Forum

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Taking Shutter 5Times

Hi there.
I purchased the GIGA Pan Epic Pro.
I have connected the D90 Nikon.
Taking Shutter 5 times in the same position.
Why not?

Movie is here.
http://youtu.be/yArIvfs9zEQ

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / EPIC Pro menu options

This option is described here: http://www.gigapan.com/cms/manuals/epic-pro-int…

My reading of this is that the bracket delay is an extra delay you make the Pro wait for after each group of bracketed shots. So, eg, say you set up a pano with three levels of bracketing and set it running. The Pro will:

take three shots, move, take three shots, move, …

and so on. If you set bracket delay to 10 seconds and start the imager it will

take three shots, wait 10s, move, take three shots, wait 10s, move, …

and so on.

Topic: Special-effects Gigapans / What is Shutter Teach For?

I have just noticed this feature on my Pro’s menu but I don’t understand what the manual says about it. I’m hoping someone can explain what it is supposed to do.

It seems clear enough that this feature is designed to automate the process of taking multiple shots but there is already the “Mult Picture” feature which does this. It would seem that the only difference between Mult Picture and Shutter Teach is that the interval between successive shots is fixed by the firmware in the former case but user-definable in the latter.

Is that right? If so, when would that be useful?

Topic: Special-effects Gigapans / Pano to Virtual Reality

I don’t know anything about the alternative systems but I can vouch for KRPano which is one of the most trouble-free and actively-supported pieces of software I have ever used.

Topic: Macro Gigapanning / Photographing a wall

Take a look at this page http://www.kolor.com/blog-en/2013/02/22/gigapan…

It shows well the capabilties of the Epic Pro.

Topic: Special-effects Gigapans / Pano to Virtual Reality

This project looks very promising for the VR goggle end of things
http://www.oculusvr.com/

Topic: General Gigapanning / Small space advice please

I’d figure out the minimum resolution you need and stick to that so you aren’t taking so many pictures if you are in a hurry. However a wider FOV per image does add to the problem of focal depth if you are shooting in a confined space with multiple depths. consider whether you shoot rows or column first – in some situations if you need to adjust focus it can help to do one or the other first (for instance if you are shooting an outdoor panorama with a lot of sky and some close up features towards the bottom of the image, shoot rows first to get the sky out of the way on manual focus and the switch to auto for the closer up features in the lower rows). Note though that when shooting columns it is a lot easier to find missing images then with rows if you are doing a wide panorama. This can add hours to your processing time if you are shooting by rows you miss an image in the middle somewhere

Here’s an extensive list of things that go wrong :)
http://gigapan.com/forums/1/topics/230

Topic: General Gigapanning / which is the best file format for printing and web use?

Hello HaPe,

Thank you very much for your reply!

Kind regards
Thomas

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Scores and Other Views

I am not sure if anyone else has noticed this but all my explore scores have been reset or set to 1. It doesn’t really bother me but is just curious.

Topic: Photo Editors / photoshop being weird!

Hi Rich,
I assume that the problem might be in the alpha-channels. To be sure that no layers are present save your images as jpg’s. I have used krpano ( http://www.spherorama.de/Firenze/ http://www.spherorama.de/Wien/) without major problems. I was told that Kolor’s autopano-tour has about the same functionality as krpano. I have an older Version of autopano-tour. I liked the functionality, but up to now didn’t upgrade to their latest version. How is your workflow with krpano? I used it with finished panoramas. Krpano did almost the same work as gigapan. It broke the panorama in various tiles, that you upload to your webserver.

Andy

Topic: Photo Editors / photoshop being weird!

Hi spherorama

Thanks for your response! I know, it sounds crazy doesnt it! I opened the image several times and it was as it had been edited. I only kept one image! Turns out, I updated krpano and managed to make it work! Here is a preview! http://www.itsrich.info/360vr/san-francisco-gig… this is the same unedited file as http://www.gigapan.com/gigapans/123684 spot the difference!

I was told that krpano only reads the background layer. I can only assume photoshop is being really weird and not flattening the image when it says it is!

Rich

Topic: Photo Editors / photoshop being weird!

Richard are you sure you used the edited images. Some time ago I had a similar problem until i checked my workflow. Instead of using the images from folder “B” where I had stored the edited photos, autopano kept returning to folder “A” where I kept the unedited pics. I always has gone back to the saved autopano-file. When I did the pano all over again, using the images from folder “B” all was fine.

Topic: Photo Editors / photoshop being weird!

I am creating giga pixel images. I am using auto pano to stitch up to 500 high res images together to create big pano images.

I open the images in photoshop to clone empty areas etc. When I save the images they look great. The preview in finder looks as they were saved. But when I use krpano to process them to a web useable image, they appear as though no editing has been done at all. I have uploaded the images to gigapan and they are the same, they look unedited. If i reopen the image in photoshop it looks the way it was saved, down to the pixel!

What is going on, because this doesnt make sense!

Topic: General Gigapanning / Facebook tagging

Hi there!

I’m Agustín, one of the founders of 360+ (http://by360plus.com) and Uruguay360 (http://uruguay360.com.uy), the first 360° virtual tour website of Uruguay.

Here I want show you our work to all the community and let you know that if you need Facebook Tagging service for your gigapixel photos, we had developed and sell it as a service.

You can check all our gigapan images and the tagging interface here: http://uruguay360.com.uy/categorias/gigapanoram…

If there’s anything we can help you with, let us know.
Best regards.

Agustín.

Topic: General Gigapanning / which is the best file format for printing and web use?

Hallo Thomas,

there are two options for using your panorama at the web:

1) Rescale your panorama (Photoshop: Alt + Strg + I) to a size, which is appropriate for the internet (for example 1800 × 300 pixel) and save it as a JPEG file, or

2) Upload your gigapixel panorama to the GigaPan platform and use the “embed” feature to integrate a viewer based version of the panorama into your website.

kind regards
HaPe

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / EPIC Pro menu options

Hallo,

right now I try to understand the different firmware options, offered by the Gigapan EPIC Pro menu.

What exactly is the benefit of the “Bracket Delay” option? As far as I understood, it effects the same as the “Time/Exposure” option does: It extends the time until the EPIC Pro starts moving to the next position. The “Bracket Delay” option was introduced to improve the timing for HDR series, but in fact it does nothing else than the “Time/Exposure” option. Instead of setting the “Bracket Delay” option to – let´s say 2 sec, I can increase the “Time/Exposure” option with the same value. Is it for quick switching between single- and multi-image panos without changing the options?

Thanks in advance!
HaPe

Topic: General Gigapanning / which is the best file format for printing and web use?

Hello!

I am quite new to gigapixel photography and I would like to ask which is the best file format to save my photos before stiching both for printing and web use.

I have a giga-panorama that is 5,5GB, psb format. To do it I stiched 258 photos. Each photo is tiff, 58MB, 300dpi. The result is satisfing for printing but really “heavy” for web use. Photoshop doesn’t let me save for web the psb file. Is there a way to make it “lighter” for web use?

thanks in advance for your answers and time
kind regards
Thomas

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Scores and Other Views

Excellent news!

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Computer setup your using

cwinhall, I disagree with your statement regarding a low end video card. Most graphics programs now using the GPU in these high end cards to process the stitching or other processes instead of the CPU, or as well as. Since the CPU is usually 2, 4, 6 or 8 cores and the GPU are 128 cores using then can reduce stitching time from 30 minutes to less than 5 minutes. That is when processing 300 to 500 photos. The current card I use is the GTX 640 which is a dog but OK, I am not trying to source a GTX 690 which uses over 3000 cuda cores will be even faster. I have 2 SSD drives in my machine as you suggest, but using a SSD Drive as C: for programs and scratch drive makes very little difference since access speed is so fast not to slow down the process.

http://blogs.adobe.com/crawlspace/2012/10/how-t…

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Scores and Other Views

Hello Everyone:

Gigapan’s Explore Score – a complex measure of how explored a gigapan is by others – went offline last fall. Gigapan engineers have fixed it and turned it back on in early February. The Explore Score is calculated using numerous weighted variables. Part of the calculation is a measure of the intensity of viewing, that is, how new a gigapan is relative to how many people are viewing it and, particularly, interacting with it. Interaction is weighted more heavily than page views alone. Newly uploaded gigapan images may rank initially higher on this measure than older gigapans because of their newness.

Gigapan is in the process of back-populating Explore Score values for gigapan images uploaded and explored through fall 2012 to work to correct the inequality caused while the Score was not calculating.

Thanks for your patience!

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Taking 2 shots at a time

Worked this one out so if anyone else is having this problem check that youe camera is not set to high speed drive mode but insted make sure its on single frame.

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Scores and Other Views

Not certain, but I’d say they implemented a new/modified algorithm late last week. I know one of my suggestions in the past was that making the minimum Explore Score 1 rather than zero would be somewhat less daunting for those who are new to GigaPanning.

What will be genuinely interesting is to see how frequently these new Explore Scores are updated. If they don’t update at least daily I suspect they’ll be as non-functional as the old ones. In any case, I’d still like to see a more open conversation between developers and (power) users about statistics on the site – I think there’s still a lot more they could be doing to make the site more engaging.

Topic: Digital Cameras on Gigapan / Panasonic LUMIX FZ-150 on EPIC 100

I think I have enough parts, but my soldering is anything but pretty. :-/

Topic: Gigapan Mechanism / Computer setup your using

Hi Alan,

I am a professional photographer so having a computer that can handle photoshop to the max (gigapans especially) is essential.

My suggestion for building a computer for gigapans is this;

i7 processor – this is an absolute must, so much computing power is needed for stitching etc.

ram – as much as you can afford, ive gone with 32gb of ram and am already thinking of upgrading to 64gb.

hard drive – get 3 hard drives, 2 x SSD and 1 by normal 7200rpm. The first SSD is used for windows and photoshop. The 2nd ssd you use solely as a scratch disk for photoshop (this can be set in your preferences). The 3rd you use as a backup for your files.

graphics – most low end graphics card will be fast enough for the gpu needs of photoshop. Dont stress too much about this!

Topic: Web Site and Forum / Explore Scores and Other Views

I see that the last 11 of my GigaPans have explore scores of exactly 1. What’s up with that?