Going nuts with PhotoStitch -- with results!
 

Howdy from Texas,

A good friend of mine, David Locke, bought my old PowerShot G2 last year and added a Raynox fisheye lens adapter to it. Since then, he's been going nuts with Canon's photostitch shooting mode and creating superb 360 degree horizontal plus vertical panoramas. These become virtual-reality interactive web photos, and you can pan and tilt all over them.

One of his projects is starting to get a bit of attention. Check out http://www.virtualbigbend.com/, an interactive touring experience at Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas. The entire site, the photos, the code, everything is 100% David Locke, one of the most creative individuals I've ever met.

Anyway, for more great examples of David's unique employment of Canon's oft-overlooked photostitch mode taken to extremes, check out his panorama portfolio at http://www.fullmoon.us/panos/examples.php#screen -- there's about ten of them in the pull-down menu at the bottom of the page -- and remember it's a full pan plus tilt experience, be sure to look up and down! Hope y'all enjoy this as much as I do... it's a quite a step beyond your typical digital still image, done with less than $1000 worth of gear (he did get my G2 for a steal).

Creating seamless panos with the stitch method is quite an art, but the ones on Locke's site look great--though I am a bit dubious about his trip to the moon.

virtualbigbend.com appears to be down right now.

For more pano goodness see also my post in this thread.

Hello!

Thanks for all the kudos, Chris...(awe shucks)......I have to make one small amendment to your statement....I actually don't use Canon's Photostich Software. Although the software is VERY good, you cannot stitch fisheye images with it, as it will only work with the standard built in lens on the G-2. I use a really cool program called "panotools" by Helmut Dersch. This is a free DOS based program that is very cumbersome to use, but with very good results. It is a manual stitching program, so it can be quite frustrating and tedious at times, but very good nevertheless.....

Anywho...thanks again Chris for the post and the Kudos!

David Locke

PS-Yes, I did get your G-2 for a steal; The lens was more than the camera!

Oops, well I thought you were using the Canon software!

David actually sat down with me and walked me through the entire process on his laptop once... but that was over a few glasses of beer and more than a little while ago -- http://www.virtualbigbend.com is loading fine for me, might be a bit slow due to traffic, but it's not down, at least it shouldn't be.

<<<-- Originally posted by Robert Knecht Schmidt : Creating seamless panos with the stitch method is quite an art, but the ones on Locke's site look great--though I am a bit dubious about his trip to the moon.
-->>>

Actually, that is where they filmed it ;)

Sorry, my hosting company stinks....but its cheap!

It may not be readily apparant on Virtual Big Bend, but you can also zoom in and out of those pano's by using the Shift key (tele) and Control key (wide), at least in Windows IE6. David -- put this info on your site!

re: zooming
 

Yes, you can zoom in and out on both the quicktime and the java versions:

Quicktime: as Chris said, use "Shift" and "CTRL"

JAVA: use "A" and "Z"

I dont have this on my site yet.....(baby steps please), besides, the resolution of the images used are very low res compared to the originals (for easier downloads of course), so the zoom feature isn't as impressive as when its used with the higher resolution images......very cool!

thanks again Chris,
David

I've been playing a bit with the Canon PhotoStitch sofware that
comes with my Canon digital camera but it works great indeed.
Never really had the time to jump into it though...

pano tips
 

hey there,

Whether you are using Canon's Photostitch or some other panorama stitching software I thought you all might want to be aware of a couple of things:

Exposure- You must make sure your exposure setting is the same throughout the entire series of shots, no green box mode. This will keep the stitch lines invisible.

Vertical View- Keep your camera in the vertical position, this will allow for the maximum viewing area.

Nodal Point- Often overlooked, the nodal point is extremely important, expecially for things which are closer, ie., inside a room. The nodal point is basically the center of axis that your camera turns on when spinning the camera around the shot. The nodal point (think of it as the center if the circle that your tripod head turns on) this should be in the center of the lens and the face of the lens should be directly above the nodal point. If your nodal point is off, you might as well forget about getting a good stitch. For a far away landscape shot, the nodal point is less important. For 360 x180 panoramas, like mine, the nodal point is required otherwise, it would be impossible to stitch the panorama, which will require a "panoramic tripod head." You can get a good cheap one from Kaiden. This is kind of a hard concept to grasp, so if you dont get it, stick with doing outdoor scenic panoramas.

Anywho...thought you should know these basic tips.

Later,
David

Wow! Great stuff! I just checked out all the Big Bend panoramas...Big Bend is one of my favorite places on the whole planet--great to see it this way!

I also went to the http://www.fullmoon.us/panos/examples.php#screen link and could see the panorama that appears first, but couldn't view any others. The javascript in the drop down link shows an error (for a Mac user with the latest IE browser). Just letting you know...but I'll drop back by someday when I pass by an internet café to see them. It's worth it!

By the way...I'm from Austin (sort of) and I have no idea where/what "L'Entrée Grande" is...can you give some details?

Hi,

Yes, sorry mac users, but the drop down list does not work because Apple doesn't think javascript commands exist. Go figure. I am going to update the site this month and that is one of the fixes on my list :S

L Entree Grande is "The Grand Entrance" in French. Sorry, it's my lame attempt at being sophisticated. (hey, what do you want, i'm from texas).

thanks again,
david

Ha! That reminds me of the old joke...

Patron: What's the "soupe du jour"?
Waiter: Soup of the day.

No...what I meant is...is that some historic building? It's beautiful whatever/wherever it is. Looks more Santa Fe than Austin.

LOL.... Thats a house on the lake about 15 miles west of Austin....its a part of a virtual tour of a private residents I did last February for an interior designer. Here's the website I did for her, and the virtual tour.....

http://www.kvdesignstudio.com/portfolio.html

It's mac friendly ;-)


david

Think they'd let me move into just the media room?

What more could you want? Media, big furniture, pool table, and a wet bar...all in one room.

Nice work, David.

John

<<<-- Originally posted by John Locke : Think they'd let me move into just the media room?

What more could you want? Media, big furniture, pool table, and a wet bar...all in one room.
John -->>>

Thanks John,

I here ya! that media room cost more than my modest little three bedroom and 2 acres of land put together!