PTGui flipping Images and Panorama Preview with large HDR panoramas - SOLVED

[LesPalenik]

In my recent test with a large number of source images, I encountered a problem when using PTGui.

In this test, we took 31 images for a 360-degree scene:
1 image - straight up / 90 degree up (sky)
10 images - 30 degrees looking up
10 images - 0 degrees
10 images - 30 degrees down
 
When loading the 31 images into a new project, PTGui works fine. The projection screen shows a correct panorama and also the final stitched panorama is correct.

The second stage of the test involved 3-shot HDR (with 2 stops up and down), and 5-shot HDR (also with 2 stops between each exposure set)
When loading the 93 or 155 images into PTGui, the program works also fine, but it reverses the image orientation, and the resulting panorama is also 180 degrees rotated.
It seems that the culprit is the Align process (2nd step after loading the images). If you watch the progress of the Align process, you can see that upon completion of the align stage, all source images are flipped by 180 degrees.

Has anybody else encountered this problem, and what's the solution?

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Has anybody else encountered this problem, and what's the solution?

Hi Les,

I haven't encountered it, but then I tend to do the HDRI processing/tonemapping separately per tile, before feeding the tonemapped files to PTGUI.

As to the orientation:
Have you checked, on the (Advanced) Lens Settings the  Camera Position Orientation settings for individual files?
Also, verify if the (and what kind of) orientation data is present in the images, and whether PTGUI is set to use them.
You could lock the orientation by disabling the Rotation parameter on one file from getting optimized.
You could consider working from a template (not sure if that helps).

Cheers,
Bart

[LesPalenik]

Bart, thank you for the tip on locking the orientation settings. I'll try it.
All individual image files are in vertical orientation, and PTGui program worked previously correctly with a smaller number of source images.

[LesPalenik]

Bart,

when I tried changing the camera orientation in the Lens Settings (selecting one of the two upright camera icons in the lower half of the screen), that setting didn't affect the orientation of the individual images and of the completed Panorama in the Preview at all (possibly it would work in the actual Create Panorama process).

However, then I tried using the Import XML file option in the File menu and that fixed the problem for both situations. Interestingly, I didn't encounter the aforementioned problem with smaller image sets.