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03 Feb 2007: New version 0.7 Beta 4 of Hugin GUI released, with new projections and latest panotools and Enblend 3.0.

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• Homepage Rene Grothmann

Panoramas

This section describes my experiences using the Canon Photostitch utility. Even if you don't own a Canon camera then it is still worthwhile checking out the Canon site for hints and tips and updates to the latest utilities, including Photostitch.

If you feel that Photostitch does not give you enough control over the resultant image then the section on Hugin panoramic tools (see sub-menu item) gives you many more options in producing a panorama. However, the penalty is that it also requires a lot more time and patience to obtain good results. The best option is probably to try a utility such as Photostitch first and then go to the more complex tools only when you find serious limitations.

Using Photostitch and Hugin

Now we have widescreen TV's it seem only natural that there will be a swing away from the traditional squarish format towards panoramic views. It's already been tried with APS film, now panoramas can be created fairly easily by merging two or more images taken with a conventional digital camera. Creating Panoramic views is very simple using the Canon Photostitch utility; all you have to do is select the images required and press the stitch command. However, I was somewhat disappointed with the resultant image as the joins can clearly be seen. This was a definite turn off for me and so it led me to look at the Hugin panoramic tools. I got much better results with this using version 0.7 on Windows XP and some of the examples are shown below. I saw there was a new version 2.0 available in September 2009, but unfortunately this does not seem to be available for Windows and the reports seem to suggest it is very buggy. So, this led me on to the Microsoft Image Composite Editor which is a panorama stitcher. I tried this and it was much simpler to use than Hugin, and gave better results than Canon Photostitch. This now seems to be the way to go for people on Windows XP - it would be even better if I could be convinced that Microsoft Research were actively developing this fine piece of software. If not then I guess Hugin might eventually create a Windows version 2.0 that works. Also, as my main software interests are centred around Microsoft .NET and Silverlight, I decided to try out the Silverlight Panorama Viewer which seems to give a better viewing experience than the Java panorama viewer - it also seems to load a lot quicker. Of course you will need Silverlight installed to take advantage of this control. Just use the mouse and drag to see scroll the image.

From Berlin - Kolhoff Tower

I have been trying out the recently released hugin version 0.7 - Panorama Tools GUI. This seems to give very acceptable results even when using the default settings.

Honfleur Inner Harbour

This is a merge of four photos using Hugin 0.7 giving a 180 degree scan of the old harbour at Honfleur. This is a big improvement on previous attempts using Hugin; in particular there are no breaks in the masts and the joins between the four images cannot be seen.

Seefeld Panorama

Here five photos have been stitched together with hugin and the enblend tool showing the Röss Hütte which can be reached by funicular from Seefeld. The small town of Seefeld at 1,200 meters is on the left of the picture. To the right of the Seefeld Plateau you can just see through a gap in the mountains down to the Inn valley. The views are spectacular and the walk to the bottom is excellent particularly if you invest in some Nordic walking sticks. Guess where I'm off to next year?