Image Assembler
Average Rating:
Image Assembler is aimed at the professional photographer aiming to print panoramas, for whom high quality high resolution images are needed. |
Rating: 
Updated: 31 Aug 2004 at 15:33 GMT,
by poppabear
Image Assembler 2.12.
I shoot 5 megapixel pictures and it stitches them relatively quickly.
The tilt and manual mode has allowed me to stitch panoramas that I had problems with in other software. I have done hundreds of panoramas with this program.
The low resolution preview mode is a real timesaver for trying out different settings. I don't know what other programs have this mode. Panoguide doesn't list this as a comparison feature.
I tried Panorama Factory GUI, but I found it too hard to use.
The automatic exposure compensation has allowed me to stitch panoramas where I didn't use a constant exposure.
I tried multiple row stitching, but haven't gotten good results.
Rating:
Updated: 6 May 2004 at 6:49 GMT,
by Duncan
Version 2.12
Great product - foolproof automatic stitching if the camera has been set up correctly (level) on a panoramic head and the lens has been profiled.
Good QTVR output.
Would like to see - CubicVR support, hotspot support, control over initial QT zoom level.
Rating: 
Updated: 14 Oct 2001 at 4:00 GMT,
by James Rigg
[Panoguide]
This review is of version 2.02a
Image Assembler's interface stands out because it seems very systematic and, err, "practical". Whilst this might put you off at first, the interface is very easy to use. Unlike its predecessor (Visual Stitcher), Image Assembler has a very powerful fully automatic stitch function. However it still retains the manual stitching capabilities and the manual alignment flags that made Visual Stitcher so difficult to use suddenly make Image Assembler extremely easy to use and very powerful.
Image Assembler supports a huge range of image formats for both source files and for saving the final panorama, including QTVR. You can also save your "project" so that if you want to re-try a stitch again (perhaps with a later version of Image Assembler or after having re-scanned an image) you can do so easily. Most stitching programs can't do this so if you want to re-stitch you have to re-do everything.
Image Assembler performs extremely well and even the few flaws in the images that remain could be re-touched quite easily. All automatic stitchers will fail occasionally and Image Assembler was no exception. But with its extremely simple manual alignment capabilities this is not a problem. You can easily and quickly define a manual stitch point by positioning flags in each image. When an automatic stitch is run Image Assembler positions the flags too so that if you need to adjust the stitch all you have to do is tweak the flags for those seams that didn't work out quite right.
PanaVue have even thrown in a few extras that really sets Image Assembler apart: you can compensate for lenses that exhibit linear distortion (i.e. concave or convex distortion) and also account for tilt. You can therefore tilt the camera down and still stitch seamlessly. If you are stitching a problematic sequence (e.g. one with parallax problems) you can adjust the percentage of blending to achieve a better picture. You can also choose between spherical, cylindrical or projectionless stitching. In addition to stitching panoramas Image Assembler can stitch 2D mosaics and stitch together the ends of a 360 degree sequence, and it has a sophisticated system for analysing your lens so as to determine the best parameters for stitching.
However, although Image Assembler is quite easy to use, its interface can be quite clunky compared to some other image stitchers. For example, it is annoying that if you want to stitch a panorama you have to stitch the images together first and then separately manually set control points in order to stitch the ends together - why can't it do it all in one go? If you have a panorama without much detail in it, you might find it difficult to set the control points to be able to get a good stitch on the final seam, which is very annoying if the panorama is fine apart from that...
Stitching mosaics becomes confusing very quickly because you have to make sure you assign the right position number to each picture as you load it in; the interface doesn't show you clearly the mosaic arrangement, and you cannot rearrange them without starting again.
Despite all this it is reassuring to have the clear controls to be able to do what you want and to be able to export both pictures and QTVRs. You can also control the compression settings for QTVR (not all programs do this). Shame you can't add hotspots though. And where's the Mac version?
In conclusion: if you use Windows, Image Assembler is a good choice, but you might prefer something even simpler. If you are using a lens with linear distortion or if you want to be able to tilt your camera up or down, then this is one of very few image stitchers that can do the hard work for you. It performs very well and has lots of features.