Documentation help needed for R1

[clavi]

Nick: So that explains why I always get "breaks" in the ceiling and floor, because we can only optimize settings for horizontal view? And are u saying we can eliminate the ceiling and floor breaks by taking another 2 shots (one zenith and one nadir)? Thanks.

John: Well, with the Ultimate R1 and a known/common lens (namely Sigma 8mm f/3.5 Nikon mount), the given settings (by Nick) should already be free from parallax errors (only for horizontal view), isn't it? And in your article, you mentioned that the ideal should be 4 shots plus nadir and zenith (that's 6 shots in total). Could it be done with 3 shots plus nadir and zenith? Thanks.

[nick fan]

Nick: So that explains why I always get "breaks" in the ceiling and floor, because we can only optimize settings for horizontal view? And are u saying we can eliminate the ceiling and floor breaks by taking another 2 shots (one zenith and one nadir)? Thanks.

If you take 4 shots around, plus zenith and nadir, then the seams are 90 deg to each other. In this way, the parallax is minimized in all seams.
if you take a separate zenith shot, you can get the complete ceiling in one shot, then the seams around zenith will only contain walls/ windows which are much easier to blend/ correct than the ceiling. Besides, you have more overlap around the zenith, it is easy to use alpha channel (for ptgui) to clone out area of misalignment.

John: Well, with the Ultimate R1 and a known/common lens (namely Sigma 8mm f/3.5 Nikon mount), the given settings (by Nick) should already be free from parallax errors (only for horizontal view), isn't it? And in your article, you mentioned that the ideal should be 4 shots plus nadir and zenith (that's 6 shots in total). Could it be done with 3 shots plus nadir and zenith? Thanks.

This settings are giving by some one who has just made a few panos in his complete life. The reason I made all NN adjustable is because I don't trust myself. You can make adjustment based on my initial value. To be proficient in panography, you need to learn how to do that yourself.
BTW, I just realize that if you install the lens ring according to the manual, you should rotate the camera to portrait mode instead of landscape. The opening of plastic insert of lens ring (for easy installation) may cause the lens axis to tilt a bit. It is best to point it down. This is my orientation when I got my NPP data.


Nick

[John Houghton]

So that explains why I always get "breaks" in the ceiling and floor, because we can only optimize settings for horizontal view?

Not necessarily. There are no breaks in the ceiling and floor in my stitch of your images.

John

[nick fan]

Not necessarily. There are no breaks in the ceiling and floor in my stitch of your images.

John

Hi John,

Do you think it is because you forced ptgui to change the lens parameters by adding control points to the zenith and nadir area?

Based on your experience, if you fix the lens parameters (say to what you got from sky map),
http://www.johnhpanos.com/starcal.htm
by just optimizing the fov, y, p, r, shifts, viewpoints, can you eliminate the misalignment?





Nick

[John Houghton]

Do you think it is because you forced ptgui to change the lens parameters by adding control points to the zenith and nadir area?

I encouraged the optimizer to evaluate the lens distortion correction parameters as accurately as possible by making good the deficiencies in the control point generation. PTGui often fails to find matching features at the zenith and nadir because of the extreme distortion, but the optimizer needs points all along the seam if it is to align the images well.

Based on your experience, if you fix the lens parameters (say to what you got from sky map),
http://www.johnhpanos.com/starcal.htm
by just optimizing the fov, y, p, r, shifts, viewpoints, can you eliminate the misalignment?

Well I tried that, using my template for the 40D. The stitch didn't look any worse. I couldn't find any stitching errors, but the optimization report wasn't quite as good. Optimization will inevitably be affected by parallax errors, depending on precisely where control points happen to be assigned. The ceiling is probably relatively far away, so is less affected by parallax.

John

[nick fan]

Hi Clavi,

As John indicated DSC_2791 and DSC_2792 reveal parallax at the pew,
http://www.johnhpanos.com/DSC_2790_Panorama.gif

The pattern indicate that the entrance pupil (NPP) is in front of the rotation axis. So a larger value >0.8cm should be used. But this can also be caused by tilting of lens axis in the lens ring. So try this
1. repeat the shots with camera in portrait orientation with rail setting at 0.8cm
2. repeat the shots at 0.85cm, 0.9cm, 0.95cm and 1cm

Bring a piece of paper, jot down which sequence uses with setting.

Try them in panoweaver. upload a zip of each sequence for me to try in ptgui.


Nick

[clavi]

This settings are giving by some one who has just made a few panos in his complete life. The reason I made all NN adjustable is because I don't trust myself. You can make adjustment based on my initial value. To be proficient in panography, you need to learn how to do that yourself.

BTW, I just realize that if you install the lens ring according to the manual, you should rotate the camera to portrait mode instead of landscape. The opening of plastic insert of lens ring (for easy installation) may cause the lens axis to tilt a bit. It is best to point it down. This is my orientation when I got my NPP data.

Nick

As your end-user, I would have expected you had tested your settings thoroughly with experts. (for that matter, I ain't the expert ) So we end-users having bought your product have absolute faith that you will supply us with the correct settings right from the start. Would you buy a device (printer, dvd-writer, etc) knowing that the manufacturer did not supply users with a proper driver? I don't think so.

Anyway, it does not matter whether it is portrait or landscape mode, there are still "breaks" detected in either modes. But I will take note of your advice.

[clavi]

Not necessarily. There are no breaks in the ceiling and floor in my stitch of your images.

John

Whether you encouraged PTgui optimizer in a certain setting is one thing, from a technical discussion, each R1 setting will either be biased towards the horizontal view -OR- nadir/zenith view?? Isn't that what Michel Thoby is trying to convey?

[DemonDuck]

As your end-user, I would have expected you had tested your settings thoroughly with experts. (for that matter, I ain't the expert ) So we end-users having bought your product have absolute faith that you will supply us with the correct settings right from the start. Would you buy a device (printer, dvd-writer, etc) knowing that the manufacturer did not supply users with a proper driver? I don't think so.

Anyway, it does not matter whether it is portrait or landscape mode, there are still "breaks" detected in either modes. But I will take note of your advice.

If Bill and Nick had to spend the time to calibrate and catalog each of their pano heads for every camera/lens combination, there would have to be a price increase.

It's not hard to find the right settings and orientation for your own particular set up yourself. And it is a useful study to learn the technique. It takes less time than the time you've spent writing back to this list for help. And it's even fun and gives you a sense that you are in control of your own domain. And if you make a mistake, you'll learn from it.

And you will also learn the limits of you stitcher software. Really, if exact settings were provided so that all you had to do was dial in the numbers, you would be losing a lot of valuable experience. Give it a try. Enjoy the process as well as the results.....

[nick fan]

As your end-user, I would have expected you had tested your settings thoroughly with experts. (for that matter, I ain't the expert )

no, we never advertise this. As far as I know, there is only one company which claims its pano head is ready for use out of box. But even with this kind of "calibrated" pano head, many a user are still having stitching problem in some panos.


Nick

[nick fan]

If Bill and Nick had to spend the time to calibrate and catalog each of their pano heads for every camera/lens combination, there would have to be a price increase.

It's not hard to find the right settings and orientation for your own particular set up yourself. And it is a useful study to learn the technique. It takes less time than the time you've spent writing back to this list for help. And it's even fun and gives you a sense that you are in control of your own domain. And if you make a mistake, you'll learn from it.

And you will also learn the limits of you stitcher software. Really, if exact settings were provided so that all you had to do was dial in the numbers, you would be losing a lot of valuable experience. Give it a try. Enjoy the process as well as the results.....

Exactly. if one is making pano for fun, then learning is a very important and rewarding process. I can't remember how many tutorials I read before I attempted to develop NN. If one is making pano for money, then you can have a sense of security (after mastering it) because it is not as simple as buying equipment and software, setting up a few knobs, dials and pushing a few buttons. You don't want to invest your time and effort in something with no entry barrier.

That said, we may spend time to calibrate the panos head and provide more accurate data for popular camera and lens in the future. But we have much more important thing to do at the moment---product development.


Nick

[John Houghton]

Would you buy a device (printer, dvd-writer, etc) knowing that the manufacturer did not supply users with a proper driver?

When you buy a photo printer from the likes of Epson, Canon etc, you are supplied with a colour profile that can be used with colour managed applications such as Photoshop to give reasonable colour rendition in prints. For optimum results, you need to calibrate the printer and make a custom profile, which is what I do for my Epson 2100. It is the user's responsibility to do this. The printer manufacturer does not provide individual calibration data for each printer.

Whether you encouraged PTgui optimizer in a certain setting is one thing, from a technical discussion, each R1 setting will either be biased towards the horizontal view -OR- nadir/zenith view?? Isn't that what Michel Thoby is trying to convey?

My tutorials clearly state that the no-parallax point setting is necessarily a compromise in the case of fisheye lenses. Individual users will have their own preferences as to how the head is set up, depending on the type of scenes being photographed and the particualr workflow. For example, small stitching errors at the nadir will be of little consequence if that area is to be covered by a separately taken nadir shot or a logo disc. The settings suggested by Nick should give good results but should be regarded as a starting point. It takes only 10 minutes to set up the head how you want it. Stitchers and blenders are capable of coping with minor inaccuracies in the head setup, particularly in the hands of an experienced user.

John

[clavi]

If Bill and Nick had to spend the time to calibrate and catalog each of their pano heads for every camera/lens combination, there would have to be a price increase.

It's not hard to find the right settings and orientation for your own particular set up yourself. And it is a useful study to learn the technique. It takes less time than the time you've spent writing back to this list for help. And it's even fun and gives you a sense that you are in control of your own domain. And if you make a mistake, you'll learn from it.

And you will also learn the limits of you stitcher software. Really, if exact settings were provided so that all you had to do was dial in the numbers, you would be losing a lot of valuable experience. Give it a try. Enjoy the process as well as the results.....

Cataloging is part of product documentation. The camera settings page on this website has been left blank for unknown reasons. A prospective end-user would have asked "what happened to the R&D of this company?".

Make no mistake, I have tried so many settings over the past month, but I find it unfruitful as I seem to be trying my luck on each settings. With limited documentation on this product, I felt helpless. I personally hate products that had limited documentations. When I bought my Nikon camera, I was very pleased that it comes with a "thick" manual. It was awesome!

But the R1? It only came with a miserable piece of paper which I could have printed out of my computer. Could I say anymore?

[clavi]

Exactly. if one is making pano for fun, then learning is a very important and rewarding process. I can't remember how many tutorials I read before I attempted to develop NN. If one is making pano for money, then you can have a sense of security (after mastering it) because it is not as simple as buying equipment and software, setting up a few knobs, dials and pushing a few buttons. You don't want to invest your time and effort in something with no entry barrier.

That said, we may spend time to calibrate the panos head and provide more accurate data for popular camera and lens in the future. But we have much more important thing to do at the moment---product development.


Nick

Yes, if it is for fun, then it does not matter. But this is a world where time matters. For basic settings, it has to be provided with absolute confidence. For advanced settings, you can certainly leave it to gurus to play around with the settings. That is where photography creativity comes in. But if basic work cannot be fulfiled, then that's bad.

I think the most important thing now may not be product development, but rather product documentation. U can have the best product packed with best features, but if documentation lacks, then it will only be a white elephant.

I meant well even if I sounded critical, so that you can improve your product holistically (not just feature-wise). A bad customer is one that keeps quiet about the flaws and dumps your product secretly. Hence you don't even know what/where/how to improve. I hope you understand where I am coming from.

[nick fan]

Yes, if it is for fun, then it does not matter. But this is a world where time matters. For basic settings, it has to be provided with absolute confidence. For advanced settings, you can certainly leave it to gurus to play around with the settings. That is where photography creativity comes in. But if basic work cannot be fulfiled, then that's bad.

I think the most important thing now may not be product development, but rather product documentation. U can have the best product packed with best features, but if documentation lacks, then it will only be a white elephant.

I meant well even if I sounded critical, so that you can improve your product holistically (not just feature-wise). A bad customer is one that keeps quiet about the flaws and dumps your product secretly. Hence you don't even know what/where/how to improve. I hope you understand where I am coming from.

Hi Clavi,

There is no denying that we need to complete the documentations and videos etc ASAP. Luckily, panoramic hardware is not moving as quickly as electronics and softwares. We still have time to catch up.

BTW, do you have the rotator handle?
http://store.nodalninja.com/product_p/r-h.htm

it is needed for best performance.

Nick