Panorama Software

[Robert Love]

Can somebody recommend a good app (OSX preferred) the will build a
panorama from individual jpeg shots? It must:

(a) not be QTVR, I want the end product to be a wide JPEG.

(b) not be a Photoshop plugin. I want a stand alone product.

All advice appreciated.

[sbt]

In article <20030724002436049-0500@library.airnews.net>, Robert Love
<rblove@airmail.net> wrote:

> Can somebody recommend a good app (OSX preferred) the will build a
> panorama from individual jpeg shots? It must:
>
> (a) not be QTVR, I want the end product to be a wide JPEG.
>
> (b) not be a Photoshop plugin. I want a stand alone product.
>
> All advice appreciated.

Well, Photoshop Elements 2 has a built-in "PhotoMerge" capability that
seems to work rather well for most basic panorama stitching and
quilting.

If you're willing to put up with a somewhat less automatic process, but
one which gives you a great deal of control and flexibility, check out
Kekus Designs' PTMac -- it's a decent, dialog-driven front end to an
updated-to-OS X version of PanoTools.

--
Spenser

[Clyde Davidson]

In article <20030724002436049-0500@library.airnews.net>,
Robert Love <rblove@airmail.net> wrote:

> Can somebody recommend a good app (OSX preferred) the will build a
> panorama from individual jpeg shots? It must:
>
> (a) not be QTVR, I want the end product to be a wide JPEG.
>
> (b) not be a Photoshop plugin. I want a stand alone product.
>
> All advice appreciated.

I've been looking for something like that since OS X came out. I used
Apple's QTVR Authoring Studio under OS9, but Apple seems to have ignored
their own software in the upgrade. Actually QTVR AS doesn't even work
under Classic in OS X. Lately, it hasn't even worked when I boot to OS9.

I bought REALVIZ Stitcher EZ as a simple and cheap OS X stitching
program. It was suppose to be based on the full Stitcher program. That's
suppose to be the best program out there, but I don't have $500 to buy
that.

Stitcher EZ doesn't work right yet. I've tried a bunch of different
panos, but haven't got a correct stitch yet. I even used LensDoc to
correct everything and that helped some, but not enough. It always seems
to mis-align a couple of seams. It also seems to randomly pick where the
start of the pano will be.

I've been in communication with REALVIZ to get them to fix all this.
They have be very responsive, if not a bit slow. In short, they are
working to fix all the bugs and make it work right. I've sent them a
series of images to see if they can make it work right. We'll see.

In the past couple of weeks or so, I tried LM Stitcher. I could get it
to stitch right either.

I then moved to PTMac. It's an OS X port of PanoTools with a rather nice
GUI front-end. The learning curve is pretty high, but not nearly what
basic PanoTools is. The Help files are pretty good and the author is
very responsive in answering question in e-mail.

PTMac also takes a fair bit of manual work to get it right. For example,
you don't realize at first that you have to manually set the starting
point for the Yaw, Pitch, and Roll. Optimizer can't seem to make large
adjustments. You also have to set a ton of Control Points to give the
Optimizer something to work with. You seem to have to do a lot of fine
tuning of those Control Points and re-Optimizing.

Once you get it Optimized properly, PTMac does perfect stitches. It also
exports in about as many formats as you can think of. The versatility of
this tools is very high, if you learn to work it properly.

So, until REALVIZ gets Stitcher EZ working right or lowers the price of
the full version, PTMac seems to be the only working solution. I would
recommend it.

Clyde

[clw@oblivion.world]

In article <lugh-clyde-3C4AD6.10123424072003@netnews.attbi.com>,
Clyde Davidson <lugh-clyde@attbi.com> wrote:

> In article <20030724002436049-0500@library.airnews.net>,
> Robert Love <rblove@airmail.net> wrote:
>

> > Can somebody recommend a good app (OSX preferred) the will build a
> > panorama from individual jpeg shots? It must:
> >
> > (a) not be QTVR, I want the end product to be a wide JPEG.
> >
> > (b) not be a Photoshop plugin. I want a stand alone product.
> >
> > All advice appreciated.

>
> I've been looking for something like that since OS X came out.

Photoshop Elements 2.0 will do this chore and a lot more. If you are
"into" some photo manipulating, the Whacom tablets come with a copy of
PS Elements 2.0.

[Clyde Davidson]

In article <clw-039131.08553824072003@nntp0.pdx.net>,
[email]clw@oblivion.worl[/email]d wrote:

> In article <lugh-clyde-3C4AD6.10123424072003@netnews.attbi.com>,
> Clyde Davidson <lugh-clyde@attbi.com> wrote:
>

> > In article <20030724002436049-0500@library.airnews.net>,
> > Robert Love <rblove@airmail.net> wrote:
> >

> > > Can somebody recommend a good app (OSX preferred) the will build a
> > > panorama from individual jpeg shots? It must:
> > >
> > > (a) not be QTVR, I want the end product to be a wide JPEG.
> > >
> > > (b) not be a Photoshop plugin. I want a stand alone product.
> > >
> > > All advice appreciated.

> >
> > I've been looking for something like that since OS X came out.

>
> Photoshop Elements 2.0 will do this chore and a lot more. If you are
> "into" some photo manipulating, the Whacom tablets come with a copy of
> PS Elements 2.0.

It seems so odd to have to buy Elements to stitch when I use Photoshop 7
all the time.

Clyde

[karina]

Try PanoEdit (www.panoedit.com)