20:10 GMT
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Thabks Hans for the info, Ill try that netçxt time.
Smooth, when I open up the ptgui project file...it says that at least one of the images has been replaced with an image with a different aspect ratio.....? and that control points have been scaled to match the new size....?¿
What can I do?
When you stitched the images did they stitch ok?
can you give me a run down of wqhat you done?
When I open up the project, the automatic exif data is unchecked.....is that right?
cheers for the effort!
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John Houghton
Posts: 3412
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 1 Feb 2010 at 21:20 GMT
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I didn't have a problem with Smooth's project file. My guess is that it has to do with the auto rotation setting on your camera. My PTGui is respecting the orientation setting and rotating the images into Portrait orientation. The Source Images tab shows the thumbnails in portrait orientation, whereas Windows Explorer shows the images in landscape. Are you using the jpeg images as supplied in the RAR archive?
Smooth's stitch doesn't give a very good blend at the nadir (though the viewpoint alignment is fine). He reduced the blend priority of the nadir to 29, but there's a bright patch at the centre, even with the auto exposure adjustment switched on. I did a manual blend in Photoshop and got a rather better result:
www.johnhpanos.com/jose_viewpoint.mov
John
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Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 1 Feb 2010 at 23:15 GMT
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No, its not working for me. I must be doing something wrong. Firstly It asks me for the folder where the images are as it cant find them. When I point it to the folder it says it cant find the images(names etc are exactly the same, from the rar file)
Ill try again tomorow, but as for now I havent been lucky.
thanks anyways, Ill give it another go tomorow,
cheers.
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Smooth
Posts: 3729
Location: Mount Panorama, Australia
Registered: 21 Jul 2004
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 2 Feb 2010 at 4:57 GMT
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Jose,
Mate, I made that project well after I should have been asleep, but wanted to leave you with something to work with. What became obvious was that exactly what Hans stated is that you should be shooting the Zenith shot with between +60 and +70 degrees tilt and not +90 because you miss out on features for matching control point placement.
Your shooting sequence should be 4 shot at 90 degree click stops with -10 degrees tilt. 1 Zenith shot at +65 (say) degrees and a hand held Nadir shot.
4@90@-10°1@+65° and a Hand Held Nadir
You could stick with
6@60@-10°1@+65° and a Hand Held Nadir
or even
5@72@-10°1@+65° and a Hand Held Nadir
All will give you pretty much the same result.
Also keep in mind that shooting 2 Nadir shots at +65° 180° apposed will give you much better chance of catching details for automatic control point placement and thus automatic stitching.
4@90@-10°2@+65°180°apposed and a Hand Held Nadir (7 shots).
The reason I did the Nadir in my project file with a blend of 29 was to show you how this feature works. As John points out there is a better way but this was simply about teaching you where and how features work within PTGui. As a rule I would have normally done this by masking with Alpha channels in Photoshop.
As for the reason you cannot get it to open, I can only take a guess like the others. But I would have thought if you had placed the jose_viewpoint.pts file into the "test_images" folder you created it should have opened up correctly with the only modification required to the output path required.
The maximum control point error was just under 1.5 and this was pretty easy to come at after removing some misplaced control points on trees etc and making final adjustments to the viewpoint nadir.
Regards, Smooth 
www.smooth360.info
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Smooth
Posts: 3729
Location: Mount Panorama, Australia
Registered: 21 Jul 2004
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 2 Feb 2010 at 5:06 GMT
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Newto3D said: When I open up the project, the automatic exif data is unchecked.....is that right?
That is correct because I have already made the adjustments for your lens. The Exif data is wrong because you are using a manual lens and the correct information is never passed on to the camera to write to the Exif data.
This process I explained in this thread about the Samyang and Canon APS-C camera www.panoguide.com/forums/tipsntricks/7284/
Regards, Smooth
www.smooth30.info
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Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 2 Feb 2010 at 8:08 GMT
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Thanks a lot smooth, for your explanation and time!
Sorry to have robbed you of some of your sleep!
I appreciate the help. Will work on it after work, thanks once again.
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Smooth
Posts: 3729
Location: Mount Panorama, Australia
Registered: 21 Jul 2004
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 2 Feb 2010 at 11:58 GMT
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Just to give you a visual pattern to follow.
After "Align Images" is complete jump to the "Advance" view of the "Optimizer Tab" and you will see this:
You should then inform PTGui that the last images is the "Nadir" shot and it is a Viewpoint shot by selecting the "check box" of the corresponding image. Then you should "Uncheck" the the "Check box" or the "Use Control Points Of" the corresponding image like this:
First optimise the rest of the control points of the panorama and get this right (optimising with the viewpoint nadir excluded).
Then go to the "Control Point" tab and remove any control points that have been added to objects that are not flat to the floor/ground surface on the Viewpoint Nadir and add extra control points as required in multiple images connected to the Nadir image (on flat ground/floor only). When you are confident you have place enough control points so the viewpoint Nadir will be set into place correctly. Go back to the Optimizer tab and add the tick back into the "Use Control Points Of" check box and re-optimise.
The report you get now from the Optimizer will generally let you know if you have hit the mark. If something is way out, go to the control points and find out what it is and why. Manually make corrections as required using the keyboard arrow keys and using the F5 keyboard key to re-optimise. Finally you can use the Panorama Editor window to see your result and adjust the "Blend Priority" via the "Image Parameters" tab and corresponding image blend priority column like this:
Continue to view the results via the Panorama Editor (in Edit Entire Panorama mode "third icon from left") view until you reach the desired result. These following shots show this:
In Edit Individual Mode via the Panorama Editor 100% Blend Priority.
In Edit Entire Panorama Mode via the Panorama Editor 100% Blend Priority.
Finally at 29% in Edit Entire Panorama Mode via the Panorama Editor.
Hope this helps.
Regards, Smooth
www.smooth360.info
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Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 21 Feb 2010 at 19:09 GMT
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Hey smooth, Ive been trying to follow your adivise, Ive shot a set of 6 @ 60 degree intervals @ -10 tilt down. 1 @ +65 tilt upwards and a handheld nadir shot.
The pano stitches ok, its just the zenith and Nadir shot that I cant seem to get right. Ive followed all your advice and instructions.
Ive uploaded my images and ptgui file, Im not sure what is going wrong. Please dont give me too much stick..... 
www.elchevirtual.com/test_images/images.rar
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John Houghton
Posts: 3412
Location: Hitchin, United Kingdom
Registered: 17 Jan 2005
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 21 Feb 2010 at 22:32 GMT
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The zenith and nadir will not stitch right because they are opened by PTGui in landscape orientation, whereas the rest of the images are in portrait orientation. You want them all showing the same orientation in the Source Images tab. Switch off the auto rotation feature in the camera to avoid these problems.
If you open the nadir and zenith in Photoshop, they display in portrait, so just save them as they are. Thats what I did and they stitched fine, though the quality of the nadir is abysmal and the nadir blending is hardly going to be convincing. I've uploaded the project file as : www.johnhpanos.com/jose_viewpoint.zip .
John
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Newto3D
Posts: 130
Location: Brighton, United Kingdom
Registered: 24 Jan 2006
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Re: PTGUI Control points
Posted: 22 Feb 2010 at 0:20 GMT
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Thanks John, I know I had trouble shooting the handheld nadir, lots of shake.
Will try and improve my hand held shot.
thanks.
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