i got around to installing the copy (Panorama Maker 2000) that came bundled
with my Nikon Coolpix 5000 and tried stitching a few images together with it
and then comparing with the program i use most of the time, iSeemedia
Photovista Panorama 3.0. my conclusion is that Photovista is still the
better program, but not by much. the areas where Panorama Maker are weaker
are in tuning for the lens barrel/pincushion distortion and focal length. in
terms of blending, it does about as well as Photovista, which means it is
one of the best. in terms of automatic alignment, i don't think is is quite
as good as Photovista, but it is very close. it is able to cope reasonably
well with foliage-only matches and slight tilting caused by hand holding the
series of images. Photovista does better. Panorama Maker has an easier to
use interface and supports direct output of QTVR files. with Photovista, you
have to use a 3rd party program to create QTVR files, and the user interface
is strange, to say the least.
i have played with probably about a dozen programs for stitching panoramas
including VRToolbox Panoworx, Ulead Cool360, PanaVue ImageAssembler, Realviz
Stitcher Express, and more that i can't remember. the two i use are
Photovista and Stitcher Express. i beleive that Panorama Tools is the best
tool out there, and it's free too, but without a 3rd party GUI that you pay
for, it's not easy to use. given that, i would rather work with a for pay
tool that comes in one piece. both Stitcher Express and Photovista require
somewhere between 20 to 50% overlap between successive images. i aim for the
full 50%. Panorama Tools allows nearly 0% overlap with a successful stitch,
but i don't use it.
Photovista is best for scenes where there are no definite patterns and
straight lines that need to be kept straight as it's long and tedious to
tune the lens to get everything right. close enough works well with
Photovista and produces results that look correct even under close
inspection. Stitcher Express is needed when there are strong patterns or
lines that have to be matched and geometrically aligned correctly. if there
aren't any, Stitcher Express usually fails to align the images and that
means you can't create the panorama since manual alignment seldom works.
Panorama Maker seems to be in-between with respect to ability to handle or
require patterns and lines. if you haven't got anything, it's a good choice.
if you have specific needs, you probably want to look at Photovista,
Stitcher Express, and Panorama Tools and decide which one, or several might
be needed to improve your stitched panoramas.
Herb....
- Arcsoft Panorama Maker Herb Chong
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