No need to think that only Photoshop can create panoramas. By the way, I described how to make a panorama using Photoshop in my review ().
There are a number of free programs that can do this job just fine. And the best part is, you absolutely do not have to pay for them. Some of them do not even require installation on a computer.
Over the years of photography (over 10 years), I have tried many and decided to collect my own small personal rating of free programs for creating panoramas. So, let's begin!
Rating of free programs for creating panoramas
4th place - Canon Ptoho Stitch program
The old, good and free program that comes with Canon cameras. The interface of the program is old, but it performs its functions.
How to make a panorama with Canon Photo Stitch?
Step 1- run the program
Step 2- select the photos from which the panorama will be created.
Step 3- start combining photos into one large panorama frame.
At the same time, you can turn on the option to display the seams along which the photos are combined.
Step 4- Choose panorama generation settings (the program offers a choice of possible options)
Step 5- crop the edges of the panorama and save to a file.
The result of the work Canon Photo Stitch - collected separate panorama with cropped edges. Very good, but had a lot of manual work!
3rd place - Hugin program
A free program by a large team of authors with great but confusing functionality. Too complicated for a beginner in my opinion. Of the benefits - there is support for the Russian language in the interface.
How to make a panorama with Hugin?
Step 1- run the program. When opening, there is a set of tips for a beginner - a small bonus from the developers.
Step 2- Set the settings for creating a panorama using Hugin - the folder for saving, the name of the files, etc. There are many settings, so hold on 🙂
Step 3- Upload photos to create a panorama.
Step 4- Choose the type of lens and look at the aligned pictures.
Step 5- We select the settings for creating a panorama before generating the resulting photo.
We keep the panorama ... ..
As a result, we get such a processed panoramic photo using the free Hugin program.
2nd place - MS Image Composite Editor
Yes, yes, you heard right - the letters MS - means that this program was made by Microsoft. And, for free! 🙂
Cons - there is no Russian interface, but the program is so simple that you don’t need to read much here.
How to make a panorama using MS Image Composite Editor?
Step 1- open the program and go to the settings section - the upper right part of the window - see the gear.
Step 2- select a photo to create a panorama. The button in the top header is "New Panorama from Images"
You have completed step 1 - you have done the import of a photo for a panorama.
Step 3- reduction of photos into one picture - "Stitch"
After you get the panorama, you can enlarge it for viewing using the sliders.
Step 4- If you need to crop the photo - go to the "Crop" button.
For cropping, handles are used, exactly the same as in Photoshop for this command.
If everything suits you, save it.
As a result, you get a finished processed panorama using the MS Image Composite Editor program.
1st place - AutoStitch program
My favorite free panorama software!
What does she captivate?
- no need to install on a PC, just open the archive and work
- minimum settings for creating a panorama
- small program size
- smart frame detection
How to make a panorama with AutoStitch?
Step 1- run the program and go to the settings
Step 2- Open photos and add them to the program
ALL…. I repeat….. THIS IS ALL! 🙂
the program will do the rest.
The result of the program will be a collected panorama from the files that you have added.
If you are still not satisfied with this functionality, you can make panoramas using Photoshop CS ().
Additional information on free panorama creation software:
- AutoStitch- Website address - http://matthewalunbrown.com/autostitch/autostitch.html
- MS Image Composite Editor - Website address - http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/
- Hugin- Website address -
- Canon Ptoho Stitch- Website address - http://support-au.canon.com.au/contents/AU/EN/0200246607.html (select the Download checkbox to see the download link)
Video review of free programs for creating panoramas (Rating)
In our material, we will learn how, without the use of deep knowledge in specialized programs, you can create your own panoramic photo. And the Internet browser will help us in this, as well as the photographs prepared for this mission.
The name of the service where we will look for further work is Dermandar, with its help you can create panoramic images of two types - circular panoramas, covering 360 degrees (the optimal number of frames involved is 6) and wide-angle panoramas (from 3 frames).
To get a good, accurate and beautiful panorama, it is recommended to use a sufficiently large number of frames of the same size. As a rule, they are sorted according to the A-Z principle, that is, the first photo should be called 1.jpg and the last 6.jpg, in case of creating a panorama of six photos.
The principle of working with this service will not be difficult for you. Just click on Create Your Panorama on the main page, and then set the desired panorama type:
This is followed by the typical photo upload dialog, but don't forget the upload order (A…Z)
After a few seconds or minutes, your panorama will be displayed on the screen, after which the service will offer several options for its use:
For example, you can upload the resulting panorama to the service, so that you can then embed it on your own website using a link. However, you will need to register for this.
Or, you simply save the resulting panorama on your computer. Well, if you still want to embed it on your website, copy the Embed Code as in Youtube or other similar services.
Originally posted by sanmai at How to take a panoramic photo. Step-by-step instruction! Simple, easy, fast.
Every amateur photographer must have wondered at some point: how to make one panorama photo from several shots? What is needed for this? Is it difficult? Read on for step-by-step instructions to help you panoramic photo (panorama) without tripod and without much difficulty.
Today I will tell you how to do it easily and simply.
Making a panorama is not easy, but very simple! Step-by-step instruction. Modern programs allow you to make a panorama from pictures taken with any camera, as long as the frames overlap each other. So that you have no doubts about the ability of your camera to take pictures suitable for making a panorama, for this photography lesson I took a phone camera.
I invite you to repeat all the steps of this instruction with me, using these photos that you can
- download from the link in the archive from my dropbox,
To assemble the panorama, we will use the latest version of Hugin. At the time of this tutorial, the latest version is 2011.4.0. Hugin is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. All instructions below are suitable for the version for any OS.
Installing Hugin is easy, just download the installation package and follow the installer's instructions.
When opened, Hugin automatically creates a new project. Select photos for the panorama by clicking the appropriate button.
You can add all the photos at once in one fell swoop.
Hugin defines the properties of the lens itself.
Click "Combine ..." and let's go to drink tea, especially if you do not have the most modern computer or a lot of high-resolution pictures.
As soon as Hugin merges the images, a panorama preview window will open.
For a better view of the result, turn off the grid by unchecking the box at the top of the window.
The panorama preview has several tabs with settings, some of which are of no interest to us at all due to the fact that Hugin has already done the main work on combining images, and the other part of the tabs can still be useful to us.
On the "Projection" tab, we have the ability to change the way images are projected and some other settings. For example, you can see what a panorama would look like if it was shot with a fisheye lens:
However, today our goal is not special effects, but a finished panorama, so we will choose an equidistant projection mode.
On the "Moving on the projection plane" tab, we have the opportunity to align the horizon on all frames, if suddenly it did not align automatically. We can also bend the horizon for more effect:
To return the horizon to its original, even state, press the "Align" button:
On the next Crop tab, click the Auto Crop button to automatically crop the black edges of the panorama.
If the result of automatic cropping did not suit you, you can drag the inner edge of the frame and crop it as you need, for example, if we plan to finish painting the sky and black fields do not bother us.
Close the preview window and click "Create Panorama..."
And then he will offer to come up with a file name for the finished panorama:
We stock up on patience, tea, coffee, jam, cookies, etc., for 5 minutes :-)
Find the resulting panorama file:
We look with any suitable viewer.
For publishing, it is best to convert the panorama to JPEG. This can be done in any graphics editor or popular viewers.
The result is scaled up to 8209 x 1693.
When photographing a beautiful landscape or an interesting architectural monument, who has not had to regret that the lens of the camera is not able to capture everything in its entirety, so that automatic panorama photo creation. Separate frames do not give such an impression as you get when looking at the landmark with your own eyes. I really want to get a photo that will have a complete image of the object being shot, that is, a panoramic photo. The problem is not new, it was tried to be solved back in the days of film cameras. We solved it in three ways.
The first way is to use short-focus lenses with an extended field of view. The logical development has led to super short throw lenses with an extremely wide angle of capture, the so-called fisheye lenses. The disadvantage of this method of obtaining images is the extremely strong distortion of the image. Indeed, transferring the image around the camera to a flat surface is akin to trying to smooth the halves of a rubber ball on a flat table.
The second way is the creation of cameras with moving optics, in which the lens rotates during shooting, creating parts of the image one by one on the film. Such cameras include, for example, cameras "Horizon", which provide an image capture angle of 120 degrees. In this case, shooting is carried out on a regular 35 mm film, only the frame size is not the classic 24x36 mm, but 24x58 mm. Naturally, to print such photos, you need a special attachment for a photo enlarger.
The third path that many amateur photographers have taken (I also went through this) is taking pictures with an ordinary camera and printing ordinary photos. But then the photos were joined to each other, the superimposed parts of the photos were cut off, and the resulting mosaic was pasted onto a sheet of paper. It turned out well, although the cropped borders of individual photos were visible even with very careful fitting and careful cropping. In addition, the camera lens always gives distortion, so the exact docking of photos is impossible, we can only talk about more or less acceptable image quality.
Now film cameras are used only by professionals and old seasoned amateur photographers who would never exchange their devices (by the way, with excellent optics) for digital cameras. But to us, mere mortals, digital photography has given us powerful means of obtaining images of everything that is dear and interesting to us. I will not talk about the many possibilities of digital photography, today we have a different topic - obtaining panoramic images.
Not surprisingly, almost simultaneously with the advent of digital cameras, computer programs for processing digital photographs appeared. Naturally, the creation of panoramas was also included in the list of necessary computer processing tasks. However, this turned out to be a very difficult task. The two main problems that arise when combining two or more images into one panoramic image are the following: the geometric distortion of images, which I already mentioned, and the brightness and color distortions that occur due to the automatic adjustment of digital cameras to the scene being shot. Since the task turned out to be more difficult than it seemed at first glance, programs for creating panoramas appeared much later than programs for simple correction of digital photographs, and, in addition, these programs were quite expensive.
Despite the fact that free software packages were developed, for example, Panorama tools, it was quite difficult to work with them, they were controlled from the program line, which was an almost impossible task for a simple computer user.
Naturally, the free software community could not ignore such a task, and as a result of their efforts, a free program for creating digital panoramic photos, which has now reached a level that can be used by almost anyone who can take pictures with a digital camera and has basic computer skills.
So, I present! hugin is a program that uses the Panorama Tools package to create panoramas, but provides exceptionally convenient tools for working. The program has been translated into various languages, including Russian. At the moment, the latest version of the program has the number 0.7.0 and was released to the public on October 4, 2008. The program is available for operating systems Linux, MacOS and, of course, Windows. You can download this program by clicking on the icon.
Linux users, as well as happy Macintosh users, will figure out which of the three files to download, and Windows users will probably also guess that they need a file that contains Win32 in the name, that is, hugin-0.7.0_win32-setup.exe .
Installing the program is quite simple. It is distributed under the GPL license, that is, free of charge, therefore, during installation, you can safely agree with the license by selecting (when it appears) the item "I accept the agreement", and on all other pages by clicking the "Next" button ("Next"). The program itself determines which language is used on your computer and immediately switches to it. However, if necessary, the language can be changed in the program settings by selecting one of seventeen, including Catalan and Ukrainian.
The program allows full automatic panorama creation, but this does not always work out if the original photographs do not provide enough information for their exact "stitching". In this case, work is provided in manual, or rather, semi-automatic mode. Let's look at the process of creating a panorama, starting with taking the original photos.
Photographing
In order to get a panorama with acceptable quality, when photographing, you need to immediately take measures to eliminate possible errors and distortions. To do this, pay attention to the following:
1. It is advisable to take photographs in order, for example, from left to right. Although the program can determine the order of the pictures, it is better to have all the pictures in the right order.
2. For normal photo stitching, the program must select a certain number of identical points on adjacent photos. This requires that the photographs have overlapping areas in which there are sufficiently well-defined details. An overlap of about 25% of the image size is usually sufficient.
Practical tip: When shooting, look for some prominent landmark (circled in red in the photo) on the right side of the image (tree, corner of the building), after taking the picture, turn the camera so that this landmark is on the left side of the image, and take the next frame while paying attention to the next landmark on the right side of the image.
3. Try not to make tilted panoramas. Their processing is usually more difficult, and the result is likely to disappoint you. Pay close attention to the horizontal position of the image, when you tilt the camera, the panorama will turn out to be stepped and slanted.
4. Watch the angle of the camera. If the horizon line is higher on one frame and lower on the other, the panorama will also be stepped. Of course, you can crop the resulting image, but this will lose part of the image at the top and bottom.
5. As you pan the camera horizontally, make sure that the lens stays in the same position as possible. Frames taken from different points cannot be combined with acceptable quality.
6. The camera must be stable. When shooting handheld, try to keep the camera as still as possible. It is best to shoot from a tripod, but quite decent results are obtained when shooting with a short shutter speed (in automatic shooting mode - in good light). Night panorama can only be made when shooting from a tripod.
7. It is advisable to use manual exposure setting and keep it constant when shooting all panorama frames. However, the hugin program has the ability to adjust the brightness of the image, which allows you to get good results even when using simple digital cameras.
Despite such an extensive list of requirements, it is quite easy to implement them. Try it and you will see for yourself what is done wrong, and take it into account in the future. In any case, even if at first the panorama does not satisfy you, you will have individual photographs, so all your work will not be in vain.
Automatic panorama creation with hugin
We will consider working with the program with the Windows operating system installed on the computer.
Run the program by selecting the Hugin section in the Start menu, and the hugin item in it. A program window will open with the title "Hugin - a graphical interface for creating panoramas", and in it the first tab is "Assistant". If we are lucky, and the photos meet all the requirements of the program, we will not need other tabs.
When creating a panorama automatically, you need to perform only three actions:
1. Upload pictures.
2. Merge pictures.
3. Create a panorama.
Uploading pictures is very easy. After clicking the "1. Load pictures..." button, the usual dialog box will open, in which you need to select the photos from which the panorama will be formed. Some drawback is that there is no preview of the selected file in the selection window. Therefore, before working with hugin, you need to view the captured frames in another program, for which I recommend the free IrfanView photo viewer and editor, and write down the names of the files that will be included in the panorama creation process. When uploading files to hugin, you can select all the necessary files at once. Let me remind novice Windows users that this can be done by holding down the Ctrl key and clicking on the names of all the necessary files one by one.
For example, let's take three pictures that were taken specifically to illustrate the process of creating a panorama:
The pictures were deliberately taken with some violations of the rules given above - the horizontal position of the camera was not maintained, the exposure in the evening was taken too low, which increased the amount of noise in the image. This will allow to some extent evaluate the capabilities of the hugin program.
So, let's upload these three snapshots. After uploading the images, the second item on the tab will become available - "2. Merge ...". Pressing this button launches a program that searches for points in images that can be used to stitch frames into a panorama.
The process is complex and time consuming, its progress is displayed in a pop-up window, but sometimes it may seem that the computer is frozen and does nothing. Be patient, and after a while, depending on the number of shots and their size, sometimes after a few minutes, the work will be completed, this window will automatically close and a new one will open, called "Panorama Preview". In this window, you can see a small image of the generated panorama. For convenience, it is better to immediately expand this window to full screen. If the images fit together, you will see a normal image, which may be curved upwards or downwards.
After processing the uploaded images, I got a curve with a bulge down. In order to straighten the panorama, let's try to select another central point by clicking on it with the left mouse button. The center point of the panorama is located at the intersection of the horizontal and vertical lines in the image.
I had to select a point that is inside the red circle. It is advisable to choose a point located on a vertical line. If the "Auto" button is pressed in the upper part of the "Panorama Preview" window, the image will be immediately rebuilt according to the new center point. After performing this operation, the panorama will be quite straight, but may be tilted to the left or right.
My panorama has a slight tilt to the right. This can be seen if you pay attention to the fact that the horizontal line on the left runs along the back of the garden bench, and on the right - at the level of the second floor of the building. To equalize the tilt, select a point on the edge of the panorama, which should be on the same level as the center point, and right-click on it. This point in my photo is also marked with a red circle.
It is now clearly seen that the shape of the useful image field is strongly distorted. Basically, the distortions come down to a barrel-shaped distortion of the top and bottom edges of the panorama, as well as a rather strong tilt of the right side of the panorama down. If barrel distortion is related to the features of the camera lens, and we can’t do anything about it, then the mutual tilt of the individual parts of the panorama is associated with the tilt of the camera (in this case, intentional) during shooting. This is the main reason why the camera should be held as level as possible while shooting.
There is a black background around the panorama, which is completely unnecessary unless you want to keep it for some aesthetic reason. It can be cropped by moving the sliders located under the panorama and to the right of it. When you hover over the engines, additional hints will appear related to the effect of these engines on the image. I usually adjust the horizontal slider first.
The slider (marked with a red circle) needs to be moved a short distance and wait for the image update to complete. You need to move the slider so that the uneven edges of the image on the left and right are cut off. Keep in mind that image operations are very time consuming, so the response to all your actions may not be as fast as you would like.
Then let's move on to adjusting the vertical slider on the right side of the window (circled in red).
This task will be somewhat more difficult due to the slope of the pictures. The panorama has unfilled places in the upper right corner and in the lower part of the panorama (circled in red ovals). Naturally, they can be cropped by moving the vertical slider, but this will lose part of the useful image.
Sometimes, you have to put up with small defects, or retouch them later in some kind of graphic editor. In my case, there was an almost imperceptible small black space in the upper right corner of the panorama.
At the bottom of the window there are a few more controls that you can leave untouched for now, they are designed for more advanced control of the panorama view.
Now, if the operation of combining images was successful, you can return to the main window of the hugin program. Below the "2. Merge..." button, a brief summary of the success of the merge operation will appear. If the program did not scold you, you can safely press the button "3. Create a panorama ...". You will be asked about the name of the panorama file, and after entering it, the "hugB - Stitching" window will appear and the actual operation of combining frames will be performed. This operation is also very slow.
The result of the work will be a file with the .tif extension, which has a size several times greater than the sum of the sizes of all source files. In my case, it has a size of more than 31 MB! And this is with the size of the source files about 4 MB, the total size is 12.3 MB. A file with the tif extension can be viewed in any graphic viewer or editor, for example, in the same IrfanView, and then saved in a more familiar format, for example, in JPEG. In this case, the file size will decrease significantly (I have 4.7 MB), especially if you set the quality to something other than 100%. I must say that an image saved at 80% quality is almost indistinguishable from an image with 100% quality. Therefore, a slight decrease in quality with a large reduction in file size is justified.
If you are not going to further edit the panorama, you can delete the *.tif file. If some correction is supposed, it is better to perform it on the original file and only then convert it to the final format. Before saving the image, I lightened it a little with the help of gamma correction in Irfan View and increased the contrast of the image. It remains to carefully examine the file with the .jpg extension and say with a sense of deep satisfaction: "Panoramic photo ready!"
By clicking on the picture, you can download an image with a size of 1283x384, 85 kB.
If the panorama in the preview window appeared in a very distorted form, the images were superimposed on each other, something completely incomprehensible appeared instead of one line of images, then you are out of luck, automatic panorama creation did not work and you need to create a panorama in semi-automatic mode, manually setting points docking.
How to create a panorama with such an image obtained in automatic mode, we will consider in the next article.
Virtual photo panoramas, like panoramic shots, allow you to show the objects of shooting in all their beauty and scale and differ from panoramic photos in interactive viewing. In practice, this means that when viewing a virtual panorama, the user sees only that part of the image that interests him at a particular moment. If desired, he can look around, look up and down, as well as zoom in or out individual details of the image - that is, examine in detail any part of the panorama being shown. While looking at a photo, the viewer cannot control the viewing process and sees only what is shown to him. In other words, virtual panoramas make it possible to acquaint the viewer almost “live” with the environment: the layout of a house or apartment, the interior of a car, various interior design options, the interior of a hotel or restaurant, etc.
Therefore, it is not at all surprising that virtual panoramas (as well as virtual tours) today can be increasingly found on the websites of those companies for which the appearance of the premises and interiors is an important part of the business (real estate agencies, travel companies, hotels, restaurants, salons, etc.) . For example, in real estate companies, sets of virtual panoramas (internal views of the living room, kitchen and bedroom, external views of the house, driveways, outbuildings, etc.) are widely used to visualize information about houses and apartments for sale. Series of virtual panoramas are often combined into virtual tours, in which the transition from one panorama to another is carried out through active zones placed directly on the images. Such tours allow you to make real virtual journeys, sequentially moving between panoramas.
Today, virtual panoramas are most often created using Flash and QuickTime VR (QTVR) technologies - that is, they are SWF or MOV files that are viewed directly in an Internet browser using Flash or QuickTime players connected to the browser, respectively.
Viewing a virtual panorama in an Internet browser
Virtual panoramas are usually created from circular or spherical panoramic images. When viewing virtual circular panoramas, you can perform a full turn in the horizontal plane in any selected direction, and when viewing spherical panoramas, you can additionally move the image up and down. At the same time, it is possible to create virtual panoramas based on other projections (cylindrical, cubic, etc.), although the possibilities for viewing such virtual panoramas will be more limited: in particular, cylindrical virtual panoramas are viewed by smoothly moving them to the left or right.
About the technology of creating virtual panoramas
Photo panoramas are usually created from several specially prepared overlapping photographs using special programs that "stitch" the images into a single panorama, removing the invariably occurring distortions. In order for such stitching to be possible, a number of important rules should be followed:
- The camera must have an exposure lock function - that is, a manual mode for setting shutter speed and aperture, or an auto exposure cancel mode (the latter applies only to digital cameras). In addition, for digital cameras, a manual white balance setting is required.
- To obtain a high-quality panorama when shooting, it is advisable to use a tripod with a panoramic head - it is needed in order to fix the camera in such a way that the axis of rotation passes through the nodal point (the point inside the camera lens where the light rays going to the film or matrix intersect). This is very important, because when the camera rotates around the nodal point, there is no parallax of objects.
- You need to shoot each subsequent frame of the set so that it overlaps the previous one by about 30%, and the linear and angular position of the horizon line remains unchanged throughout the set (that is, the camera must be aligned using “levels”). In addition, it is better to place the seams on non-critical (quite plain) places.
- When shooting, it is necessary to monitor the lighting and even distribution of light over all the pictures of the set, otherwise it may turn out that one of the pictures will be dark, and the rest - light. To avoid this, it is wiser to choose a point for shooting at which the light source would be on one of the "seams" of the future image.
- You should shoot with the maximum possible depth of field (sharpening must be done manually) and in a single mode - that is, with the same exposure and the same white balance (do not use auto mode!).
Since you can never be sure when shooting the source material that the stitching result will be perfect, it is better to take several sets of shots for one panoramic photo in advance - it is possible that a slightly changed angle of view in one of these sets will be better.
It is desirable to shoot in RAW format - this provides additional opportunities for processing each frame, such as changing the exposure.
In addition, external conditions should also be taken into account. Here you need to pay attention to two points: a change in illumination and the presence in the frame of moving (clouds, waves, people, cars) or objects swaying from the wind (tree branches). In the first case, if you do not have time to take the entire set of pictures before the nature of the illumination changes (for example, the sun is covered by clouds), then you should not start shooting at all - such initial pictures simply cannot be stitched into a panorama. In the second case, when photographs are combined with similar objects, artifacts appear (the so-called phantoms or ghost objects), which can be (although not always) eliminated only by painstaking and very time-consuming retouching. Therefore, in such cases, it is often better to postpone shooting until a more favorable moment.
Stitching images into virtual panoramas is carried out in special stitching programs, which, as a rule, can stitch in automatic, semi-automatic or manual mode. Auto stitching is fine if the camera didn't have a front tilt and the side tilt was the same for all shots (i.e. a tripod was used and the camera was carefully leveled). When shooting from a tripod, but with unknown camera tilt angles, semi-automatic stitching is recommended, in which you will additionally need to specify stitching points on one or more pairs of images. If the camera angles are different for all shots (which is always the case when shooting without a tripod), an acceptable result can only be obtained with manual stitching.
The stitching technology in all programs is approximately the same. First you need to load the original set of images and set the order of their placement. In some programs, you can immediately carry out the necessary image correction (of course, it is much better if the image correction is done in advance in more suitable programs for this purpose, for example, in Photoshop). Then the images are converted to a certain projection, for example, spherical - this is necessary, since only in this form can images be stitched.
Then the resulting images are joined to each other - automatically or manually by setting control points for each of the pairs of adjacent images. The latter is very time-consuming, but often allows for stitching far from ideal images. Obviously, the quality of image alignment directly depends on the accuracy of setting control points. Finally, in the final step, adjacent images are blended to equalize their brightness, contrast, and hue.
The result of all these actions will be obtaining a photo panorama. To turn it into a virtual panorama, you need to convert the panorama into the appropriate format, and to demonstrate a virtual panorama on the Internet, you will need to manually embed it into the file of an existing web page (basic knowledge of HTML is enough) or generate a template web page (similar functionality is available in a number of solutions discussed in the article). ).
Applications for preparing and converting photo panoramas
There are quite a lot of programmers on the market, some of them allow you to save finished images as virtual panoramas and even provide the generation of appropriate HTML codes that make it possible to embed virtual panoramas into web pages with minimal effort. Other programs do not provide such functionality, which, however, is not critical, since there are converters that allow you to perform such conversions.
We'll look at PTGui, Autopano, The Panorama Factory, and PanaVue ImageAssembler as examples of crosslinkers. The most impressive of them are the first two programs, which allow achieving high-quality results of gluing pictures into a photo panorama even in difficult cases. As for obtaining virtual panoramas, theoretically all four programs can be used to solve this problem, but it is much more convenient to use a converter, among which the Pano2VR program is of the greatest interest.
PTGui 8.2.1
Developer: New House Internet Services B.V.
Distribution size: depending on the version from 5.6 to 9.8 MB
Work under control: Windows (all versions), Mac OS X
Distribution method: shareware (30-day feature-limited demo that adds a watermark to images - http://www.ptgui.com/download.html)
Price: 79 euro
PTGui provides the creation of cylindrical, flat and spherical panoramas - both single-row and multi-row, and based on any number of images. The program is presented in two versions - PTGui and PTGui Pro. The PTGui Pro version additionally can create HDR panoramas.
Setting panorama options in PTGui
Stitching is carried out under the control of the wizard in normal or advanced mode, and the program determines the parameters of the lens itself. The advanced mode provides full control over the stitching parameters: you can crop, manually set a variety of parameters of the source images (rotate, tilt, adjust the exposure, etc.), set control points, etc. The original shots can be taken without carefully leveling the camera with levels (for example, being tilted or taken at a slightly different angle), since the program is able to correct such defects. In addition, the program can correct distortion and perspective distortion and allows you to adjust the position of the horizon line. And in the settings of the panorama itself, you can also specify which module (built into PTGui or one of the external plugins, including the Smartblend plugin, which is best at fighting phantom elements) will be used to blend images.
Finished panoramic images are saved in JPEG, TIFF or PSD formats or exported as virtual panoramas in MOV format. In the case of creating a virtual panorama, functionality is provided for determining the size of the viewing area and image quality, as well as setting restrictions on viewing angles along the horizon, tilts and viewing angles.
Autopano 2.0
Developer: Kolor
Distribution size: depends on OS and version (Windows versions - from 12.5 to 17.3 MB)
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/Vista; Mac OS 10.4/10.5; Linux kernel 2.6 or superior
Distribution method: shareware (a functionally limited demo that adds a watermark to images, does not allow saving projects and restricts export to PanoTools - http://www.autopano.net/en/buy-autopano/download.html)
Price: Autopano Pro - 99 euros, Autopano Giga - 199 euros
Autopano provides the creation of cylindrical, flat and spherical panoramas (including multi-row) from an unlimited number of images. The program is presented in two versions: the basic Autopano Pro and the extended Autopano Giga, the latter additionally allows you to create gigapixel panoramas from hundreds or even thousands of photos, has advanced HDR support and can export panoramas to Flash format.
Assembling a panorama in Autopano Giga
Stitching panoramas in Autopano is performed in a fully automatic mode: the program independently extracts photos from the specified folder that are part of the panorama, ignoring unnecessary shots, determines the lens parameters and stitches the images by placing control points. In this case, the original images can be cropped and color corrected (exposure change, white balance adjustment, etc.). Optics distortion is corrected automatically, and image blending is performed using the module previously specified in the settings, the list of which also includes the Smartblend plugin. If necessary, the position of automatically set control points can be easily corrected, as well as adding new control points or deleting unnecessary ones (there is also a function for automatically detecting and deleting "bad" control points). The assembled panorama can be rotated, cropped, its projection and center position can be changed, the horizon, color can be corrected (HDR color correction is possible), etc.
Finished panoramic images are saved in PSD, JPG, PNG, TIFF, HDR or EXR formats, export to Flash format is possible (no virtual panorama design settings are provided). Implemented export of Autopano projects to PanoTools, as well as import from PanoTools to Autopano, which allows you to use the capabilities of these two solutions at the same time: the first, for example, is useful for obtaining more precise optimization in complex cases.
The Panorama Factory 5.3
Developer: Smokey City Design LLC
Distribution size: depending on the version from 8.05 to 15.5 MB
Work under control: Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista/7 and Mac OS X 10.3.9/10.4/10.5/10.6
Distribution method: http://www.panoramafactory.com/download.html)
Price:$79.95
The Panorama Factory program is used for stitching images into single-row flat and circular panoramas, as well as for stitching documents. Stitching is performed fully automatically or in semi-automatic or manual mode. In automatic mode, images are correctly stitched together with a small (but identical) tilt of the camera, in semi-automatic mode, the device can be tilted in a vertical plane, with more serious errors, you will have to turn to manual mode. By default, the creation of panoramas occurs step by step - under the guidance of a wizard, however, it is easy to switch to the classic mode of operation, when all operations will have to be performed independently through the menu. The program is able to determine the focal length, allows you to correct the original images (they can be rotated and cropped) and can eliminate barrel distortion, adjust the exposure, increase brightness and sharpness during the stitching process. And the image blending adjustment implemented in it allows you to deal with phantom elements.
The process of manually stitching a panorama in The Panorama Factory
Created panoramic images are saved as single-layer or multi-layer bitmaps (BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG and PSD) or converted into virtual panoramas in QTVR, IVR and PTViewer formats. The generation of an HTML file associated with the virtual panorama is provided. You can adjust the vertical and horizontal field of view of the saved panorama image, and if it is turned into a virtual panorama, you can also determine the image quality, field of view size and rotation speed during automatic viewing.
PanaVue ImageAssembler 3.5
Developer: PanaVue
Distribution size: 6.8 MB
Work under control: Windows 2000/XP/Server 2003/Vista
Distribution method: shareware (functionally limited demo that adds a watermark to images - http://www.panavue.com/en/downloads/pia/trial.htm)
Price: Standard Edition - $64, Professional Edition - $129
PanaVue ImageAssembler allows you to stitch circular and flat single-row and multi-row panoramas. The program is presented in two editions - basic Standard Edition and extended Professional Edition. The advanced version has improved retouching capabilities and allows you to stitch huge images (up to 100,000x100,000 pixels).
Creating a panorama in PanaVue ImageAssembler
The main stitching mode in PanaVue ImageAssembler is automatic, but it is also possible to take into account manually placed breakpoints. The program independently determines the parameters of the lens (focal length and tilt angle of the camera), allows you to correct the original images (rotation, sharpening and blurring are allowed), change the type of projection and is able to correct geometric distortions during blending and straighten skewed images. In addition, you can adjust the degree of blending of images, and at the end of it, crop the resulting panoramic image.
Ready-made panoramas are saved in all popular graphic formats, including JPG, TIF, BMP, PNG and PSD (the latter only in Professional Edition) or exported to virtual panoramas in QTVR and PTViewer formats. For the saved virtual panorama, you can set the desired size of the viewport and, if necessary, limit the allowable viewing angles, as well as determine the image quality.
Pano2VR 2.2.3
Developer: Garden Gnome Software
Distribution size: 10.8 MB
Work under control: Windows (all versions), Mac OS X and Linux
Distribution method: shareware (demo with watermark - http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2vr_download.php)
Price: personal license - 59 euros, corporate license - 149 euros
Pano2VR is a handy tool for converting finished panoramas to Quicktime VR (QTVR) or Macromedia Flash 8/9/10 format with simultaneous generation of associated HTML files. Panoramas in JPEG, PNG or TIFF formats (Cylindrical, Equirectangular, Cube Faces, etc. projections are supported) or virtual QTVR panoramas can be used as source panoramas. In addition, the program has the ability to transform panoramic images into a sphere, a mirror ball, a cylinder, a horizontal cross, etc. It is possible to add active zones to the virtual panorama to go to specific web pages, for example, with other panoramas, which allows you to get simplified virtual tours.
Convert panorama to Flash format in Pano2VR
For a virtual panorama, you can limit viewing angles along the horizon, tilts, and allowable viewing angles. The number of segments involved, the size of the view window, the quality of visualization, etc. are also regulated, it is allowed to enable / disable autoplay. In the case of a Flash panorama, it is additionally possible to select a design template, which, if necessary, can be easily edited and saved for further use. It is possible to generate an HTML file associated with a virtual panorama, and when creating QTVR panoramas in the HTML file settings, you can determine whether you need to use the DevalVR plugin for viewing.
For Windows users, the developer's site also offers the Pano2QTVR 1.6 utility (http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2qtvr.php; 2.8 MB), on the basis of which the Pano2VR program was created. At the moment, this utility is no longer being developed, but it can still be useful, since it provides conversion of panoramas to Quicktime VR (QTVR) and Macromedia Flash 8 formats and is offered at a more affordable price, although it is less convenient to use. The utility is presented in two versions: free basic Pano2QTVR and extended paid Pano2QTVR Pro.
Panorama2 Flash 1.00
Developer: Easypano Holdings Inc.
Distribution size: 17 MB
Work under control: Windows Me/2K/XP; Mac OS X 10.4 and higher
Distribution method: shareware (demo version that adds a watermark to images - http://www.easypano.com/download-panorama2flash.html)
Price:$49.95
Panorama2Flash is a simple utility for converting ready-made spherical and cylindrical panoramas into interactive panoramas in Flash format while generating associated HTML files.
Generation of a virtual Flash panorama in Panorama2Flash
Panoramas in JPG, PNG, TGA, TIF and BMP formats can be used as initial panoramas, and for a virtual panorama it is possible to determine the size of the viewing area and image quality, select images for the "floor" and "ceiling", set restrictions on viewing angles along the horizon , tilts and allowable viewing angles, etc.
Aleo Flash Pan Zoom Viewer 1.1
Developer: Aleo Software Inc.
Distribution size: 1.89 MB
Work under control: Windows 98/98SE/Me/NT4.0/2000/2003/XP/Vista
Distribution method: shareware (30-day demo that adds a watermark to images - http://www.aleosoft.com/download/flashpanzoom.zip)
Price: personal license - $29.95; commercial license - $49.95
Aleo Flash Pan Zoom Viewer is a compact and simple utility for converting ready-made JPG, PNG, GIF and BMP photo panoramas into interactive Flash panoramas with simultaneous HTML code generation.
Convert panorama to Flash format in Aleo Flash Pan Zoom Viewer
Viewing parameters (size and style of the overview window, control panel, navigation features) of generated virtual panoramas are fully customizable.