Panorama Perfect

Panorama Perfect is an application program for creating perfect panoramic photos. This program was designed to stitch multiple photos taken from hand without using a tripod, where other programs fail in creating panoramas of scenery or the results are not acceptable.

Contents

• Advantages
• New Features
• Quick Guide
• Configuring the program
• Transitions menu commands
• Advanced methods
• Program requirements
• Download Lite version (limited image size)
• Buy full version

• Gallery of panoramic photos

Advantages

• Enables to create huge panoramic photos - limit is 2GB which is 680M pixels panoramic photos (TIF file type only). Even for such a huge photos 128MB of operating memory is good enough.
• The dimensions of the panoramic photos are NOT limited to 65000 pixels. The dimension limit is extremely high - over 2 000 000 000 pixels (TIF file type only).
• The non-horizontal panoramic photos are automatically bended to fix the deformation.

Standard stitching

Stitched using Panorama Perfect

• The transition area (opacity of the left image for each transition) can be easy edited and the interference effect suppressed.

Common transition

Editable transition area in Panorama Perfect

Transition created with Panorama Perfect

• The stitched photos can be independently deformed, moved, and rotated.
• Mesh warp tool can be used to warp areas of images using mesh points.

Deform height

Deform width

Compress width

Mesh warp tool

• The animated transparency and compare drawing mode significantly helps when you are editing the transition. During the compare drawing mode, only the transition area is displayed and the program computes total error in transition area. The darker color and lower computed error means better matching.

Flat animation

Animated transition area

Compare drawing mode

• A great improvement can be done using an automatic or manual Brightness correction for transitions and using Dark Edges Correction.

 

Brightness correction and Dark Edges Correction

• The prepared transitions can be edited with professional editing software before stitching the transitions together. The transitions are small enough to edit them without any problem. (The created panoramic photos are usually very huge and they cannot be edited. Most of the professional editing software has a dimension limit 32 000 pixels etc.)
• The horizontal line can be edited.

Stitched photos taken without tripod

Horizontal correction in Panorama Perfect

• Cropping of the created panoramic photos.
• For each panoramic photo a project is automatically created and can be used later to fix created panoramas.
• The results can be saved as: Tagged image file (TIF), Windows bitmap (BMP), Jpeg (JPG). The BMP and JPG file format cannot be used for extremely huge panoramic photos.

New Features

Version 1.6

• The Mesh Warp Tool is also available for the left image.
• Automatic and manual Brightness correction for transitions.
• Dark Edges Correction.
• Support of the Exif information allows easy setting of the Zoom (35mm) parameter.
• The program now works correctly also with non-standard screen resolution (e.g. 120 dpi).

Version 1.5

• You can now switch to English or Czech language.
• The position of the rotation center is now editable. This should significantly speed up the matching process. See suggested procedure.
• Changing the deformation (height, width, compression) for the right image independently on the left image (the equal sign is crossed out between values) and the rotation center is inside the right image, the program deforms image and does not move the part of the image where the rotation center is placed. See more information in suggested procedure.

Quick Guide

Creating a new project and panoramic photo

• Choose the File | Open Images menu item. A Load photos for panorama dialog box appears. Select all photos for a new panoramic photo. Use Ctrl key on the keyboard to select multiple photos. Click Open button.
• An Image Rotation dialog box appears. Choose rotation of the selected photos. I most cases, you will use None button for horizontal photos and -90 button for vertical photos. The loaded pictures (selected photos) are sorted in ascending (Normal) or in descending (Reverse) order. If you are stitching horizontal panorama the most left picture must be first. If you are stitching vertical panorama the most top picture must be first and rotated by -90 degrees.
• A Picture Order dialog box appears. Choose the right picture order.
• A Deformation setting for all transitions dialog box appears. Set the Zoom (35mm) value. This value is a zoom of your camera (35mm equivalent) at the time you took the picture. According to the Zoom (35mm) value, the program presets the deformation of the selected photos (Deform height, Deform width, and Compress width parameters).
• When you opened the image files for the panorama, the program created a new project automatically. The name of the project is same as the first image file for the panorama and the extension is ".PAP". The project file is not saved into the disk yet. To do this, choose File | Save Project menu command. You can change the name of the project by choosing the File | Save Project As... menu command.
• The program displays thumbnails of the selected photos for your panorama at the bottom of the window. Check the thumbnails to make sure that you have selected the right ones because the list cannot be edited later. If you have made a mistake choose the File | Open Images menu item again.
• If you are stitching 360░ round panorama, check the 360░ Panorama checkbox in the Controls toolbar.

• It is time to arrange photos for each transition. In the Transition editor, you can see right half of the left photo and left half of the right photo for the first transitions. Drag the mouse on the Transition editor. This will move the right photo. To rotate the right photo hold down the Ctrl key on the keyboard and drag the mouse on the editor. The rotation center is marked with red cross. To change position of rotation canter hold down the Ctrl and Shift key and click with the mouse in the place where you want to place the rotation center. You can also deform the photos using Deform parameters in the Control toolbar. To deform left and right photos independently, click on the equal sign. You can also zoom in and out using the wheel on the mouse or hold down the Shift key and drag the mouse. Use middle button to pan images or hold down the Alt key and drag the mouse. Arrange the right photo on the left one as best as you can.

Suggested procedure: Check the Animation control in the Controls toolbar. The opacity of the stitched photos is now animated. Rotate roughly the right image and move it so it will match perfectly in one place. Mark this place as the rotation center and rotate the image.
Suggestion: try to keep rotation center inside the right image otherwise you may experience unwanted movement when changing deformation only for the right image.
Note: in case of a slow movement of pictures in Transition editor, check the Program requirements. You can aslo check the OpenGL version in the Setting | Program Properties dialog box. The vesion should be higher than 1.1.0. Install the latest drivers for your video card provided by the manufacturer of your video card, not Microsoft. You can also try to increase left value of the Reduction in the Controls toolbar.
• Having arranged photos for the first transition, we should define the best transition area by editing the opacity of the left photo in the Opacity editor. The area, where the transparency of the right photo changes from opaque to transparent, is defined within the two vertical lines (the most left and right ones in the Opacity editor). You can edit these lines using the nodes on the middle line. Drag the node using the mouse to move it. You can create a new node by clicking the mouse where you need to create a new node. To delete the existing node, right click on the node and choose Delete point popup menu item. You can also modify the width of the transition are. Hold the Shift button and drag the node with the mouse to the left and right. Click the Update Opacity in the Controls toolbar to apply the new transition area in the Transition editor.
• You may now need to make some small deformation. Click the Mesh Warp Tool in the Controls toolbar. Set the node count in the displayed dialog box and press Set button. Drag the nodes with the mouse to make a local deformation. The Compare drawing mode can help you to match the left and right photo. Click the Compare checkbox in the Controls toolbar. Only the transition area is now displayed. The black color means best fit and the white color means the worst fit.
• Now you may want to correct dark edges using Transitions | Dark Edges Correction for All Transitions... menu command.
• Use the Transition bookmarks and edit all transitions.
• If you are experiencing problem with varying brightness you may want to try Transitions | Automatic Brightness Correction for All Transitions or Transitions | Brightness Correction... menu command.
• Choose the File | Create Panorama... menu item. The program now creates all transitions and stitches the panorama. The result is shown in the Horizontal Line Correction dialog box. This dialog box serves for fixing the horizon. You can see two horizontal lines. One is fixed and the other one can be edited. The fixed line is in the middle of the image where the horizon should be. You can edit the second line to tell the program where the horizon is in the stitched panorama. When the editable line is under the fixed one, the program will move this part of panorama up and vice versa. To see the result click the Show deformed button.
• After clicking the Show deformed button, you can cut top and bottom of the image. To do this set the Cut: Top and Bottom fields.
• Having prepared the panorama click Create button.
• Pick the right orientation of the panorama.
• Choose the file format for the created panorama. You can set the quality of the image for Jpeg file format. Only the TIF file format is available for large panoramas. The name of the panorama file is same as the name of the project plus "pano" letters. For 360░ round panorama the "360" number is also added.
• Usually, you will want to delete temporary files created during panorama stitching. Choose Yes button in the confirmation dialog box.
• The panoramic photo is now created and saved into the disk. You may want to save the setting for this panorama so you can later make some modifications. To do this, choose File | Save Project menu command.

Configuring the program

• Choose the Setting | Program Properties menu item.
• Set the Memory usage limit for stitched files field. This number is the maximum memory, which the program can use when stitching the panorama. If the program needs more memory, a temporary file is created and used instead of operating memory. The maximum recommended value is 80% of your operating memory. Increase this parameter to save larger panoramas as BMP and JPG file.

Transitions menu commands

• Set Deformations... - opens the dialog box where you can set deformations for all transitions in the active project. You can set the deformations using Zoom (35mm) parameter. This sets the Deform height, Deform width, and Compress width parameters using pre-configured curves. You can edit these curves by pressing the Edit ... buttons. By checking the Use manual adjustment check box, you can edit directly the Deform height, Deform width, and Compress width parameters.
• Automatic Brightness Correction - program tries to change colors of the images to match each other.
• Brightness Correction... - manual setting of colors.
• Dark Edges Correction for All Transitions... - manual adjustment for lightening dark edges.
• Set Left/Right Warp Mesh... - opens the dialog box where you can set the number of nodes for the active transition. This will reset warp setting for the transition.
• Clear Warp - this will reset warp setting for the active transition.
• Create Transitions... - is useful when you did not deleted temporary files after creating panoramic photo. This command may speed up the creating procedure of the panoramic photo when you made some changes in the project for a few transitions and you want to recreate (stitch) panoramic photo file. Select the modified transitions and press Create button. After creating the selected transitions choose Transitions | Stitch All Transitions... menu command.
• Stitch All Transitions... - is useful when you have created transitions manually or you have modified some transitions in other program (see Advanced methods chapter for more details). Do not use this command before you have created all transitions using Create Transitions... or File | Create Panorama... menu commands.

Advanced methods

1. The program creates all transitions and saves them as bitmap files (*.BMP). The name of the temporary bitmap file is created as follows: "project_name(left_image_name-right_image_name).temp.bmp". The position settings for all transitions are saved in the "project_name.temp.cfg" file. This procedure is equal to Transitions | Create Transitions... menu command when you select all transitions in the Create Transitions dialog box.
2. When all transitions are prepared in the temporary bitmap files (*.BMP), the program stitches all transitions and shows the result in the Horizontal Line Correction dialog box. This procedure is equal to Transitions | Stitch All Transitions... menu command.
3. After pressing the Create button in the Horizontal Line Correction dialog box, the program fixes horizon and saves created panoramic photo to a file.

• Create panoramic photos as describer in the Quick Guide chapter but do not delete temporary files created during panorama stitching. Choose No button in the confirmation dialog box.
• Edit the temporary bitmap files using some professional editing software (e. g. Jasc Paint Shop Pro or Adobe Photoshop).
• Choose the Transitions | Stitch All Transitions... menu command. This will stitch the panorama using the modified temporary bitmap files.

Program requirements

Software

• The Panorama Perfect program was tested under Microsoft Windows XP and Microsoft Windows 2000.

Suggested minimum hardware configuration

• Intel Pentium 1GHz or equivalent
• 128MB of operating memory
• An accelerated 3D graphics card with 32MB memory
• A wheel mouse