Photmontage into Panoramically stiched Photo's

[JamesTaylor]

Anyone done this before, or have any suggestions as to the best way forward??

 

i've been out on site and taken photos every 20° and stiched them together to create a 180° view.

 

Back in Viz i've aligned the model to a central photo and then rendered every 20° to match what was done on site. However, on a rough test of the stiching process parts of the building become fragmented... this perhaps could be amended with time spent touching up the stiched renders?

 

Anyway i throw it out to the masses, is there a better way to do this - perhaps a fish eye camera, has anyone done this before and would like to share their technique??

 

BTW if it makes any difference i'm using Viz, Vray, Photoshop to complete this project.

[bjornkn]

What are you using for stitching?

Is it stitched as cylindrical or spherical projection?

 

It would help you a lot when aligning pano/model if you apply the pano to either a cylinder or sphere (depending on its projection) using the appropiate mapping method (or UVs), with you camera right in the middle.

I don't use Viz/Vray, but in LightWave I can use an advanced camera to render the model directly as cylindrically or spherically mapped.

If you can't do that in Viz/VRay you should be able to stitch the rendered 20degree slices using the stitching program (I use PTgui, which works great)

 

Could you post a few images that shows our problems (and background pano)?

[JamesTaylor]

I'm using the Auto Align and Auto Blend functions in Photoshop with the Align option set to auto.

 

I align my camera with a single photo from the centre of the Panorama, but i like your idea of mapping the whole panorama onto a cyclinder.

 

As far as i know there isn't a method in Vray to render to either cyclindricall or Shperical map, there are particular lens types that can be used but unfortunately as i've gone down the path of using a VRay Physical Camera these options don't appear to be available.

 

here is the panorama with and without the montage, and also a close up of the stich before any touch up work.

 

Alot of the problems visable could be down to photoshops perhaps limited stiching abilities???

[bjornkn]

Yes, there are much better stitchers available than the PS one.

Try Hugin, which is free. http://wiki.panotools.org

I've never had much luck with stitching in PS.

 

It looks like neither your photo-pano nor the model have the horizon right in the middle vertically? To get good results you really need to have a camera pointing straight ahead (no pitch up or down) so that all vertical lines are parallel.

Now it looks like the camera of the background is pointing up, and the one with the model is pointing down? You could always crop it afterwards, but to get a good panorama you'll need to have the horizon right at the middle while stitching.

[JamesTaylor]

thanks Bjorn, i'll have a look at Hugin.

 

i'm pretty sure that the photos aren't perfect - its the 1st time we've taken our own pics so it was a little trail and error. The problem has occurred from our euipment in that the tripod head although adjustable in all directions doesn't utilise a ball joint but 3 independant hinges, so after a level was set for the 1st pic by rotating 20 degrees its put the remaining 2 axis slightly out, but it shouldn't be huge differences. Unfortunately this was on oversight on our behalf whilst purchasing the equipment, hopefully we can get it corrected before we do any more panorama's

 

i'll re look at the viz camera in regard to the verticals

[bjornkn]

For the photos it is not necessary that they are shot absolutely level, because Hugin (and PTgui and others) will handle the levelling.

I usually shoot my spherical panos with a fisheye with a pitch of 10 degrees down. Then I can shoot 4 around + one zenith to get a full sphere.

For shots like yours I often shoot handheld, or with a monopod. I would probably use an 18mm (in 35mm equiv) lens in portrait mode. Depending on how many pixels there should be in the final image l might use landscape.

Your photos have very little detail in the foreground, so they should be fairly easy to stitch even with some parallax errors. If you don't use a real panorama head (see the wiki) it may actually be better to shoot freehand, because with a normal tripod head you normally can't avoid a lot of parallax errors?

Are you going to show this interactively, or as a flat printout?

[JamesTaylor]

i've had a look at Hugin for a good hr or so this morning, it seems to stitch the photos together with greater accuracy, however i don't seem to be able to do any colour correction between the shots and i cant save out to a PSD file as PTStitcher.exe isn't present??? So at present i'm back to Photoshop, but to be honest most the panorama is actually covered by what is being rendered merged.

 

I've saved out a .jpg version from Hugin, so i can compare the horizon level with the photoshop version and am re rendering the viz file with a level camera, earlier i had tried to match the problems encountered with our equipment with the viz camera.

 

the final piece for this just a straight print out.

[JamesTaylor]

Here is an upto date image.

 

i've figured out that i can stich / align using Hugin and save out to individual tiffs, which i've been doing and blending them as required in photoshop. As the images have already been align the blending actually requires very little effort.

 

anyway if anyone has comments they'd be welcome, its just gone to the client so i'm awaiting their feed back also. I'm particualry interested in what people think regarding the actually camera match accuracy as this will be the clients biggest concern i anticipate.

 

*** if any moderators see this post it probably wants moving to the WIP section now as its moved on from the orginal question. cheers James ***

[Iain Denby]

Ugh! Why did the client want something like this?

 

Sorry James, I'm sure you've done your bit OK, but I think the whole image is horrible and looks wrong.

[JamesTaylor]

care to expand on what looks wrong Iain? perhaps its something i can look to amend??

 

The client wants to show the whole site and its surroundings from eye level and suggested a panoramic image, have to say actually quite like it. Its different to most of what we see and its certainly the 1st time i've produced a panoramic image which has made for an interesting project.

[Iain Denby]

The pespective on the roof of the new building looks too severe for the rest of the image. This may just be an illusion, I'm not sure, but it looks wrong somehow.

 

Overall, it looks dull and flat and lifeless. I know you are matching to the photo which was taken on an overcast day, But it just leaves me cold. It looks kind of spooky too, like a bad dream. A bright sunny summer day, then maybe this would have worked with the panoramic photo.

 

I'm not sure if it 'sells' anything.

 

To improve what you've got, I would add some people and get rid of the top of that car bottom right. Also, look at your tarmac...it's foreground and needs to be more realistic-dirty it up a bit.

[bjornkn]

I agree that it isn't perfect yet, but it is still a good start IMO.

The perspective doesn't look right. To me it looks like the 3D camera is located too low? On the orginal pano it looks like the field and road is pretty flat, but now it looks like the new buildings are several meters below the road, judged by the perspective lines - and the more distant parts even more so? It looks like the horizon should be about where the tan bricks (stones?) meet the greenish wall on the right side?

It would probably improve if you increased the contrast a bit on the new parts too, particularly on the right side with the stairs?

[JamesTaylor]

Slight delay on this one recently, but here is the image that went off to client yesterday and has now been signed off.

 

thanks for the input guys, the client is very happy!