STC

[DorinDXN]

A related thread (may be some useful info there)
https://forum.nodalninja.com/forum/p...duct-is-coming

Starting with FW C(1/2)E_(0/1)2210 for all controllers,
there is support for stitchless panoramas/tours which are panoramas (STC for short) which uses fisheye images directly without need for stitching.

While stitchless panoramas are around from 2007
(when I made the first one https://www.dxn.ro/1st/ )
it did required some sort of processing from fisheye to cube faces, which can be done automatically.

This port allows direct use of fisheyes with no cube face requirement and doesn't require Adobe Flash either,
it does require krpano which is avilable at https://krpano.com/download/
for test (demo) and for purchase.
Highly recommended for the features it offers.

STC requires only krpano.js (available in the download archive from above) you'll also need
for local test, tour_testingserver.exe from the same archive, if you publish or test on live server there is no need for the .exe

The application of STC are in all areas you cannot stitch or you're not allowed to stitch the panoramas.
Also the fact that it can use directly the JPEGs out of camera is the fast way to have panoramas for view or publishing,
back in 2012, IIRC, I made 254 stereo panoramas in 1 day with automatic processing done in notebook in backpack, all published live.
With this new STC, as is no need to process, the number can be even higher.
The tours can reside on CF/SD card as well, meaning you can connect camera or camera's card to PC and see the panoramas you just shoot.

I thought I need to add some info but in no way I'll try to convince anyone that it should use STC, I'll give only one example from thousands of possible application
Panoramas made at a Marathon event, with people running all over the place,
you can shoot one by one and stitch and you can have a good panorama without stitching errors but in the seam area the image mostly will be not real.

With STC you'll have always real images no matter how dynamic the environment is.

The goal is to add all the info you need here, but due to very busy agenda/to do list,
I'll add once the interest is shown and for specific cases, this will be the most effective and constructive way to add the needed info.

So if you want to try and you have a fisheye lens and you can mount camera in in landscape orientation, with that fisheye lens, on any Fanotec rotator, MECHA or manual one, fell free to ask for specific info here.

How it looks like?
Here is a STC tour made of 7 panoramas from virtual images,
https://www.nodalninja.com/nodalninja.com/stc/space/
simulating a fisheye lens around 8mm on a crop 1.6 DSLR,
I think this will be the most common case of use, the tilt of fisheye images varies from -15 to +15 which can be served by, say R1, on MECHA or manual rotator
(click on blue arrows for next (bottom-right) or previous (bottom-left) panoramas
you can also download the entire tour using this temporary link (zip pass is Mecha)
https://we.tl/t-4gQxZcUtRB

As a real case of usage can be this set of 4 panoramas I shoot back in 2012
you'll notice some slight misalignment, because the images are from right camera from a dual camera set-up,
no MECHA around those days but I did used a Fanotec Pole and R-D6 rotator :)
with a twin setup 2xCanon 350D+Sigma 8mm f/3.5
https://www.nodalninja.com/nodalninja.com/stc/uefa/

This is like a public beta with some know issues which will be eliminate in the near future,
1) Has the little pauses at switching the fisheyes (the pauses were not in the cube face variant)
2) For MECHA, some values needs to be enter manually in html, as they are values known by MECHA, obviously, MECHA will generate automatically.
3) hotspots, thumbnails, QR codes and timestamps will be added as well, as they were always in the original stitchless panoramas.
4) support for 3D anaglyph and SBS (for 3D TV) will be added.
5) gigapixel STC (is a just a bit different) will be in future, along with support for rectilinear lens, which are required for gigapixel.



I'll add more info once interest is shown.

cheers,
Dorin

[DorinDXN]

Here is the same STC tour made of 7 panoramas from virtual images,
https://www.nodalninja.com/nodalninja.com/stc/space2/
simulating a fisheye lens around 8mm on a FF DSLR.

You'll notice that is virtually no crop up-down and all images were taken at +5 deg tilt, like on R1
As one image will look like this

camera was in portrait orientation and is the same coverage as if was in landscape
you can also download the entire tour using this temporary link (zip pass is Mecha)
https://we.tl/t-VTPc6DhvpX

In this case along with the ring type pano heads,
also L-type pano head like NN3-NN6 so on can be used as well, as camera can be in portrait orientation.

[FrankD]

So if you want to try and you have a fisheye lens and you can mount camera in in landscape orientation, with that fisheye lens, on any Fanotec rotator, MECHA or manual one, fell free to ask for specific info here.

cheers,
Dorin

Hi Dorin,
I do not fully understand the part with the camera leveled. In my case I do use an Atome360 together with my canon 8-15mm FE Zoom. The Atom360 has an inbuild tilt of ~7 degree. So there is an overlap in the Zenith. Normally I'm shooting with 12mm in portrait orientation to use as much of the sensor real estate as possible without loosing the full180 degree FOV.
Will STC work with 8mm and the tilt of the Atome 360? It would be nor problem to shoot in landscape orientation but is it really needed as with 8mm I got a circular image on sensor independend from the orientation.

I also do not understand how I get a panorama without stitching and why dynamic objects are not a problem as I have to shoot 4 consecutive frames in serial order. Can you explain in more detail what STC is doing?
As long as I do not understand I do not see how I can make use of the STC feature?

regards
Frank

[DorinDXN]

Sure it will work, shoot 6 around at 8mm portrait, camera tilted up-down, but leveled left-right,
https://www.nodalninja.com/nodalninja.com/stc/uefa/
drag around and see
the last panorama there (after you click on right arrow bottom-right 3 times) will show you better how the dynamic features will not matter

[tksharpless]

Please give step-by-step instructions for creating an STC. Not enough info here to do it.

[kronpano]

No stitching but in krpano you specify that every x degrees of movement you blend over to the new image?? Do I understand that correctly??
It reminds me a bit of panomoments or a demo I did a couple of years back under http://pano-timelapse.created-by.me/ - that demo worked with full panoramas whereas the new stitchless version works with simple fisheye images??

Not sure at all if it is like that or something really new??

[DorinDXN]

Please give step-by-step instructions for creating an STC. Not enough info here to do it.

This is need one time only
1) Shot 6 around with camera in landscape if you use 8mm fisheye on crop or portrait if you use 8mm fisheye on FF
2) stitch the images in PTGui to get the lens parameters a,b,c as correctly as you can as well as crop, do not optimize for shift nor for fisheye factor
3) in MECHA in config, enter the values you get in /config at Fisheye section



4) Click on [Apply]
5) 192.168.8.1/stc will give the content fro html, you can save and edit later
6) 192.168.8.1/stc.xml will give the content for stc.xml file you can save it is no need to edit that

Now comes the part which will be automatic in the future but now needs to be edit manually
in the .html file you saved before, you need to edit




var resampled_at=0

change 0 with a value if the jpegs are smaller in size, e.g. the image you used to get the parameter was 3456 in wide but you want to publish at 2000, change 0 with 2000 , but you can ignore this arrow for first try and use full images


var first_img="img_0001.jpg";

change with the name of first image from the tour


var last_img="img_0006.jpg";

change with the name of the last image in the tour e.g. img_0048.jpg if you have 8 panoramas


pitch[1]=0;
change with 7.5 if you have 7.5 tilted pano head

var openings_locked=true;
you can ignore this for now, it allows to set the openings, meaning how each panorama opens (what view)
don't change it and every panorama will open with the 1st image in middle (for now) once you reach this step I'll guide further.

you can download and study one of the two archive I posted above
space 8mm on crop - landscape
and
space2 8mm on FF portrait

You can shoot as many images (panoramas) you want then
you need to have all the images along with
index.html (the html you save it)
stc.xml (the xml you saved)
krpano.js either demo or your licensed one
if you test locally you need
tour_testingserver.exe from the krpano archive

Feel free to ask for more info.

[DorinDXN]

No stitching but in krpano you specify that every x degrees of movement you blend over to the new image?? Do I understand that correctly??
It reminds me a bit of panomoments or a demo I did a couple of years back under http://pano-timelapse.created-by.me/ - that demo worked with full panoramas whereas the new stitchless version works with simple fisheye images??

Not sure at all if it is like that or something really new??

Is different, based on my sticthless method I developed in 2007 you can see the
1st tour I made in dec 29th 2007
https://www.dxn.ro/1st/

The blend is just to avoid the black at switching.

[FrankD]

Hi Dorin,
in your STC based panos there is a short break/stop every 90 degree while rotating the pano continously. It is not totally smooth. Why is that? My panos created with krpano so far do rotate tottally smooth without these short breaks/stops (hiccups)

kind regards
Frank

[DorinDXN]

This is like a public beta with some know issues which will be eliminate in the near future,
1) Has the little pauses at switching the fisheyes (the pauses were not in the cube face variant)
2) For MECHA, some values needs to be enter manually in html, as they are values known by MECHA, obviously, MECHA will generate automatically.
3) hotspots, thumbnails, QR codes and timestamps will be added as well, as they were always in the original stitchless panoramas.
4) support for 3D anaglyph and SBS (for 3D TV) will be added.
5) gigapixel STC (is a just a bit different) will be in future, along with support for rectilinear lens, which are required for gigapixel.

Was smooth in cube face variant, the hiccups are in only the new direct fisheye variant.
I'll address that in the future.

[nick fan]

Was smooth in cube face variant, the hiccups are in only the new direct fisheye variant.
I'll address that in the future.

Why not use a stitcher to do a transformation instead? PTGUI and hugin can do a batch conversion.

[DorinDXN]

Yes, I'm being doing that way since 2007 with (via) cube face variant,
but this feature's goal is to use fisheye image directly, of course with no hiccups
and the hiccups will be removed in time with the release of the upcoming version of krpano.

[DorinDXN]

The hiccups can be ignored, they will be gone without need to do anything beside updating krpano and maybe the stc.xml from MECHA
The shooting sequence will remain the same, the .html will remain the same, albeit some improvements in that area like hotspot and QR codes,
the hiccups are not an issue.

[nick fan]

Yes, I'm being doing that way since 2007 with (via) cube face variant,
but this feature's goal is to use fisheye image directly, of course with no hiccups
and the hiccups will be removed in time with the release of the upcoming version of krpano.

I think most people are interested in a working solution than a future release, esp when it indeed exists. They can always update when the new release is ready. Please excuse my lack of patience. :-)

[DorinDXN]

STC works is no problem there,

The reason for beta is that the shooting way, the cases where it can be used about this aproach takes some time for photographers to start to use it.
The only issue we talking here, i.e. the hiccups, does't stop all of the above,
it will disappear in an instant :)

BTW, if for any reason one prefers "flash black" instead of hiccup, just for now, :) one can replace
BLEND(0.0001) with BLEND(0)
in stc.xml , which is the same file for all tours , you do replacement only one, but again the hiccups will be gone.

Oh, there is also other reason, at least, for beta,
to provide time for photographer to get all the necessary stuff, like .e.g. lens ring, MECHA and rotators and controllers to set up a dedicated solution for automatic or manual set-up and forget, like for real estate, tourism, as you can have all the panos you can soot, not all the panos you can process ;)
You can Shoot with Total Confidence that all the shoots will make it to pano.

Journalistic VR (including sport) forensic VR so on, even if they are anxious to try there will be some time needed, some will need to make saving, other to order overseas with long time of delivery.

Another reasons is as this method can uses fisheye directly from camera, e.g. for live or instant panoramas, the photographers will try to get the best image out of camera, I have stitched panoramas made, people found hard to believe that were made with Canon 350D + Sigma 8mm
a side product of all of this is one will have the best fisheye out of camera or out of RAW conversion, if shoots in RAW,
sure, there a batch converter is needed, but is usually provided by camera manufacturer and is a part of a workflow of any serious photographer, anyhow.

Myself used to shoot RAW+Jpeg, the Jpegs gone straight in live then the Jpegs from RAW were uploaded the next day.