Forum

Topic: Embedding / any alternative to gigatag? and how correct the black curves around the image

hi people, anyone known any alternative to gigatag? the price is very giga!! i want to share, and can make people ‘tag’ mark by facebook, but the price is very, very giga for me.
other question: how i can correct the image, to ‘crop’ the image without black curves around the image?
see an example: http://www.3d-360.com/gigapan/?id=108980
in top, bottom, left and right i have ‘black’ spaces. i want to embed without this. any chance?
thanks!

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / How accurate is the Epic 100 with long lenses?

Until I got an epic pro, I shot all of my large gigapans with a canon DSLR T1i or T2i and a the 250 or 300mm canon stock lens on an old beta Epic 100 and it worked pretty well. Make sure you crank down the little screw thing that holds the bracket on so it doesn’t slip. I’ve gotten as big as 8.8 GP with the epic 100 and that was only over about 200 degrees so it could have gone bigger.

For example all of these were shot with the epic 100
http://www.gigapan.com/galleries/5582/gigapans

Topic: Special-effects Gigapans / Time Lapse

Oh yeah look at that, hadn’t noticed it. Thanks for pointing that out! Suppose I should read the manual ;)

Topic: General Gigapanning / Impossible Panorama Shoot?

If you can get the full view of a slice of the building in with your camera oriented in a vertical position, then I’d think you could walk along the building moving the tripod and get a long panorama. I shoot a lot of panos in a single row by hand and it works fine with the gigapan stitcher. I haven’t tried to do one where I move the camera along so I can’t say for sure that the stitcher won’t get hung up for some reason but in that case some of the linked software above might work. when you take the picture
(1) Make sure the camera is fixed in position and the tripod is locked down.
(2) Make sure the angle and position of your view relative to your subject are consistent for each photo.
(3) If you can lay a measuring tape or line of some sort to keep you on the correct path at a consistent distance, this should help
(4) As you move along parallel to your subject, make sure to maintain at least 30% overlap between images
(5) make sure to try and stitch the image set asap so you can see if it worked and can come back if there are problems
(6) when stitching, set the stitcher to “rows down” and then set it to 1 row
(7) If you need to get more then one row in, you might be able to shoot a couple of rows if you mark the camera position on the ground to make each show location consistent. Shoot one row with the camera angled up, another with it down. might work

Topic: Photo Editors / Photoshop file size limitation

Hi all,

Thank you for the input. I had reached the conclusion that I could redo the photo in Gigapan Stitch in two parts. Then, when I print it, I can print it in pieces and put it up in parts.

The final image is posted now (search for San Luis Obispo) and you can see it has an immense amount of information in it.

The lens was a Canon 100-400 mm set to 400 mm. The number of images totaled 1515. Stitching took about 8 hours. Uploading it took a long time, also. The camera is a Canon 1ds Mark III. I’m shooting Camera Raw so I have the greatest amount of flexibility. I could also process the images at slightly lower resolution (with Image Processor in Photoshop), and restitch in one piece.

I don’t like JPEG, as I found out that he is Voldemort in disguise!

I am very pleased with the photo as it is posted on GigaPan.

Tomorrow I am doing another one… I call it My Peak of the Week. I’ll scale Bishop Peak (alt. 1556) and take another one from up there. It’s a great view, and it should be spectacular.

Brian

Topic: General Gigapanning / Chat with the GigaPan Team

Today (7/5/12) at 3:00pm PDT the GigaPan Team will be hosting a Google+ Hangout: https://plus.google.com/103952252794475948311/p… This is an excellent opportunity to talk with the Team and fellow GigaPanners about your GigaPanning experience. I hope you’ll join us.

Topic: Stitch / Stitcher upload weirdness

Mosley – I’ve seen a few of these since Stitch went to 2.0 and I have an image set that will produce it, if Paul Heckbert needs it for testing. It seems more common with 360 degree panoramas, but it isn’t limited to them. It’s definitely a stitching bug, not an uploading bug – one of the very few unsquashed by Stitch 2.0 (in fact introduced in 2.0).

Topic: Photo Editors / Photoshop file size limitation

I would probably:

-Sample some of the darkest and lightest images in a RAW editor, find a happy medium of adjustment that applies to all.
-Batch process adjustments and slight resize (like David said) to get under the pixel limit.
-Stitch

If you do your editing in RAW before converting, I don’t see any reason to stick with TIF format. JPG would be 1/7 the size and save you some Methuselah-length load times.

Hope you get it figured out! Post a link when it’s up.

bkaylor

Topic: Stitch / Stitcher upload weirdness

I stitched and uploaded this pano last night. When viewed on the Gigapan site, it seems to have a detached strip of image above it that pushes the image downward in the viewer. This is a new phenomenon to me – no clue what’s causing it.

http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/108873

Topic: Photo Editors / Photoshop file size limitation

I use CorelPaint – no problems.

Topic: Photo Editors / Photoshop file size limitation

Photoshop will not open a file with greater than 300,000 width or height. There is no Photoshop flow around that limit. Best thing is to re-stitch the file in parts that stay under the limit and then open the exported TIFF files and re-scale just enough to be able to paste the pieces into a single file under the 300,000 limit. Photoshop can merge the files and blend so that the seam should be invisible. In your case, you will need about .78x reduction of the Photoshop image and you will be under the 300,000 limit for a re-combined file of two partial stitches. Needless to say you will have a lot of wait time during the process.

Another thing to consider is you could select a lower resolution setting on the camera that will give a smaller total pixel width. Also you could batch process reduce the originals you have already taken before you stitch.

You will need a lot of patience as it takes a long time to find out that something didn’t work.

Dave

Topic: Photo Editors / Photoshop file size limitation

I have only one GigaPan that rivals this in size and I didn’t even attempt to open it in Photoshop, as I recall.

Please consider uploading an unPhotoshopped version, even if just temporarily until you figure out how to clean it up to your liking. I, for one, would love to see how a GigaPan produced with this hardware looks before being touched up. What lens were you using? I’d love to see all of that metadata that GigaPan Stitch outputs (and that you lose after editing in Photoshop).

[Update: I see it’s already up on the site. Beginning to explore it now…]

Good Luck!

Topic: General Gigapanning / Inconsistent light in stitch

^^ For Canon users with a similar problem, David was referring to the “Auto Lighting Optimizer,” which can still function in manual modes. You can turn off the effect in the RAW software if you forgot it on the camera.

Also, some buildings turn their pretty exterior lights off completely at 12:00am to save power. I’ve had this happen a few times mid-shoot so you might want to check before/after.

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Score No More?

The explore score may degrade over time if the gigapan at question is getting less traffic.

Topic: Photo Editors / Photoshop file size limitation

OK, I have finally done it! I made a GigaPan on Saturday with 1515 source images in it. I am using the Canon 1ds Mark II camera, so each image is 60.2 MB. These combine to make an image that is:

384,728 × 40,736 pixels

When I attempt to open it in Photoshop, the program tells me it cannot open an image greater than 300,000 pixels in either dimension. I am running Photoshop CS5.5 on a big Mac Pro tower with 8 processors and lots of RAM; I don’t think I have other limitations.

This is the largest photo I have ever made, and I would like to continue to work at this resolution. Any suggestions on how to work with files this large in Adobe Photoshop?

Thank you,
Brian Lawler

Topic: General Gigapanning / Finding Nodal Point in Canon 100-400mm

I have your points for the Canon EF 100-400mm f4.5-5.6L IS USM lens.

I used a T2i body, but since the flange to sensor distance is 44mm for all Canon EF mounts this should apply to any Canon DSLR.

Charles, I tried the paper method. The minimum focal distance on a 100-400 is 1.8m, so I couldn’t even see the paper before it was several feet away, and if you’ve ever tried looking down a 400mm lens to guess at the entrance pupil, it’s like looking down a well.

Assuming you use the mount ring that comes with the 100-400:

400mm:
Bad news, visible parallax but the camera needed to move forward beyond what the gigapan platform would allow. Slide the mounting platform as far forward as it will go and pray to the stitching gods.

200/300mm:
Between 200-300mm there was no obvious parallax with the platform all the way forward at “0”.

100mm:
Moving the mounting platform back to “60” appeared to give good results examined at 10x zoom on Live View.

Vertical Height:
Adjust the vertical tabs so the arrows are halfway between the upper and lower curvers of the lens barrel, I eye-balled this at about “65” on the Epic Pro scale.

Conclusion:
Unless you are shooting shorter than 200mm, you can leave the mounting plate all the way forward at “0”. If you need to shoot with foreground objects, stick to 300 or less.

These are my own observations, and I’m happy to share my testing method if anyone wants to check my numbers.

bkaylor

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Finding Nodal Point in Canon 100-400mm

Fred,

I have some values for you, and there was an identical question in the general gigapanning section so I’ll post them there, just look for “100-400” in the title of the post.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Share your mistakes!

Oh man, Tim you really figured it out the hard way but your mention of blocking the viewfinder is a great tip.

Older Canon lenses with Image Stabilization don’t know what to do when sitting extremely still, such as being mounted on a tripod. The IS tries to correct shake that isn’t there, and actually ends up creating vibration by itself.

Topic: Special-effects Gigapans / Display 360° panos

Thank you very much, Kevin.
Any plans for allowing 360° panos to rotate indefinitely – like on photosynth.net (for instance http://photosynth.net/view.aspx?cid=7efcce38-78…)?

Topic: Digital Cameras on Gigapan / Gigapan Pro with D800 : what lens?

Yes and no.
Yes, the 300 f/4 is OK for the EPIC Pro.
But with such a long lens, you wont be able to capture the azimuth with the EPIC Pro.
Also, a 360° spherical pano with a D800 and 300 f/4 requires several thousand photos. The pano will be a few tens of gigapixels, which cannot be handled by all softwares. Processing will take hours, if not days, with an ultrafast computer. Succeeding such a pano is a real challenge! So think twice if you are not a true pano expert!

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Score No More?

Just checked mine – only 3 have a score – all the rest are now zero!

Is this normal?

Topic: General Gigapanning / Impossible Panorama Shoot?

These look great Terry! I don’t return to the site until October, but if I’m successful this will make for an amazing panorama, both for Gigapan enthusiasts and definitely for archaeologists. Thanks, I’ll post a link to the pic when I’m done.

Topic: Stitch / Sticher 2.0 and EFX

Sventek,

Can you please contact us directly at http://gigapan.com/cms/support/contact-support ? I’d like to look up your customer record and look into this.

Thanks.

Topic: Stitch / Sticher 2.0 and EFX

I purchased an Epic Pro directly from gigapan.org, but I didn’t get an e-mail (and I searched for it). After investing so much in the equipment, I think it would be reasonable for current users to be offered an upgrade path.

Topic: General Gigapanning / Impossible Panorama Shoot?

Matt, These might be a starting point.

http://panospace.wordpress.com/2010/09/19/linea…

http://machoarts.com/linear-panorama-photo-of-s…#

Good luck, Terry