I would like to share informations on how to manage options inside this great software.

There are some big issue I'm not able to easily solve:
1) Sometime AS refuse to stitch all images: in this example, I was forced to manually stitch top and low image rows and poor matching compromised an otherwise great mosaic

2) When there are strong luminosity/contrast differences between original images, AS is unable to flatten differences and I have to make some pre-process or post-process work in order to flatten them manually.
3) in recent Spirit mosaics is almost impossible to obtain a really flat horizon, especially if there are details at different distance (horizon and foreground rocks); this seems a geometric/parallax issue. (see ).

Do someone knows how to easily solve some ofthese issues?

Dilo,

when you open, in Autostitch, Edit and Options you see topright Manual Orientation.
PSi is for turning the Horizon clockwise or anti clockwise.+ or -
PHi is for flattening the Horizon.+ or - and also for what you are talking about.
Theta=? ( i am not sure ). I think it has to do with turning the individual images but i am not sure or maybe a part of the horizon for flattening?
By trial and error you will find the right parameters.
Change 1 parameter at a time and keep notes of the settings so that you can see the changes.
For 1 panorama, I make sometimes 25 or more settings before I find the best result.
For faster working keep the outputsize 10 % and SIFT image scale 25% and JPEG quality
75%.
When the result is fine than change these parameters to 100% for the final panorama.
If the blending is not oke change these parameters to 2 and 6.
After every panorama change the name of the pano so you can see the results.
I also advise you to go to the Autostitch homepage and read the program description.

I wish you good stitching.

jvandriel

hy dilo,

On almost every pan i stitchted, i changed the "min dim pixels" to "1100" and of course the "scale" to a 100 %.
Dont know why, but "1100" seems to be a good value.
To flattened out the image you gotta play around with theta, phi and psi in the "Orientation Settings". For the beta version of that image below i used theta 9, phi 14 and psi -14 to straightened out.

But, here is my problem.
As soon as i start altering colors or lightness of any image, AS fails stitching ! Why is that ? mmh

Dirk

Dilo,

I have the solution for the difference in luminosity between the top and lower part of the panorama of Tennesee Valley.
Change in autostitch, the first Gain compensation from 0.1 to 0.3 and don't change the second one. Leave that 1

jvandriel

Dirk/Jvandriel, tank you very much for suggestions!!
I just applied some of them and results are great.
In particular, I repeated the stitch of Larry's color North Panorama using following settings:

Blending Method: multi-band (default settings)
Gain compensation: ON (sigma=1, Gain=1)
AutoCrop: ON
SIFT images size: 800 pixel / 25%
RANSAC: defaults (10/0.2/500)
Autostraighten: ON (Theta -10)
Image rotation: None

Here the unprocessed output:

As you can see, luminosity/contrast differences between images are eliminated thanks to blending/gain settings! (In this Forum, I see a lot of otherwise excellent stitches with this issue!).
Note that I also pre-processed single images in order to obtain brighter borders and more realistic colors...
I also adjusted color balance especially in the left side and then posted the final result here: http://www.unmannedspaceflight.com/index.p...indpost&p=12325

dilo, thanks a lot for posting these settings !!

They finally solve the very biggest problem that I've been
struggling with ever since I tried auto-stitch: namely the ugly "vertical stripes"
due to luminosity/contrast differences in the individual frames.

again, many thanks for sharing this

I had an interesting encounter with AutoStitch tonight while attempting a stitch of MIs from Opportunity, sol 558. There were many, redundant images available. I selected the 8 which appeared to be in best focus, though it looked as if the mosaic could be done with 3x2. I selected my normal options, loaded all 8 images, and autostitch produced a mosaic with an unusual perspective. (see top image)

I changed SIFT matching from 50% to 100%, and allowed the software to use .45 of my memory instead of .25. The result was the bottom left.

I wondered if some images of somewhat different magnification were interfering, or perhaps the 8 images had too much redundancy, so I tried to choose the best 6 of similar magnification. That resulted in the bottom right image.

As you can see, each attempt resulted in a RAT hole that was more round, But the last attempt was not truly round. I wonder what is causing this distortion. Nevertheless, all of these perspectives are quite interesting.

CosmicRocker,

I had the same results as you had with stitching of that one and other Rat panoramas.

I changed the Phi parameter and by trial and error I was able to get the round Rat

surface as it should be.


jvandriel

There is a lot of stitching activity now with the "Mother Of All Panoramas" images on the ground.
And autostitch is giving me a bit of trouble...

Sometimes, mainly with panoramas of Meridiani Planum, the tool rejects/discards some of the source images (doesn't find matching patterns?). Generally, this problem is solved by adjusting the RANSAC parameters e.g. Alpha=5 and Beta=0.1 (I always set SIFT scale to 100%).

But now I'm having a bit of trouble with the summit images.
If you pick, for instance, the images of the 9x3 panorama looking south taken on Sol 583, autostitch is unable to match all of them. Usually, a complete row of 9 pictures is discarded, regardless of the SIFT/RANSAC settings.
Picking just part of the same panorama (e.g. 5x3) works fine. Autostitch assemble the panorama, even using the default RANSAC settings.

Does anybody have similar problems?
Suggestions?

I was having the same problem with the 582 panorama. All but two images would stitch. I adjusted their brightness and contrast intending to handstitch them into the mosaic. I decided to give it one last try with the adjusted images. It stitched them without any problem although they look a liitle washed out. I can get a 5x3 on the left or a 2x3 on the right to stitch. The two images that don't stitch are the darkest so brightening them may help.

Same experience for me, not always fonctioning, however ..

jvandriel: Thanks. Duhh! I thought perhaps the arm had not positioned the camera perpendicularly to the surface, but it didn't occur to me that the solution was simply to adjust phi, just as when the pancam or navcam is on an angle.

Tesheiner, alan, and dilo:
I've also had the same problems with certain images being dropped from mosaics or preventing any to be stitched at all. Sometimes varying one parameter or another can resolve the problem, but sometimes you can experiment with parameters until you are exhausted, with no result.

When it works automatically, it is so fast and simple. But I think the time spent experimenting would be better spent actually stitching. I think I need to get PanoramaTools and PTgui.

Mmmm,

I did it too (L4 channel), the whole 6x3 but it was a little bit tricky. Also I think that the results depend on the channel(s) you choose to use.
For this specific panorama (Tennessee Valley) I used the following parameters:
RANSAC a=5, b=0.1, it=2000.

I use these and it does give you full control over the horizon. However the brightness/color matching automation sucks as with other software.
There's just too many differences (weight of the channels, midtones, highlights, you name it)

I spent the last few days working on some new methods in PS for the matching and found one that is quite effective but it just takes too long. I also tried in Lab mode again but I'm not satisfied with the results, especially since it takes just too long to get it done properly.

I kinda decided not to waste anymore time on big (5frames+) mosaics since I'm tired of the matching. From now on I will only stitch colorized raw frames that show at least some consistency, especially horizon-frames that is..

Nico

Tesheiner,

you are right. It must be Sol 583. ( Sorry )

I tried to include the lower row pictures but autostitch did not stitch them

Maybe to much difference in brightness between the upper and lower row.

I will give it a try by changing the upper row. Making it lighter for better matching and

than stitch it again.

Thanks for the advise and for the parameters.

The pictures in L2 which are coming down now are for a 3 row 360 degree panoramic

view from Husband Hill. Looks very promising.

jvandriel

Yes.
The whole panorama will be 27x3 , but I fear that it will be too much for autostich.

My feeling is that autostitch recognises similar features in some of the lower images (looking to the ground) and mix them up. With a small number of images the probability of such mixup is smaller, but with bigger panos the situation changes.

I was wrong. I just picked all 81 images (L2 channel) and, voila!

What a brilliant piece of sw.

Thanks guys,

for all the advise regarding the "out of memory" message in Autostitch.

After changing the System Memory option to -5.00 I got no more out of memory

message and the Panoramic view is now 45.6 MB.

Autostitch is a great program.

jvandriel

jvandriel, -5 GB ? I understood correctly???

Tesheiner,
in AUTOSTITCH, when images not match very well, I change the RANSAC parameters.

Alpha from 10 to 6 or even 5.

Beta from 0.2 to 0.1 or even 0.05.


Dilo,
When I have, during stitching, an out of memory message i change the system memory
parameter to -5.
After stitching it is changed to -1.
I have in my computer 1 GB so I think the next time it is better to change the parameter to -1. But with -5 AUTOSTITCH and the 1GB memory works very well.
See the results.

jvandriel

Thanks Jvandriel, I used succesfully your method and in fact I was able to produce some beautiful 100 Mpixel stitches! (involving Earth panoramas, not Mars).
However, I needed also to close almost every other application, otherwise I obtain a blank stitch image with black borders (and without any error message!).
About the change from -5 to -1 GB after processing, it happens also to me, but I have only 512 MB RAM!

Jvandriel,

Thanks for the info.
I usually play with RANSAC parameters, specially with Oppy panoramas in which there are few matching features if we compare to Spirit.
I will try again with that Sol 612 navcam pano to see if it succeeds.

Re: the message thread Erebus message #78, jvandriel's Sol 603 stitch of Oppy Navcam images.

I've run into a problem with this stitch. The images are in sequence, all seem to match at the sides, but all 10 images won't stitch. I've read through the discussion here and have checked the Autostitch Options, but no-go.

Here are my notes on this:

1N181714867EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =1
1N181714918EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =2
1N181714954EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =3
1N181715005EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =4
1N181715056EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =5
1N181715134EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =6
1N181715259EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =7
1N181715427EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =8
1N181715546EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =9
1N181715693EFF62FSP1600L0M1 =10


All 10 images loaded: 7,8 only (2 image pan)

Selecting 1, 2, 3 (pano_1-2-3.jpg) (works)

Selecting 5, 6, 7, 8 (pano_5-6-7-8.jpg) (works)


Tried: 3-4 no matches
4-5 no matches
5-6 no matches
8-9 no matches
9-10 no matches

Not tried: 1-2, 2-3

Suggestions?

Thanks,

--Bill

Bill,

Keep all parameters to their default values, except the following:

- Scale: whatever you want (10% for trials, 50-100% for final stitch)
- Gain sigma: 0.3
- SIFT scale: 100% (*)
- RANSAC alpha: 5 (**)
- RANSAC beta: 0.1 (**)
- Auto straighten: off
- Phi: -16
- Psi: 1.9 (***)

(*) Important to find all matching features.
(**) Very important in Meridiani panoramas. To relax the matching algorithm and avoid discarding images.
(***) If the images are loaded sorted by name.

Hope you get this:
Click to view attachment

Edited: Just now I realized that we are working with different set of images. You are using those ones with seq.id. 1600, while I'm using those with seq.id. 0755 and 1655. Oppy took two panoramas on sol 603; your is the first (mid-drive) and mine is the second (post-drive). In any case, with that parameters (maybe a different psi) it should work too.

Thanks, Tesheiner, those settings worked like a charm.

Now to read up on it and see _why_ these settings worked better (or why the others didn't...).

--Bill

Sometimes I think it would be nice to have a sort of autostitch FAQ...

Let me tell you all my experience with straight horizon with this tool.
Flat horizon is controlled by two parameters, phi (pitch) and psi (roll). With no way to input reference points in this tool like in PTGui, it's a matter of trial and error to get the best results. If you must handle two variables (phi and psi) at the same time it is even more difficult; it would be nice to have one of them in a fixed value.
And it is possible.
The psi (roll / rotation) value for a panorama can be directly obtained from the source pictures.

Example:
1) Pick the 10 navcam images for Oppy on sol 632 (http://marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov/gallery/all...unity_n632.html).
2) Calculate the rotation to be applied to the second image on this set, in order to make the horizon flat, by measuring the horizon angle: atan (88 pix / 1020 pix) = -4.9º (aprox.). That is the psi value.

And if you want to get the other variable (phi):
3a) Select a phi around -15º for navcam pics, or -3º for pancams, and play with this value up and down until the horizon gets flat enough, or
3b) Select phi = 0 and generate the pano; the horizon will be like a "wave". Calculate the amplitude of this wave (y pixels between max and min) and translate it to degrees (e.g. navcam fov = 45º). The optimum phi is half of this value (phi = y / img-size* 45 / 1024 / 2).

Off course, this method is only good if you have the horizon visible on most of the images...

Thanks for those notes, Tesheiner. I've been using this discussion as a sort of FAQ that is slowly accumulating information.

At last I have found where to download Autostitch - and what a delight it is!

Just for fun, I tried the Huygens view of Doug's back garden...

Bob Shaw

Lots of useful info in this thread!

Anyone using the pro version? ($99)
They have a forum too now, it's been a while I visited the site..

http://forum.autopano.net/

Nico

Here's an Autostitched image of the Gemini Paraglider Test Article which is on display at Manchester Air And Space Museum. Not an artefact which you would expect to find sitting in a museum in the north of England...

Bob Shaw

I've been having fun with Autostitch lately, mostly local scenes, but have tried putting together some images from Opportunity. Here's the first, featuring one of my favourite rocks, tinted and with an entirely artificial sky.

Bob Shaw

lovely

a poetic image composition and very good sky artwork

I'm heavily usung Autostitch also for terrestrial panoramas, and I reached 100 Mpixel resolution (for sure can go even higher, with more than 500MB Ram...).
You can see some example here (see "stitched mosaics" section).

(blush)

Bob Shaw



Marco:

Isn't 'out of memory error' such a *joy*!

*NOT*!

Here's the Mir model hanging from the roof of the Manchester Air and Space Museum.

Bob Shaw

I've been to Man and not known it has that museum - is it any good?

Doug