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Author Topic: Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?  (Read 23603 times)

gss

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« on: April 02, 2009, 02:13:40 pm »

I am interested in doing some pano shots, but I'm seriously suffering from 3rd party tool overload.  I would like to get just one pano toolset.  Which one of these three should I get, Hugin, Autopano Pro or PTGui, for general panorama stitching?  A decent interface would be a strong selling point to me, but I could use even command-line if the app were enough better at doing the job.  Is there a killer one that I haven't mentioned?

Some of you guys use more than one of these.  I can see getting two of them if really necessary.  What are the areas where one is significantly better at certain tasks, yet is not the best all-around?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that I am on a Macintosh platform.

I also forgot to ask for input on Autodesk's Stitcher.  This one looks good, but seems a bit expensive.  Does anyone think that it is the best of the bunch by a huge margin and thus deserves the price?
« Last Edit: April 02, 2009, 04:19:02 pm by gss »
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Panopeeper

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #1 on: April 02, 2009, 02:18:51 pm »

The basis of decent stitching is Panorama Tools, a free but discontinued product without any human interface. The stitchers Hugin,. PTGui and PTAssembler are based on Panorama Tools; they offer automatic stitching as well, but the point is in going manual in order to have high level of control about every detail.

Hugin is free; I don't know its interface. PTGui is quite expensive, PTAssembler is cheap (I think it is now $40). These involve and include other products: blenders, focus blending, automatic selection of matches.
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Gabor

fike

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #2 on: April 02, 2009, 03:29:12 pm »

I have been quite happy with PTGui.  I started using PTAssembler but moved to PTGui because it is easier to use and has better automation.  I think PTAssembler has improved since I stopped using it about a year ago, but I can't say enough about PTGUI.  The are still updating and improving on it weekly, so it isn't likely to become obsolete.  I also like the batch stitcher it includes.  I don't know if other tools include this too, but it is helpful for me to be able to queue-up a bunch of stitches and go to bed.
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NikoJorj

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #3 on: April 02, 2009, 03:48:45 pm »

Quote from: Panopeeper
Hugin is free; I don't know its interface. PTGui is quite expensive, PTAssembler is cheap (I think it is now $40). These involve and include other products: blenders, focus blending, automatic selection of matches.
Hugin's interface is imho on par with PTA and PTGui's ones - can be used in full auto mode but can also go assisted or manual for control. Unfortunately, the ast stable version (0.7.0 of last fall) has sometimes some intriguing quirks at stitching (these may come from PanoTools because PTgui went also west with that particular image set).

The choice can also be made on the extras, because they may really ease the workflow : quality of blending or exposure adjustments between shots, vignette removal...
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bill t.

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #4 on: April 02, 2009, 04:10:13 pm »

Try this out to get your feet wet, it's quite a gem in its own right and will help you understand what to look for when evaluating the trial versions of PTGui etc.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/red...groups/ivm/ICE/
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gss

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #5 on: April 02, 2009, 04:15:43 pm »

Quote from: bill t.
Try this out to get your feet wet, it's quite a gem in its own right and will help you understand what to look for when evaluating the trial versions of PTGui etc.

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/red...groups/ivm/ICE/

I should have stated up front that I use a Macintosh.  This appears to be a Windows-only app.  Thanks for the link, though, looks interesting.
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Panopeeper

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #6 on: April 02, 2009, 04:18:49 pm »

Quote from: bill t.
Try this out to get your feet wet, it's quite a gem in its own right and will help you understand what to look for when evaluating the trial versions of PTGui etc.
Is strongly advise against this route. I used three stitchers and tested a fourth one (and PTGui, which was not as developed that times as nowadays) before landing at PTAssembler; sooner or later I encountered unsolvable problems with those. In effect I learned those different interfaces and their techniques, limitations only to realize that it was of no use.

If someone intends to stitch only casually and to throw away the project if problems occur, then there are many suitable stitchers. However, if one is more serious, then only a Panorama Tool based stitcher should be tried. Important: the interfaces are different, but all those work on the same principles, understanding one of them makes it a breeze to switch to another one.
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Gabor

BernardLanguillier

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #7 on: April 02, 2009, 08:40:01 pm »

In terms of automation, nothing is even close to Autopano pro. It gets things perfectly right about 95% of the time without the need to any user intervention. I am not just speaking about control points generation, but also automatic leveling,... The performance of the APG beta is also much better on OSX, that is unless you use Smartblend that is still very slow (but they are working on that too). They are also coming up with a GPU accelerated real time preview of the pano that will enable you to zoom to check things prior to launching a computation... still not working on OSX but it is coming.

In terms of control, projections options, stitching performance, multi layer output to PS,... PTgui is still tops.

In a way, APP vs PTgui is a bit like Mac vs PC.

For HDR pano, they are close but APP is also doing a better job at coming up with a good result in a totally automated fashion.

In about 6 months from now, APP should be the closest thing to the perfect stitching application in my view, but PTgui is close behind and both companies are putting an amazing fight. If only other software could progress as quickly...

In terms of release philosophy they are a bit different though. PTgui tends to release more smaller incremental updates which I like since it delivers the value to the customer quickly, while APP tends to work longer on something bigger before making it available (even as alpha or beta). I tend to prefer PTgui's approach better, but APP might come out on top in the long run.

Cheers,
Bernard

ErikKaffehr

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #8 on: April 03, 2009, 01:28:54 am »

Hi,

I'm using Autopano Pro. Bernard Languillier gives a very good explanation about Autopano Pro and PTgui. The one ting I would add that whatever tool you use you need "smartblend" which is part of both Autopano Pro and PTGui. I started using Hugin went to Autopano Pro. There is nothing particularly wrong with Hugin.

Best regards
Erik

Quote from: gss
I am interested in doing some pano shots, but I'm seriously suffering from 3rd party tool overload.  I would like to get just one pano toolset.  Which one of these three should I get, Hugin, Autopano Pro or PTGui, for general panorama stitching?  A decent interface would be a strong selling point to me, but I could use even command-line if the app were enough better at doing the job.  Is there a killer one that I haven't mentioned?

Some of you guys use more than one of these.  I can see getting two of them if really necessary.  What are the areas where one is significantly better at certain tasks, yet is not the best all-around?

Thanks in advance for the help.

Edit:
I forgot to mention that I am on a Macintosh platform.

I also forgot to ask for input on Autodesk's Stitcher.  This one looks good, but seems a bit expensive.  Does anyone think that it is the best of the bunch by a huge margin and thus deserves the price?
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Erik Kaffehr
 

Panopeeper

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #9 on: April 03, 2009, 09:56:59 am »

Quote from: ErikKaffehr
The one ting I would add that whatever tool you use you need "smartblend" which is part of both Autopano Pro and PTGui
Smartblend is one of the two popular blenders, the other being Enblend. I am using exclusively Enblend for reasons I don't remember any more. For years ago I found some relevant restriction in Smartblend: not supporting something, perhaps 16bit files?
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Gabor

gss

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #10 on: April 03, 2009, 10:28:32 am »

Thanks for the information, guys.  I'm going to give Autopano Pro a shot.  Eventually I may find I need to add PTGui, but Autopano Pro looks like it gives nice results and is very easy to set up.
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rovanpera

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Hugin, Autopano or PTGui?
« Reply #11 on: April 03, 2009, 10:50:03 pm »

I'm using PTgui, the ui looks horrible but the software works very well. And like Bernard stated it is updated regularly.
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