Hi there.

When washing my car I saw a lincoln navigator which I like very much. Not many of them in Switzeland. I asked the owner if I could take some pictures of it since I had my pano equipment with me.

Of corse the background outside was not nice. Carwash. So I took the picture to Photoshop and had the windows masked and used some other panos as backgrounds.

You can look at the car with various backgrounds using the pulldown menu.

www.panoramas.ch/panoramas/navigator.aspx

Once you have masked the windows use any background to have a new pano in 3 seconds.

Glad to read some feedback.

Markus

hey mark,

you made it come out nice.

how long did it take you to shoot it and what camera set up?

is this 2 or 3 shot?

I was talking with Markus when he made this.. I think he said it was a 3 shot using 990 and FCE8.  The 'through' the windows was done on a Photoshop layer.  Using the alternate backgrounds you could put the vehicle in downtown Zurich (like in the panorama) or high in the Alps, or in Cairo Egypt.

Dave

Hi Mark.

Enjoyed the tours very much, nice work.

I have just started in the world of 360 tours and hope to hear some constructive critisism from you guys on the work I have done so far. Any help and advice is always welcome.I know there are some flaws in some but these are my 1st attempts.

I use a Nikon 4500, Fish Eye, Kaidan Head and easypano. One question I do have. What is the best file size to use when taking the initial shots? I have been using max settings on the camera but leaves me with a lot of compression when making a tour for dial -up connections which is leaving me with a poor image.

Thanks

mediapix

http://mediapix.co.uk/Samples/sample%20page.htm 

Hi MediaPix,

You should always take your images at the highest best possible setting.

Follow this job sheet:

• Take three images fullsize
• Stitch with Panoweaver
• Save final result as *.bmp 3000x1500
• Import final stitch into Panoweaver and convert to Cubic
• Save cubic result as *.bmp
• Photoshop your errors and tripod and seams to suit your likings
• Save as *.bmp
• Import cubed (Photoshop-ed) panorama
• Convert back to Spherical image
• Save as *.bmp
• Sharpen image to desired liking in Photoshop and "Save for Web" compress to under 500kb for Hi-Res.
• Open in Photoshop again and resize to 1500x750 for (Low Res) and "Save for Web" 200kb or under. (Results smaller then that are crappy and denigrate your work) But it is possible to go down to around <100kb yet results are poor.
• OK, using a copy of your final panorama import into Panoweaver and make your code. (Don't worry about doing compression here! - you have the final image from "Save for Web" in Photoshop (Just replace them)
• In fact I don't do this (I just keep a basic .html template containing the required code and manually enter the image name)

Now there are others that will say just stitch cubic the first time (and this will also work) I just like to have an original on file in Spherical format.

It is vitally important NOT to sharpen an image until the very last step. Otherwise you will see joins (Like I see in your work!)

Besides all that your panoramas are quite good   I'll take the S series Jag in that car yard! A little more care with the clone and healing bushes will serve you well also. But for your first efforts you should be well pleased.

Regards, Smooth

Hey media,

Not bad, especially for first attempts!  I couldn't get the golf java applet, but the quicktime looked a bit washed out on parts of the course, as did the wedding breakfast.  Maybe add a little saturation to help those out.  My favorite was the car sales, great lighting and good work on minimizing the sun.  The theatre stage looked overwhelmingly green and dark to me, but i don't know how you could help it with that lighting.

Shooting with max settings gives you the most room to play.  You should make sure that you are only compressing once in the whole process to minimize loss.  Save in BMPs as you transfer back and forth (if you do) and then when you are ready output as a .jpg (at least 75, if you're saving for web, IMHO).  I noticed your web images are 3200px for a viewer at 500px.  We run our web display at 360px with jpgs sized at 1400px to keep the download time down.  At these sizes the files are generally between 100 and 140K.

That's the best I can do, as just getting started myself.  I'm sure others will have some more advice.

Best,
Steve

ahhh... smooth, always beating me.  ;)

ignore my re-iterations of smooth's, always very-wise, advice.

Smooth,
Is there a rule of thumb as to how high-res you can stitch 3 fisheyes in Panoweaver going by megapixels?  For instance, I have a CP5000 which I take the fisheyes at fine (2560px, I think) and I want to know if I can stitch wider than the 3000px mark?

Hmm,

If one fisheye equals 180 degree's and of that 180 degrees you will use 120 degrees in a 3 fisheye stitch right? (3x 120 = 360 degree pano) then In my mind 180 degrees equals 100% and 100% of your image = 2560px then 120 degrees would equal 2160px now that times three equals 6480px.

So I guess the answer is yes. I may well be wrong but that's how my brain is working at 4.38am.

Now I'm bound to be shot down in flames! LOL

Steve, what are you really asking? Do you what to do a fullscreen pano with your images from the CP5000? If this is what you wish to do it is possible - Markus an I went over this not long ago. The thread is on this forum somewhere.

Panoweaver is limited to making images no larger then 4000x2000.

Regards, Smooth

Whoops, I just realised a fault in my equation! The images are not taking up the full frame - so you will need to work out how many pixels are actually used and then follow the equation above. Maybe, I think- well sort of I hope!

Thanks Guys,

All taken onboard. I never saved my work to bmp it's always been jpeg so this will be my 1st port of call. I still have much to learn but with help like this I'm sure I'll come good. I had a feeling my harsh PS work would show up to the more seasoned pro

Thanks again.

mediapix