Smearing top of 360 pano's.

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi,

Using the NNP points from the website I'm getting a weird smearing at the top of files shot with the Sigma 8mm f3.5 fisheye. This looks like a circle with spikes radiating from it in a virtual tour. I can't seem to get rid of it. I get this with my 16-35L as well though less.

Any suggestions?

Many thanks!

[Ben Rubinstein]

The first pano here is a good example:

http://www.studio-beni.net/Town.html

Have a look at the zenith. This was shot with 4 shots at 0 degrees then one zenith shot but it's the same with 3 shots with/without a zenith shot.

[hindenhaag]

Hi Ben,

I feel you are clearly out of NPP. The camera lens axis is moved around the center point of the rotator. When you move down to the nadir, you clearly see a hacksaw cutting to the right. This means you have to move the camera body to the right till you get a round tripod head.









http://www.easypano.com/forum/displa...1&TopicID=4162

http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm

Besides following John's comment, I would recommend to try these links to recheck your NPP for lower and upper rail setting. Fortunately there sometimes are faults in the lower and upper rail settings in the Database. What camera do you use?

Regards,
Heinz

BTW: in this tripod postion to the sun you get shadows of 3 legs. When you turn it around a little bit, you could match the shadow of two legs to one, which gives less work to get rid of the shadow.

[John Houghton]

This is a blending problem. Most blenders don't support blending the zenith and nadir areas. PTGui's own blender usually gives good results at the zenith but Smartblend tends to give results as in your example. Solutions:

1. Take a zenith shot and make sure it gets used by contriving an actual hole at the zenith left by the other images.
2. Do two stitches if necessary - one with PTGui's blender and one with Smartblend and merge the two.
3. Rotate the panorama down by 90 degrees to bring the zenith (and nadir) to pitch=0 where they will get properly blended. Then remap the output image back to its normal orientation.

John

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi Ben,

I feel you are clearly out of NPP. The camera lens axis is moved around the center point of the rotator. When you move down to the nadir, you clearly see a hacksaw cutting to the right. This means you have to move the camera body to the right till you get a round tripod head.


Attachment 193






http://www.easypano.com/forum/displa...1&TopicID=4162

http://www.johnhpanos.com/epcalib.htm

Besides following John's comment, I would recommend to try these links to recheck your NPP for lower and upper rail setting. Fortunately there sometimes are faults in the lower and upper rail settings in the Database. What camera do you use?

Regards,
Heinz

BTW: in this tripod postion to the sun you get shadows of 3 legs. When you turn it around a little bit, you could match the shadow of two legs to one, which gives less work to get rid of the shadow.

Hi,

I moved the lower rail to the right by a full 1.5cm at 1mm intervals, no difference. :(

[Ben Rubinstein]

This is a blending problem. Most blenders don't support blending the zenith and nadir areas. PTGui's own blender usually gives good results at the zenith but Smartblend tends to give results as in your example. Solutions:

1. Take a zenith shot and make sure it gets used by contriving an actual hole at the zenith left by the other images.
2. Do two stitches if necessary - one with PTGui's blender and one with Smartblend and merge the two.
3. Rotate the panorama down by 90 degrees to bring the zenith (and nadir) to pitch=0 where they will get properly blended. Then remap the output image back to its normal orientation.

John

I don't have the smartblend plugin, just been using the regular PTGUI one though I get exactly the same results with APP Giga if that helps.

I just tried your method, I cut the 3 regular (0 degrees) pano's so that the program was forced to use the zenith, etc shot, no luck, still got the smearing.

EDIT Just downloaded Smartblend, looks exactly the same.

[Ben Rubinstein]

OK, just out of interest I tried doing the pano with a simple ball head rotating around the base, i.e. without the nodal slides. The nodal errors were awful but aside from that, the smearing was exactly the same!

Something very weird going on...

[hindenhaag]

Hi Ben,

Can you send the set of pics?

Heinz

[Ben Rubinstein]

The files are here, www.studio-beni.net/test.zip

Camera used is a Canon 5D with Sigma 8mm f3.5 fisheye. The correct position for the lower rail with this setup is 5.3mm according to the NN figures and my tests, I'm using an RRS L plate with the NN Arca adaptor, both of which together add exactly a 9mm offset to give a correct position of 6.2mm (Please note that using the NN5 with the CP-1 at 53mm gives the same smearing!) The test images run from 5.5mm to 7.5mm with an additional 4mm, 4.5mm and 5mm included, as well as the same pano shot without the NN5 setup. Position of the camera was +5 degrees tilt to ensure that the ceiling was captured in full without the need for a zenith shot (not that a zenith shot makes any difference, I tried that often enough). Three frames were used in each case.

The pano's were made in PTGUI with the PTGUI stitching engine apart from one of the images which I used the Smartblend engine for and is labled accordingly. None of the images are in any way sharpened.

Heinz, I really appreciate your time and effort to look at these pictures!

[hindenhaag]

Hi Ben,

I just checked the set of your pics. First thing I'd like to say you have to check your lens in front and the rear for dust or spots on it. The dark dots in the panos are spots on the lens or on your sensor. Please try to clean both of them.

What do you means by smearing? I suppose the dots on the ceiling as well as dots on the floor in some of the panos. In some cases you get stitching errors near your tripod, or on the upper wall.

Do you have a set of LRS pics taken according to Smooth method? Plus a set of pics to check your upper rail setting without sending a pano? With a reference point checked against a vertical line? Like explained in the links we send you. This is the basic od a set up which should be right.

To check what happened we have to get the set of pics taken for a single panorama to stitch it ourselves when we should try to help you. So please try to send these set of pics. Then I can check what is going wrong.

Regards,
Heinz

[Ben Rubinstein]

Hi Ben,

I just checked the set of your pics. First thing I'd like to say you have to check your lens in front and the rear for dust or spots on it. The dark dots in the panos are spots on the lens or on your sensor. Please try to clean both of them.

What do you means by smearing? I suppose the dots on the ceiling as well as dots on the floor in some of the panos. In some cases you get stitching errors near your tripod, or on the upper wall.

Do you have a set of LRS pics taken according to Smooth method? Plus a set of pics to check your upper rail setting without sending a pano? With a reference point checked against a vertical line? Like explained in the links we send you. This is the basic od a set up which should be right.

To check what happened we have to get the set of pics taken for a single panorama to stitch it ourselves when we should try to help you. So please try to send these set of pics. Then I can check what is going wrong.

Regards,
Heinz

Hi,

Yes the sensor is dirty, sorry.

Have a look at the top of the frame, accentuate contrast and sharpness and you'll see the smearing, it's not so apparent on a white wall but with blue sky or a non white surface it's horribly ugly.

[Ben Rubinstein]

I will try the smooth method now, thanks!

[hindenhaag]

Ben,

you do not have to say sorry. You ask a question and we, the forum, tries to respond. This way everyone of us has learned step by step. Asking, getting hints what might be wrong or getting answers with definite solutions.

Sorry to say, my D700 was stolen and I just lend one from NPS = Nikon Professional Services to find out settings for the new M1-Line. For fisheye lenses, Nikkor 14-24, 24-70, 70-200, 50. I will change it tomorrow for a D3X.

I will have a look to your pics concerning contrast and sharpness the next days. Ok?

Cheers,
Heinz

[Ben Rubinstein]

Ouch! I hope you were insured but that is one heck of an upgrade to what it without a doubt the most superior 35mm DSLR in existence today! I hope your computer is up to stitching those big georgous files...

I'm midway using the 'smooth' method, so far I've managed to accomplish a perfect circle at the base and am trying to work out if the upper arm setting is accurate. I had made the mistake of believing the NN settings, infact it was the reason I chose NN so that I wouldn't have to go through all this testing (more fool me for trying to get out of it!). Once I have the settings perfect I will see if the smearing still exists!

[hindenhaag]

Ben,

Take your shots around with -15º pitch. Import to PTGui Pro. Align, Advanced top right, Optimizer, if you do not use the latest Beta "minimize lens distortion" set this to "Heavy + lens shift". Run Optimizer. Click "OK" for the result with the opened window.

Go do the tab list on the very top : "Control Points". Choose for "Delete Worst Control Points". "Optimze" again and go back to "Project Assistant". In the opened window choose "Create Panorama". Before that check your panorama settings box: Projection has to be set to "Equirectanguar"."Field of View to 360º (hor) and 180º (vert) . Otherwise you do not see the whole tripod. Set "file format" to "Quick Time VR" and then Create Panorama. Go to "View" to see the result. For the best you have Quick Time 7 installed on your computer to see the result. Once opened, move down to the nadir to see your rotator totally and zoom in to check for Teeth on the circle saw. I f the tooth cuts to the right, move the camera to the right, if it cuts to the left, move to the left. Try to find the position without a tooth and check from right to left where then the cutting direction of the teeth should change from right to left. At least you might have to check for 0,5 mm from right to left.

Success,
Heinz