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Can anyone give me some advice on Panorama Tools and the associated GUI prgrams that make it easier to use?

Where is the best place to download it, how much does it cost and how easy/hard is it to instal?

I saw a very quick overview about it at a camera group meeting last night but was unable to hang around long enough to get the details.

I'd appreciate any help.

Manta I don't know much about it but this is the link to the download site.

http://clk.about.com/?zi=1/XJ&sdn=graph ... Edersch%2F

Big link!!! just paste it to your browser.

Seems it is free. Hope this is what you meant.

Greolt

Thanks very much for that Greolt - I'd seen that link and read all the info on it but I was more interested in hearing from other members who've loaded it up and are using it. I also wasn't sure whether this site gave the full program or some hybrid version of it.

Hi Manta (my car is a Manta...)
Here is a link:http://webuser.fh-furtwangen.de/~dersch/
I used it a bit with PTgui, but I find it very hard to use and only use PTlens to correct distorsion. Here is another link for tutorials:http://www.path.unimelb.edu.au/%7ebernardk/tutorials/360/index.html
It all depends on what you want to do.
Cheers,
Gerard

Here is the link to PTGui:[url]http://www.ptgui.com/[url]
Gerard[/url]

glamy wrote:I used it a bit with PTgui, but I find it very hard to use and only use PTlens to correct distorsion.

I have used it a few times and think it does a good job. Here's one I did just recently (click for big). It's about 189 degree view from 5 photos.
<a href="http://www.users.on.net/~attema/Photos/200504_Cruise/DSC_2076-DSC_2081-cyl.html"></a>
I like how it outputs to psd so you can easily edit the merging between the photos.

Daniel

Daniela,
no doubt the results are good, but I am doing cylindrical and spherical panoramas and I find it more time consuming than "Stitcher". "Stitcher" is very good and easy to use, but also expensive. Panotools is very good for people using a fisheye lens. There are some very good tutorials around. Another point, Stitcher I find makes it easier to work in a confined space with distances from lens to object varying from a couple feet to a few meters.
Cheers,
Gerard

Thanks all for the responses.

I've used Autostitch and Ulead's Cool 360; each had its own pros and cons. I then started doing manual stiching in Photoshop 7 before graduating to the Photomerge tool in Photoshop CS. This tool has given me the best results so far but I'm sure it has its limitations. Here's 5 original photos run through photomerge and it turned out pretty well:



Be nice to have a quick and easy program to do high quality 360deg views and Quicktime movie images.

That's what stitcher does. I have done one at Birddog's place, but cannot post it on pbase. It is 3.5meg, if you want I can email it to you.
Cheers,
Gerard

That's very kind of you Gerard. I'll PM you with the address.

Manta....... do you use a pano head, if so what would the brand be, as I am looking at a King Pano head, just wanted some feed back re the best head.

cheers
bp

ps: nice pano of the Brissie River

No BP - I don't have a pano head. Would be nice though....

For the river shot I just rested the front of the lens on the top of my ancient Slik Companion tripod rather than screw the camera on the mount. That way, the pivot point was closer to the focal centre of the kit lens. Seemed to work well with negating any distortion.

Thanks for that......... I will let you know If I get the pano head........

cheers
bp

Cool. Thanks Bernie. I'd be keen to see it in action.