Autostitch

Sunday, December 2nd, 2007

Autostitch is a very old kick-ass fully automatic photostitcher which totally craps on other simple panorama software I’ve tried (mostly Canon rubbish). You just select a bunch of source photos, tell it which way up they are and click go. Although the UI needs some work the underlying algorithm appears very robust.

Below are some sample composite images I’ve just created using the free downloadable (click for large versions).

One Tree Hill, Auckland (yes the one in the U2 song)

These wide shots were created with hand held camera shooting in multiple sweeps, ie at least two rows of source images to make up the final shots. Before cropping and scaling the composites are quite huge and ragged, depending on what your coverage is (click here for a large uncropped version of the first one, created from 79 shots taken in rapid succession with fairly narrow zoom). There are of course some ghost people and two-headed sheep in here as a result of time passing between shots.

My Flat (360 degrees)

Apologies for the messiness— this was a test done while in the middle of a late night clean up (you can see a big pile of tech crap on the floor on right, various cables, keyboards, mice etc, most of which will be thrown out or given away). The stitching here has a few minor alignment errors in it; this is partly because of the camera’s center of focus not matching the centre of rotation (I panned using a swivel chair).

Hmmm… That really is a horrible blue color…

Unfortunately the Autostitch software does not output Quicktime VR, but there must be something out there [for free!] which can take a jpg and convert to QTVR… right?

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12 Comments

  1. dirtymouse says:

    it (the song) was dedicated to a friend of kiwi origin

    ps: your blue tac is under-utilised!

  2. droid says:

    Here’s some JujuEdit news for you all who use Vista and wonder why the Device Manager breaks if you install JujuEdit.

    http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=361952

  3. droid says:

    From the pictures it looks your apartment needs more renovation/updates than JujuEdit…

  4. mark says:

    hmm… Starting to regret posting that image now. Generally I get by with a little mood lighting to take the edge off the white walls with powder blue everything else…

  5. mark says:

    Btw thanks for spotting that vista issue… A nasty one indeed

  6. michael toye says:

    photostitching gets a litte more exciting at microsoft live labs
    http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

  7. mark says:

    Thanks Michael — A workmate has also pointed this out to me… I’m looking forward to trying it out.

  8. mark says:

    oooo very sexy

  9. lidna says:

    U2 song? Lordy! I used to live beside One Tree Hill and wandered around it often. You almost made me homesick for one of the unhappiest times of my life!

  10. lidna says:

    And the one tree is no more. RIP tree.

  11. dirtymouse says:

    so, you’re saying it’s a monument to a tree that was on a hill?

  12. lidna says:

    Hmm, no the monument is to John Logan Campbell, who donated the hill and actually seemed to give a damn about things Maori. The tree got chainsawed in 2000 because it wasn’t a native. Now no one can decide what sort of tree should go there.

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