AutoStitch

So of course Mavis went and beat me to the punch. I told her about a cool program, AutoStitch, which automatically assembles a panoramic shot (or multiple panoramic shots) from a set of originals. I heard about it from my friend Jim, who has given his readership a homework assignment — basically to go out and see what they could create with it. Unfortunately the program is Windows-only, so I can’t run it at home, but I can harass my Windows-using friends across the internet!
Mavis assured me that Photoshop 8 was fully capable of doing everything AutoStitch could. And she held that belief, until she actually tried to make Photoshop do the job. Nu-uh. Nothing seemed to align right. She ran the same photos through AutoStitch and prestoblammo, pano.
So here’s some photos I shot on Saturday. A tip when you’re viewing these — don’t bother trying to maximize your window. Instead, leave it at a comfortable size and imagine, while scrolling horizontally, that you’re pivoting in one spot, and what you see in the window is what you see in front of you. Because, well, that’s pretty much exactly how the camera saw it. ๐Ÿ™‚ Both shots are from downtown, near the waterfront.


Can you see a seam? I can’t. And there are four of them in there, somewhere. I thought there might be something fishy going on with the dome which intersects the left-most palm tree on the right-hand side of the shot, but after examining the originals, that’s how it’s supposed to look.
The second pano is of that reflective bird hazard, One Sarasota Tower. It’s actually 90 degrees out from the first shot. Whereas there, I moved the camera from left to the right in a simple straight line, in this one I moved in a “C” shape, taking four shots along the way. I’ve left the edges of the photo as AutoStitch leaves them, so you can see what sort of work the program is doing. Again, have close look at one of the bigger versions. You’d have to be looking pretty hard to pick out the seams. Impressive stuff.


Comments

2 responses to “AutoStitch”

  1. Sorry, I guess I should have checked your blog first before I made my post. It is ultimately your fault, got me all excited. I suppose I could go back and change the posting time on that entry … …

  2. My intention was to point out my lack-of-posting-speed. ๐Ÿ™‚ Re: the time of your post, I don’t think you’ve got it displayed..