ADMIN NOTE: Moved this topic from Lunar Exploration section to Image Processing Techniques. Please note that while this image is of a 'manned mission' which is not a topic for discussion on UMSF, we'll allow this discussion for now as an example of image processing. This is not an open door to discussing manned missions.

Sorry, UMSF - I'm just a layman with a fascination for Astronomy. Therefore, I feel a little uncomfortable creating my own thread here being that I'm not a real scientist (I know who I'm up against here).

I was just going through some raw Apollo 17 images and I thought, "Hey - why not?".

So here is a Gigapan of an Apollo 17 pan. I did the best I could do to diffuse the sun that was coming in so bright. :/

I hope you all enjoy and I'll do some more if this thread is received warmly.

http://gigapan.com/gigapans/118301

And a small preview is attached.

iMPREPREX, I'd call it a good start, and it's wonderful to see new panoramas that haven't been stitched previously, but when I zoom in on this one I see a lot of pretty major alignment errors. I'd love to see more Gigapans but I think you'll need to work out some of the kinks in your workflow first. Don't worry about not being a "real scientist." You don't need to be a professional to make pretty images, but you do need close attention to detail.

Thanks for the input.
I am definitely a newb - I use Photoshop. My strength is recording audio, but I want to get more into imagery. Just seeing raw images and then the final panorama pop up is so cool.
But yeah, I will work on that. I just like to stitch (even though it's automatic for me) but I hope to learn to do it the real way like with Hugin or Gimp. I can always find and match control points, but I can never get a good final product. Anyways...
But I do appreciate it - coming from you of all people. And I dig your articles and journalism, btw.

Nice start! The critical thing is the control points. Usually stitching software will try to find points automatically and ask the user to add them if it can't find enough. Your mismatches might be caused by automated control point IDs which are not exact - very common in areas with few easily identifiable features. The process works well in an area of complex detail - rocky or with many shadows - but with high sun or on distant hills there may be too few features to make it work. If you can, go in and edit the points, making sure they are exact matches.

I know Photoshop has a stitching function but I've never used it (my PS is geriatric). I don't do much of this but I have used Hugin.

Phil

Thanks, Phil. I was JUST reading up on mismatched automatic control points in a Hugin tutorial. I'm going to get on that and see what I can do.

I love doing this stuff. It's too fun.

Just let real life fade into the background... where it belongs!

Phil

Here are :
- North Ray crater by Apollo 16 ;
- Station 9 crater by Apollo 17...
without any astronaut nor LM visible (to cope with UMSF rules) and reduced at 30% of their original size to fit in the Forum.
I mosaïcked all the Apollo images for NASA/HQ (Constellation program) and they were shown in various US science centers.
115 panoramic pictures were then produced and more than 50 were published inside "LUNE". Enjoy !
Click to view attachment
Click to view attachment

^^^ Nice.

I really need to learn Hugin already. Having Photoshop do all the work for me without any control really stinks, but I just can't get a pano to come out right in Hugin no matter how good I set the control points. I'll try figure it out.
But good stuff. Thanks for sharing that!

ADMIN NOTE: Folks, if we're going to keep this thread open, then let's use it discuss the processing techniques - not just show pretty pictures (as nice as they are).
Handy tips about using Hugin vs PS would be good, etc.

Each Apollo panoramic picture was built with half-automatic stitch / half manual because between individual pictures, as Phil said, the control points cannot be found easily by softwares because we enter into an "aliasing" zone between two pics in which the softwares are just unable to recognize globally some details as the human eye does. Also, we are dealing with real photographic pictures made with randomly dispersed grains on the films, not logically assembled like CCD's pixels. So a detail may look different when looking closely to the dispersed grains from a picture to an adjacent one. Also, as you may have noticed, I chose to remove all crosses from the pictures (from the "Reseau plate"). This can be done only manually by copying adjacent pixels after the picture is digitalized.
The biggest pans took each almost 20 hours to be built with : the mosaicking of pictures + clean them from all film defects + correct parallax and stich them together manually (when automatic stitch did not work which was occurring oftenly) + correct the hues (some Kodak films were overexposed and had colors altered with a strong buish tint)...
Well... I did not calculate the time it took, but they were built over six months, because I had also to make special ones for educational purposes for NASA/HQ.
Herebelow is an illustration of some of the processings done...
Note : the colors seems to be yellowish/greenish in the corrected picture on the right, but that's an optical illusion when compared to the left one which is really bluish. Color samples on the right picture would show you that the surface of the Moon is almost a dull grey.
Enjoy (if I may say)
Click to view attachment

Sorry Astro. You got it, man.

Well, this is definitely some hard stuff. I'm a jack of all trades, master of none type of guy. I know a little about a few things, but when I come here and see real scientists and credible people talk about image processing, I just lose a little bit of hope. But I'm just a regular guy, so it's ok I guess.

Being that I can't get technical, I think it's time (like I said) to really learn things. Just so much to learn.

So going back on topic, I go into hugin. I set the control points, set the canvas size, and create the pano, but it never comes out right. Can someone point me to a laymen's tutorial on how to stitch like the pros do? And is Photoshop indeed looked down upon for creating panoramas or just in general?

Thanks for the posts again, Viking. And Astro - I do apologize. I'm trying to walk the line, but I'm having trouble, and I apologize for that. I understand that this has to be a tightly moderated site.