[BradJudy]

I have been using AutoStitch for stitching panoramas for quite a while now (http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html) and I just tried out the relatively new Microsoft ICE http://research.microsoft.com/ivm/ice.html

I have also used PTGUI in the past, which is excellent, but $110 away from free.  It's definitely a good choice for having more control over the process. 

Between AutoStitch and ICE, ICE seems to improve on the seemlessness of transitions and dealing with transient objects (like moving people).  When in China, I did a ~360 pano in Tienanmen Square that never came out right with other programs because of the number of moving people, but ICE did a very nice job. 



A couple of problems: it doesn't seem to handle unrelated images as well as AutoStitch, which seems hard to fool.  And I had to change the default projection from cylinder to sphere manually for panoramas using more than one row of images. 

One big advantage for ICE is the multiple format input/output.  AutoStitch was an academic project and never really explored features.  Since I use a P&S digital, I only work in JPG and it didn't bother me. 

I'm a bit weary of possible vertical stretch distortion in some of the ICE images, but I'll have to play with it more.  I know some was just a matter of switching projections. 

You can see some more examples in this gallery of mine - http://bradjudy.smugmug.com/gallery/6280446_Jkdad#396181815_hsRS9

The first two images show better handling of moving people.  The 4th and 5th are just different crops of the same one and the 6th is that one done with AutoStitch (confused by the moving boat).  Note that neither can handle the changing ripples perfectly.  10-13 are examples that show less of a difference.  The last two Chicago ones are generally pretty good, but ICE failed to handle the true 360 right and took a notch out of the light pole on the left. 

[JohnR]

I find this type of panorama interesting, in the sense that you almost wouldn't know it's 360 degrees unless someone told you (or had been the same location).

[BradJudy]

Unfortunately the ICE software makes arrangement decisions on its own, otherwise I could force it to repeat an item since the photos constitute more than 360 degrees. 

Here is the same set of photos done with Canon's PhotoStitch software (the transitions are really bad, but you can now tell it's 360 degrees).  I like this approach, but this software does a poor job. 



A full version of this is in the same gallery as above.  I also ran one through the demo version of PTGUI for fun.  In this one I took the approach of obvious splitting of an object to demonstrate the 360 nature.  In some quick fiddling, I couldn't see how to make PTGUI do more than 360. 

[WGH]

Great photos! I will have to try out ICE.

Have you tried Pano2QTVR? It will turn your panorama into a Quicktime 360 degree movie. I have been using version 1.6.6, which was/is free. Send me a pm if it is no longer free and I will send you the free version. I have some QTVR panorama movies on my website.

On average, how many photos are in your panoramas? I usually have about 96 in mine.

Wayne

[BradJudy]

Thanks Wayne. 

I just redid the ICE version of the TS pano - for some reason, the extra content (more than 360) confused it and it generated a less than 360 output.  Removing one image (100% overlap) fixed that.  It also caused the software to choose a different center. 



I used the tool you recommended to make a QTVR from this image:

http://www.bradjudy.com/pics/TSpano.mov

My panoramas are generally 3 to 12 images since I'm usually only doing one row.  From a resolution point of view, it's more than enough pixels for my purposes.  There are some times when I wished I would have done  asecond row to include more sky, so I expect I'll do that in the future. 

[BradJudy]

A gallery of a few more panoramas from a trip to Prague, from which I just returned:

http://bradjudy.smugmug.com/gallery/6487936_CESz9/#411940307_fxqjR

A couple in-line previews: