I have heard this mentioned before, but was wondering if anyone had any experience stitching together images taken from multiple perspectives to form a panorama.
Specifically, I've been tasked with photographing a mural on the side of a building and it is very wide but not that tall, about 250 feet wide by 20 feet tall. The client has requested the image be as high resolution as possible while also forgoing perspective distortion as much as possible.
My first instinct is to line the camera up with the wall so that the perspective is straight on and encompasses the height, and then move down the side of the building taking photos to fit the whole thing in. From my initial tests though, while the mural lines up nicely, the parallax of objects outside of the mural quickly becomes an issue.
Does anyone else have any examples of ways this has been accomplished? I imagine retouching would have to be a big part of making it work
I have used Microsoft ICE and it does an excellent job of flat object, as long as the horizontal angle is contained within 90 degrees. The lesser the better. Here are some tips
. Find out how much distance you can have between the camera and the mural. The longer (to some extent) the better, as you will have lesser distortion to correct.
. Calculate the image resolution you will need. I guess that for 250 feet (76200mm) if you use 10mm, then you need 7,600 pixels, if 1mm then 76,200 pixels. Note that stitching and image correction will require some down sampling. Similarly for 20 feet you will need 6100 pixels at 1mm resolution
Now the calculations
. Assume 1mm resolution
. Assume 24MP sensor - 6000x4000
. Then number of ROWS without overlap = 1.5 in landscape or 2 with overlap
. Number of horizontal shots = 76200/6000 = 12.7 without overlap. With 50% overlap ~ 25.
. Each shot will capture 19.7' (6m) of the wall.
. If you are using an FX sensor - 24mmx36mm, then the magnification required is around 0.006x (1/167), so you can calculate the distance required for the lens focal length you choose.
Once you have the images, you just use Microsoft ICE to line them up. Then choose different perspective and camera motion options to get the best possible linearity