Advanced Member Oliver Thornton Posted July 12, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted July 12, 2009 Just thought some of the users might like this freebie from Microsoft: http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/red...groups/ivm/ICE/ It's a fairly versatile image stitching program that outputs to a variety of formats. Visitors to the 2007 or 2008 Siggraph may have seen some demos using this technology. Turns out it's free to use, and there is also a user forum for posting questions, etc. Enjoy! -Oliver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Contributor Tony Nemo Posted July 13, 2009 Contributor Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Just thought some of the users might like this freebie from Microsoft:http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/red...groups/ivm/ICE/ It's a fairly versatile image stitching program that outputs to a variety of formats. Visitors to the 2007 or 2008 Siggraph may have seen some demos using this technology. Turns out it's free to use, and there is also a user forum for posting questions, etc. Enjoy! -Oliver Got it, thanks! Ironic that MS's own software isn't properly licensed. If it isn't important to them why should anyone else respect the convention? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Cool! I just installed it, I'll have to take my camera outside when the sun comes up, it's just now starting to. Perhaps this will save me from having to buy a gazing globe for shooting HDR image probes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member cuffins Posted July 13, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Thank's for the tip! Will give it a try... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 13, 2009 Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 So I went out to my back yard with my camera on a tripod and shot 83 pictures in every direction possible at 3456x2304 res. I threw the pictures into ICE and it spat out this: Then I brought that into Photoshop and applied Polar Coordinates and got a nice spherical map after a little touching up to fix the middle of the sky. Actually I got a rectangular image with a "football" shape in the middle, so I scaled the image to make it square. Interestingly Photoshop has a stitching feature that is very similar to ICE. So I thought I would try that with the same images. I tried twice and both times PS crashed before finishing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member Oliver Thornton Posted July 13, 2009 Author Advanced Member Report Share Posted July 13, 2009 Nice work Phil! You say you shot 83 images, what kind of angle did you use? I got a fairly decent result with just 10 images for a panorama. I suspect I could get much better results with a better lens, but I was really impressed with how smooth the light blending was, especially since I left the camera's settings on full auto. Love the full resolution options too, great for users with low MP cameras who want to create high quality panoramas. After a little more reading it seems this is/was a facet of MS's larger program, Photosynth. Apparently with Photosynth you can stitch together photos shot from different perspectives (walking around, aerials, pretty much anything it seems), creating some pretty fantastic results. Here's a neat trick if you're using a recent version of PS. Take your stitched photo and use PS to adjust exposure so you have your original and four copies (+2,+4, -2,-4, etc; five or more files total). Once you have them all saved out, use PS Merge to HDR on your five images to make a quickie HDR from your single image. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well with most photos. It helps if the source image is fairly well balanced (no blown out hightlights etc) before you start adjusting the exposures. -Oliver Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 14, 2009 Report Share Posted July 14, 2009 Thanks, well I just pointed at the horizon and shot, then turned, leaving about 20% overlap, then turned, etc. Until I got all the way around in a circle. Then I tilted the camera up, leaving about 20% overlap on the bottom, and repeated the first step. I repeated this whole process until I had a full 360 sphere. I have used Photosynth before it's very cool. http://photosynth.net/ I know of faking an HDR. I was thinking of doing a real one since my camera has auto-bracketing. I'm curious if ICE will make the outputs the same though. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member spacepainter Posted July 23, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 With fisheye you need only a few pics... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
philnolan3d Posted July 23, 2009 Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 I think a fish eye lens is not something everyone has access to. Also I think in a smaller area like a room indoors you don't need as many pictures. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advanced Member spacepainter Posted July 23, 2009 Advanced Member Report Share Posted July 23, 2009 Just to indicate it might be a bit easier than taking a hundred pics. I experimented a lot with Stitcher. Also quite good, friendly interface. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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