Best software for Stitching lots of images

[Mexipike]

I'm working with a photographer who is worked to document an interior wall with a Nikon D850. This wall was covered in graffiti over the years and was set to be removed so was being documented. He used a 24mm lens and double polarization on the flash and took photos row by row eventually photographing the entire wall. This ended up with 486 images.

My question is what would possible be the best software to process so many images?

I've been experimenting a bit with some of the available softwares however it is a lot of files and since the wall is uniform in texture sometime it gets confused. Any advice would be great!

Thanks in advance!

[Tin Can]

Tried that a few years ago.

Also a graffiti wall, shot 100 images.

Photoshop and my computer reached a limit and failed.

I broke it down to 20 shiots per. Then tried stitching the new 5.

It did not come out as I envisioned.

Need lots of horizontal overlap and vertical coverage.

Very interested in this project.

Please update.

[kevincook]

Photoshop CS6 might probably the tool you are looking for. It can generate 32000 pixels wide panorama output and is able to work in batch. Stitching single panoramas is a breeze.

[Mexipike]

I should add that we've been using photoshop cc 2018. It works ok for a strip of a few images, so as mentioned by Randy Moe, we will likely put each row together and then line them up. With our hardware-new MacBook Pro and iMac, photoshop can't seem to process even small jpegs we've been using to test if we try to merge them all at once.

[Alan9940]

I'd suggest looking at Autopano Giga 4 at kolor.com. I use Autopano Pro (Giga's smaller sibling) and have never stitched anything near that large, but I've seen several giga-panos that are HUGE created with Autopano Giga.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I use PTgui which is quite effective. I have many panos that were single row and multi-row that ended up as 2 gig plus files. It isn't very expensive for the professional version.

[Amedeus]

I've been using Photoshop with very good results.

My largest image is 7GB, 35 images stitched together, each 56MP

Not sure what to recommend though for 486 images not knowing what the vantage point was for the camera. Did the camera move for each shot or was this all taken from one single position ?

Cheers,

[Tin Can]

Not sure what OP wants.

In my case, a single point rotational Panoramic was NOT what I wanted. That would not work in my limited space. No room to back up. Narrow one-way street.

I wanted and tried to make a city block of 15' high wall art in a strip of stitched images from 100 stills taken side by side parallel to the wall.

It was simply experimental, as most things I do are. Even if I made a single file, how would I print it and exhibit such a thing, which would have been best at 1/6 scale?

Now how long is a Chicago city block? I exceeded the short side by 70' making my 'block' 400' long. http://gapersblock.com/airbags/archives/measuring_a_chicago_mile/

15' X 400' ft at 1/6th scale becomes 2.5 X 66.6'. A Devil of a print!

I shot a good Nikon P&S in verticle portrait mode every 8' yielding 50% overlap. That's all I know.

I have seen folding pano strips in a gallery. Maybe 5 inches tall. At that point high resolution becomes unnecessary.

[Corran]

I have had excellent results from Microsoft's FREE stitching software, ICE, or Image Composite Editor. It has all kinds of projections to map the stitch. As long as the images were shot properly, it's worked great for me.

Give it a shot, since it's free. That being said, I never did anywhere near that number of images. I would consider what resolution the resultant stitch needs to be. The D850 has massive resolution in just one shot. Assuming about a 25% overlap and a 22x22 grid (484 images, sounds about right), my rough calculation gives the stitched image a resolution of over 10,000 megapixels. I honestly can't imagine you need that kind of resolution...so consider resizing the images to an appropriate pixel size for your planned print/display size.

[Peter De Smidt]

Microsoft Ice does have the option for orthographic projection, which is what you want. For PTgui, there is not an orthographic choice, at least there wasn't in the versions I used. A workaround is to specify the lens used as having a very high focal length such as 10,000mm.

You can also do this manually, if you want to avoid any geometry manipulation. Line up the stack of images as layers in a file. Pick the most important one as the base layer. Change the blending modes of all of the others to "difference". Turn off the visibility of all layers but the background layer. Turn on the first layer. Move it using the move tool, using the arrow keys at the end to move the layer one pixel at a time. When the overlap turns gray, then then image is aligned as well as possible without transforming. Change the blending mode of the moved layer to "normal". Now move on to the next frame.......rinse.....repeat.

I would try Photoshop first, if you have it. Next, ICE, as it's free.

[Tin Can]

Bryan, Installed ICE. Thanks for the heads up.

Looks good, but still a single point collator.

My iPod makes single point panos handheld instantly. 180 degrees is all I can do, but it's plenty. New iPhone is way better.

Here's my Alma Mater, a 4 story huge brick 1895 College gone. My favorite Darkroom was in the basement. The Pano shows where it was, dead center. The cupola is all that is left.

Both the 4X5 and Pano were shot from the same position. A very sentimental place for many. I shot this for the Facebook Barat page.. Ha ha! May it live, without me.

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/804/41037549822_3272a59fe3_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/25wmaQs)Barat HP5 4X5 (https://flic.kr/p/25wmaQs) by moe.randy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tincancollege/), on Flickr

https://farm1.staticflickr.com/864/27208070498_7a0c361f69_z.jpg (https://flic.kr/p/HshtrL)Barat empty iPod Pano (https://flic.kr/p/HshtrL) by moe.randy (https://www.flickr.com/photos/tincancollege/), on Flickr

[Tin Can]

Had to look that word up. Still reading!


Microsoft Ice does have the option for orthographic projection, which is what you want. For PTgui, there is not an orthographic choice, at least there wasn't in the versions I used. A workaround is to specify the lens used as having a very high focal length such as 10,000mm.

You can also do this manually, if you want to avoid any geometry manipulation. Line up the stack of images as layers in a file. Pick the most important one as the base layer. Change the blending modes of all of the others to "difference". Turn off the visibility of all layers but the background layer. Turn on the first layer. Move it using the move tool, using the arrow keys at the end to move the layer one pixel at a time. When the overlap turns gray, then then image is aligned as well as possible without transforming. Change the blending mode of the moved layer to "normal". Now move on to the next frame.......rinse.....repeat.

I would try Photoshop first, if you have it. Next, ICE, as it's free.

[Jac@stafford.net]

So, I'm in a goofy mood. Here is a Photoshop 'panoramic' photo made without panning the camera.

176591

See how we are?

[Tin Can]

Like!


so, i'm in a goofy mood. Here is a photoshop 'panoramic' photo made without panning the camera.

176591

see how we are?

[Willie]

Another for Auto Pano Pro or their Giga program. They are designed for the bigger files and do a better job than Photoshop when it comes to fine detail and exposure variation blending.

Photoshop does a nice job if it is not too tough but when you get going it does come up with odd placements too often.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Another for Auto Pano Pro or their Giga program.


Is the Giga program dependent upon the hardware they promote?

[Mexipike]

So to answer a couple of questions. The camera did move the whole time. Basically, the camera was on a slider taking over lapping images while moving straight across. The lens used was a 24mm, because the space was very small where he could set it up. He also used polarization on the flash and on the lens so the lighting is even and flash glare isn’t a problem.

Photoshop when we tried it didn’t handle it.

He wants the most quality, but I agree that maybe we can eliminate some images and the quality would still be incredible. The question is how much they overlap. I’ll start looking into that.

[Delfi_r]

A freind used PTGui to stitching some hundred images taken like a plane flying over the image to reproduce a old map with great results

[Joshua Dunn]

For my digital capture I routinely use PTGui. It is by far the best software for stitching that I have used. Photoshop is fine for small panos, not big ones. If you look at my website you can see some examples of the work I do in multiple row, HDR, focus stacked panoramas. Go to my blog section (woefully out of date!) and you can see some of my work to scale. I capture hundreds but often thousands of images that I first process as HDR, then focus stack and then I use PTGui to assemble the image. Only after that do I start using Photoshop.

-Joshua

www.joshuadunnphotography.com

[Ted R]

The software HUGIN panaroma stitcher may offer what you seek perhaps?

https://sourceforge.net/projects/hugin/

[Tin Can]

For my digital capture I routinely use PTGui. It is by far the best software for stitching that I have used. Photoshop is fine for small panos, not big ones. If you look at my website you can see some examples of the work I do in multiple row, HDR, focus stacked panoramas. Go to my blog section (woefully out of date!) and you can see some of my work to scale. I capture hundreds but often thousands of images that I first process as HDR, then focus stack and then I use PTGui to assemble the image. Only after that do I start using Photoshop.

-Joshua

www.joshuadunnphotography.com

Big and nice work. I think some really appreciate Art school after working or Military. Few Grad students buy all that gear and use this well.


Those moveable walls are genius. I know they are not yours,

So is your work. In person, they must be fantasic.

Congratulations!

Thanks!

[Mexipike]

For my digital capture I routinely use PTGui. It is by far the best software for stitching that I have used. Photoshop is fine for small panos, not big ones. If you look at my website you can see some examples of the work I do in multiple row, HDR, focus stacked panoramas. Go to my blog section (woefully out of date!) and you can see some of my work to scale. I capture hundreds but often thousands of images that I first process as HDR, then focus stack and then I use PTGui to assemble the image. Only after that do I start using Photoshop.


-Joshua

www.joshuadunnphotography.com

Thanks Joshua,
Your work looks great. The problem I run into with PTGUI is that since it’s a bunch of images of a wall with similar textures it doesn’t seem to automatically be able to create control points. I would have to go in and manually select each set of control points for 430 out of 437 images. Is there any way around this?

[Jac@stafford.net]

For my digital capture I routinely use PTGui. [...]

-Joshua

www.joshuadunnphotography.com

Wonderful work, Joshua. I am encouraged to look at pano work again. I left long ago when it required a revolving, incremented leveling head for QTVR, which is long gone. Thank you for your outstanding work. You made my day!

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Thanks Joshua,
Your work looks great. The problem I run into with PTGUI is that since it’s a bunch of images of a wall with similar textures it doesn’t seem to automatically be able to create control points. I would have to go in and manually select each set of control points for 430 out of 437 images. Is there any way around this?

There is a google users group tjat will ne able to hell tou with this dilemma. http://https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/ptgui (https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!forum/ptgui)

[Armin Seeholzer]

http://www.gigapan.com
or autopano is the way to go! I know many Pro's in EU use it!!!
I used it also in the past!

Cheers Armin

[Steven Ruttenberg]

I have made many gigabyte size panos with Ptgui no problem. Will eventually use it on 4x5 film. And for trying an experiment to use my 5DMKIII with 100mm macro f2.8 to digitize my 4x5. Just need a copy stand that has a geared table that will move in and out, while my geared macro rail moves left/right and up/down for focus. I took some practice shots and it has potential. Will photograph at 1:1 and f2.8 to start.

[Peter De Smidt]

Try 2.8 for sure, but I expect better results 1 or 2 stops smaller.

[Steven Ruttenberg]

Try 2.8 for sure, but I expect better results 1 or 2 stops smaller.. I will give that a try.