Autodesk 551A1-05B111-1001 - Stitcher Unlimited 2009, Stitcher Unlimited 2009 User Manual

User Guide

Autodesk

Stitcher™ Unlimited 2009

Certain materials included in this publication are reprinted with the permission of the copyright holder.

Portions related to Jpeg6b are copyright ©1991-1998, Thomas G. Lane. All Rights Res erved except as specified b elow. Permission is hereby granted to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software (or porti ons thereof ) for any purpose, without fee, subject to these conditions: (1) If any part of the source code for this software is distributed, then this README file must be included, with this copyright and no-warranty notice unaltered; and any additions, deletions, or changes to the original files must be clearly indicated in accompanying documentation. (2) If only executable code is distributed, then the accompanying documentation must state that “this software is based in part on the work of the Independent JPEG Group”. (3) Permission for use of this software is granted only if the user accepts full responsibility for any undesira ble consequences; the authors accept NO LIABILITY for damages of any kind. ansi2knr.c is included in this distribution by permission of L. Peter Deutsch, sole proprietor of its copyright holder, Aladdin Enterprises of Menlo Park, CA. ansi2knr.c is NOT covered by the above copyright and conditions, but instead by the usual distribution terms of the Free Software Foundation; principally, that you must include source code if you redistribute it. (See the file ansi2knr.c for full details.) However, since ansi2knr.c is not needed as part of a ny program generated from the IJG cod e, this does not limit you more than the foregoing paragraphs do. The Unix conf iguration script “configure” was produced with GNU Autoconf. It is copyright by the Free Software Foundation but is freely distributable. The same holds for its supporting scripts (config.guess, config.sub, ltconfig, ltmain.sh). Another support script, install- sh, is copyright by M.I.T. but is also freely distributable. It appears that the arithmetic coding option of t he JPEG spec is c overed by patents owned by IBM, AT&T, and Mitsubishi. Hence arithmetic coding cannot legally be used without obtaining one or more licenses. For this reason, support for arithmetic coding has been removed from the free JPEG software. (Since arithmetic coding provides only a marginal gain over the unpatented Huffman mode, it is unlikely that very many implementations will support it.) So far as we are aware, there are no patent restrictions on the remaining code. The IJG distribution formerly included code to read and write GIF files. To avoid entanglement with the Unisys LZW patent, GIF reading support has been removed altogether, and the GIF writer has been simplified to produce “uncompressed GIFs”. This technique does not use the LZW algorithm; the resulting GIF files are larger than usual, but are readable by all standard GIF decoders. We are required to state that “The Graphics Interchange Format © is the Copyright property of CompuServe Incorporated. GIF(sm) is a Ser vice Mark property of CompuServe Incorporated”. Portions related to Libtiff are Copyright ©1988-1997 Sam Leffler. Copyright ©1991-1997 Silicon Graphics, Inc. Permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, and sell this software and its documentation for any purpose is hereby granted without fee, provided that (i) the above copyright notices and this permission notice appear in all copies of the software and related documentation, and (ii) the names of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics may not be used in any advertising or publicity relating to the software without the specific, prior written permission of Sam Leffler and Silicon Graphics. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN NO EVENT SHALL SAM LEFFLER OR SILICON GRAPHICS BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OF ANY KIND, OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER OR NOT ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF DAMAGE, AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFT WARE. Portions related to F2c are Copyright 1990 - 1997 by AT&T, Lucent Technologies and Bellcore. Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice appear in all copies and that both that the copyright notice and this permission notice and warranty disclaimer appear in supporting documentation, and that the names of AT&T, Bell Laboratories, Lucent or Bellcore or any of their entities not be used in advertising or publicity pertaining to distribution of the software without specific, written prior permission. AT&T, Lucent and Bellcore disclaim all warranties with regard to this software, including all implied warranties of merchantability and fitness. In no event shall AT&T, Lucent or Bellcore be liable for any special, indirect or consequential damages or any damages whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits, whether in an action of contract, negligence or other tortuous action, arising out of or in connection with the use or performance of this software.

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The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Autodesk Canada Co. in the USA and/or Canada and other countries: Backburner, Discreet, Fire, Flame, Flint, Frost, Inferno, Multi-Master Editing, River, Smoke, Sparks, Stone, and Wire.

The following are registered trademarks or trademarks of Moldflow Corp. in the USA and/or other countries: Moldflow MPA, MPA (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Advisers, MPI, MPI (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Insight, MPX, MPX (design/logo), Moldflow Plastics Xpert.

All other brand names, product names or trademarks belong to their respective holders.

Disclaimer THIS PUBLICATION AND THE INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN IS MADE AVAILABLE BY AUTODESK, INC. “AS IS.” AUTODESK, INC. DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE REGARDING THESE MATERIALS.

Stitcher

User Guide

Chapter 1 Introduction............................................................................................... 1

What is Autodesk®StitcherTM? .............................................................................................. 3

About this guide ......................................................................................................................... 4

Minimum system requirements ............................................................................................ 5

Software .........................................................................................................................................5

Hardware ........................................................................................................................................ 5

Installing Stitcher ........................................................................................................................ 6

Uninstalling Stitcher .................................................................................................................. 6

Autodesk Stand-Alone Licensing.......................................................................................... 7

Manage Your Stand-Alone License .................................................................................... 8

Check Product Information ..................................................................................................... 8

License usage types ...........................................................................................................8

License behaviors ................................................................................................................8

View Product Information ........................................................................................................ 9

To view product information ..........................................................................................9

Update Your Serial Number ..................................................................................................10

To update your serial number ......................................................................................10

Register and Activate Stitcher ..............................................................................................11

Online Registration and Activation ....................................................................................11

To activate Stitcher ...........................................................................................................11

Offline Registration and Activation ....................................................................................11

To register Stitcher offline ..............................................................................................12

iii

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects ..............................................................13

The Stitcher Interface ..............................................................................................................15

The 5-phase Stitcher Workflow............................................................................................16

Phase 1: Loading images ........................................................................................................17

Phase 2: Automatic and Semi-Automatic Stitching .....................................................25

Working with thumbnails ..............................................................................................19

Working in the Stitching Window ...............................................................................19

Create and Organize Stacks ...........................................................................................22

Contentsiv

Automatic stitching ......................................................................................................... 25

Semi-automatic stitching .............................................................................................. 25

Phase 3: Alignment ..................................................................................................................26

Phase 4: Lighting equalization .............................................................................................27

Modifying exposure ........................................................................................................ 28

Phase 5: Projection Types and Rendering ........................................................................30

Snapshot projection ........................................................................................................ 30

Cylindrical projection ...................................................................................................... 31

Cubical projection ............................................................................................................ 32

Spherical projection ........................................................................................................ 33

Cylindrical and Cubic QTVR projection .................................................................... 34

Rendering your panorama ............................................................................................ 35

Saving your project ......................................................................................................... 36

Stitcher Command shortcuts ...............................................................................................37

Essential shortcuts ....................................................................................................................37

General Stitcher Operational shortcuts ............................................................................39

Customizing keyboard shortcuts ........................................................................................41

Chapter 3 User Guide................................................................................................43

Shooting photographs ...........................................................................................................45

Recommended equipment ...................................................................................................45

Planning your shots .................................................................................................................45

Photograph overlap ........................................................................................................ 49

Shooting the panorama ......................................................................................................... 50

Camera settings ................................................................................................................51

Tips for taking shots ................................................................................................................. 51

Stitcher projects ........................................................................................................................53

The Stitcher workflow .............................................................................................................54

Preferences .................................................................................................................................55

Setting the temporary files directory ................................................................................56

To set the temporary files directory: ......................................................................... 56

Setting the blending application ........................................................................................57

Stitcher

User Guide

Editing in an external application .......................................................................................57

Modifying the display of images .........................................................................................58

Changing the frame color ..............................................................................................58

Moving images as a frame .............................................................................................59

Changing the texture size ..............................................................................................61

Changing the Stitching Window background color .............................................62

Adjusting the transparency of images ......................................................................63

Displaying HDR images ..........................................................................................................64

Changing the exposure ..................................................................................................64

Displaying the Live Preview ..................................................................................................65

Managing memory ..................................................................................................................66

Setting the Cache Size .....................................................................................................67

Managing the Undo Buffer ............................................................................................67

Setting the Manual Stitch Magnifier ..................................................................................68

Setting the GPU preferences ................................................................................................68

The interface ...............................................................................................................................71

The Main Menu ..........................................................................................................................72

The Toolbar .................................................................................................................................72

The Stitching Window ............................................................................................................. 72

Thumbnail View .................................................................................................................73

Status Indicators ................................................................................................................73

General Information .........................................................................................................74

The Live Preview ........................................................................................................................ 75

The Image Strip .........................................................................................................................76

Preparing images for stitching.............................................................................................77

Loading images .........................................................................................................................77

Loading HDR images .......................................................................................................80

Loading fisheye images ..................................................................................................80

Setting the camera parameters ...........................................................................................81

Image resolution .......................................................................................................................82

Relationship between image property values ...............................................................82

Rectilinear lens properties .....................................................................................................83

Contentsvi

Film back values ................................................................................................................ 83

Focal length ....................................................................................................................... 83

Sensor shift values .......................................................................................................... 85

Distortion values ..............................................................................................................85

Fisheye lens properties ...........................................................................................................87

Flat stitch properties ................................................................................................................88

Manipulating images .............................................................................................................. 89

About thumbnail lines and markers .......................................................................... 89

Indicator markers ............................................................................................................. 89

Indicator lines .................................................................................................................... 92

Filtering thumbnails ........................................................................................................ 93

Deleting thumbnails ....................................................................................................... 93

Modifying the display of thumbnails ........................................................................ 94

Displaying thumbnail information ............................................................................ 95

Moving images to the Stitching Window ........................................................................95

Working in the Stitching Window .......................................................................................96

Improving redraw performance ................................................................................. 96

Selecting images in the Stitching Window .............................................................96

Aligning images in the Stitching Window ............................................................... 97

Rotating images in the Stitching Window .............................................................. 98

Centering images in the Stitching Window ............................................................ 99

Setting the camera orientation ......................................................................................... 100

Bookmarking the current viewpoint .............................................................................. 100

Fisheye images ....................................................................................................................... 101

Why use a fisheye lens? ....................................................................................................... 101

Types of fisheye images ....................................................................................................... 101

Calibrating fisheye images ................................................................................................. 102

Stitching images .................................................................................................................... 105

Automatic stitching ............................................................................................................... 105

Semi-automatic stitching .................................................................................................... 106

Manual stitching ..................................................................................................................... 110

Force-stitching Images ........................................................................................................ 113

Stitcher

User Guide

Unstitching, detaching, and deleting images ............................................................. 114

Unstitching images ........................................................................................................114

Detaching images .......................................................................................................... 114

Deleting images .............................................................................................................. 115

Tips for stitching images ..................................................................................................... 115

Overlapping and aligning images ...........................................................................115

Stitching highly distorted images ................................................................................... 116

Evaluating focal length ................................................................................................117

Calibrating the Camera Response Curve ...............................................................118

Closing the first row of a panorama ........................................................................120

Camera Profiles .......................................................................................................................123

Saving a camera profile ................................................................................................123

Loading a camera profile .............................................................................................123

Render preview ...................................................................................................................... 124

The Quick Preview .........................................................................................................124

The Live Preview .............................................................................................................124

vii

Stencils....................................................................................................................................... 126

Creating a stencil polygon .................................................................................................. 126

Selecting, duplicating, and moving stencil polygons .............................................. 129

Selecting stencil polygons ..........................................................................................129

Moving stencil polygons .............................................................................................129

Copying stencil polygons ............................................................................................129

Changing the shape of stencil polygons ...............................................................129

Deleting stencil polygons ...................................................................................................129

Blending polygons ................................................................................................................ 130

Creating a PSD stencil .......................................................................................................... 130

Viewing stencils ...................................................................................................................... 132

Aligning the panorama........................................................................................................ 133

Setting the horizon in the Align Panorama mode ..................................................... 133

Panning relative to the horizon .................................................................................135

Re-aligning the panorama with the horizon ........................................................135

Centering a panorama ......................................................................................................... 135

Contentsviii

Aligning the panorama using the Display Grid .......................................................... 136

To change the Display Grid .........................................................................................138

To change the color of the Display Grid: ................................................................138

Equalizing images ................................................................................................................. 139

To equalize images: .......................................................................................................139

Hotspots.................................................................................................................................... 141

Creating hotspots .................................................................................................................. 141

Selecting, duplicating, and moving hotspots .............................................................. 142

Selecting hotspots .........................................................................................................142

Duplicating hotspots .................................................................................................... 143

Moving hotspots ............................................................................................................ 143

Changing the shape of hotspots ..............................................................................143

Deleting hotspots .................................................................................................................. 143

Linking hotspots .................................................................................................................... 144

Setting QuickTime movie options ...................................................................................145

Viewing hotspots ................................................................................................................... 145

Hotspots and panorama conversion .............................................................................. 146

Render Area ............................................................................................................................. 147

Rendering Your Project ....................................................................................................... 149

Choosing projection types .................................................................................................151

Snapshot projection ...................................................................................................... 151

Cubical projection .......................................................................................................... 151

Understanding the naming of cubical images ....................................................153

Cylindrical projection ....................................................................................................154

Spherical projection ...................................................................................................... 154

Cylindrical and Cubic QTVR projection ..................................................................154

Setting QTVR output options .....................................................................................155

VRML projection .............................................................................................................155

HDR and Tone Mapping ...................................................................................................... 156

Add EXIF Data ..................................................................................................................156

Calibrating the Camera Response Curve ...............................................................157

Render options ....................................................................................................................... 158

Stitcher

User Guide

Tips for rendering .................................................................................................................. 164

Understanding width and height value constraints ......................................... 165

Understanding interpolation .....................................................................................165

QuickTime output setup ..................................................................................................... 167

Compression Settings ...................................................................................................168

Rendering Quality .......................................................................................................... 168

Tiling (for Cubic QTVR only) ........................................................................................168

Preview ...............................................................................................................................168

Annotations... ...................................................................................................................169

Authoring Tool ................................................................................................................ 170

QuickTime scripting ......................................................................................................172

Movies........................................................................................................................................ 173

Launching the animation tool .......................................................................................... 173

Defining the camera path ................................................................................................... 174

Checking the animation ...................................................................................................... 175

Editing key frames ................................................................................................................ 175

Setting the frame gap ..........................................................................................................177

Publishing HTML/KML.......................................................................................................... 178

Publishing your panorama ................................................................................................. 178

Setting the html options ..................................................................................................... 179

Setting the kml options ....................................................................................................... 181

Sharing your panorama ....................................................................................................... 182

Creating an *.html template .............................................................................................. 183

Panorama conversion .......................................................................................................... 184

Loading a panorama .............................................................................................................184

Conversion possibilities .......................................................................................................186

Aligning the panorama ........................................................................................................ 187

Creating hotspots during a conversion ......................................................................... 188

Saving and loading hotspots ............................................................................................. 189

Rendering a converted panorama ................................................................................... 189

Choosing a Quicktime panorama viewpoint ............................................................... 189

Templates ................................................................................................................................. 190

Contentsx

Saving a project as a template .......................................................................................... 190

Opening a template .............................................................................................................. 191

Troubleshooting .................................................................................................................... 193

Stitching problems ................................................................................................................ 196

Glossary ..................................................................................................................................... 198

Introduction

Stitcher

User Guide

What is Autodesk®StitcherTM?

Using Autodesk Stitcher, you can build high-quality panoramas for the Web, film, print, and 3D animations. With advanced features, such as the automatic stitching engine, automatic color-matching, and real-time previewing, Stitcher gives photographers and artists the power to deliver the most impressive panoramas in all the popular formats. Stitcher horizontally and vertically overlapping photos. You can create new image sets from the panorama using a virtual camera that is equipped with zoom, pan, and roll motion. Your panorama can be rendered as a cube, plane, cylinder, spherical projection, and in QuickTime ImmerVision

Pure Player, Java, and HTML (version dependent). This means that you can create panoramic images for definition mattes, environment maps, 3D models, high-impact Web pages including publishing in Google

Earth.

Images that are loaded into Stitcher are displayed as thumbail images. You can drag thumbnail images into the work area and stitch them manually, or, using the default workflow, Stitcher automatically stitches the loaded images together and then displays them in the display area.

quickly creates wide-angle, high-resolution 360° × 180° panoramic images from

(Cylindrical QTVR and Cubic QTVR), VRML,

If the automatic process fails you can do semi-automatic stitching by placing the images in an overlapping position to match features in each of the images.

Stitcher calibrates the camera focal length and distortion parameters from original images. No information is required about the camera or the scale of the scene. However, an approximate value for the camera’s focal length improves the panorama. Results are accurate to within one pixel.

Stitcher automatically blends colors along the edges of each image to provide color consistency throughout your panorama. In addition, the application wraps each image to exactly match all adjacent images and to remove distortion. These processes are rapid with precise, high-quality results.

Your high-quality panoramas can then be quickly produced and rendered to various formats (such as QuickTime VR) for web viewing or to animation software format for use as matte paintings (which can be used as backgrounds), or occlusions. Entire panoramas can also be environment mapped onto animated objects. You can use the

Chapter 1 Introduction

resulting panoramas to create new image sets by filming in the image using a virtual camera.

About this guide

This guide uses type conventions to help you quickly find and understand information.



Key combinations are capitalized with bold type. For example, press Ctrl+Z

(Windows®) or Command+Z (Mac®). For a complete list of keyboard combinations, see “Stitcher Command shortcuts” on

page 37.



“Click” means to click the left mouse button and “right-click” means to click the right

mouse button (Windows only).



Words referring to items within Stitcher menus and pop-up menus are shown with the symbol > indicating the path to a menu item. For example, when you see Edit > Properties, Select the Edit menu and select Properties.

Minimum system requirements

Software

Autodesk® Stitcher™ Unlimited 2009 is supported on the following operating systems:



Microsoft® Windows XP Professional, (SP2 or higher) 32-bit operating system



Microsoft® Windows Vista® Business, (SP1) 32-bit operating system



Apple® Mac OS® X 10.4.11 and 10.5.2 (Intel version only) operating system

NOTE Apple QuickTime® 7 is also required.

Hardware

Stitcher Unlimited 2009 requires a system with the following hardware:

Stitcher

User Guide



Intel® Pentium® 4 (or equivalent) processor, 1GHz or faster



Macintosh®: Intel®-based Macintosh® computers



512 RAM for Windows XP / 1 GIG RAM for Windows Vista (2GB recommended)



200 MB free hard drive space (for installation) – 2 GB recommended



Ethernet adapter



Qualified hardware-accelerated OpenGL® 1.2 professional graphics card with latest graphics driver available from vendor’s site.



Two-button mouse with mouse driver software



DVD-ROM drive

Chapter 1 Introduction

Installing Stitcher

Autodesk recommends that you uninstall previous or evaluation versions of Stitcher before installing Stitcher Unlimited 2009 (see you are installing an upgrade.

1 Close all open applications. 2 Follow the onscreen installation instructions.

Uninstalling Stitcher

Select Programs > Autodesk > Stitcher Unlimited> Uninstall Stitcher.

Select Settings > Control Panel and do the following:

1 Double-click Add/Remove Programs.

“Uninstalling Stitcher” on page 6), unless

2 From the list of programs, select Stitcher. 3 Click Change/Remove. 4 At the prompt, click Ye s to confirm the removal of the application. The program

removes the program files, folders, shortcuts, and registry entries.

5 When the files are removed, the Uninstall program indicates the completion of the

process. Click OK.

Autodesk Stand-Alone Licensing

This guide provides information and instructions for managing an Autodesk standalone license on a single-user workstation.

A stand-alone license allows you to run Stitcher on a single workstation. To obtain a license, you register your product.

You can use Stitcher in trial mode for a given number of days from the first time you launch the product. The number of days that a trial mode is active differs between Autodesk products. You can register your license at any time before the trial period expires. After the trial period expires, you cannot run Stitcher until you register the product.

When you register Stitcher, you receive an activation code. If you register online, your activation code is automatically retrieved from Autodesk and Stitcher starts. If you register offline, you request an activation code from Autodesk. Upon receipt, you manually enter the activation code in the Product Activation wizard. The Product Activation wizard is displayed every time you launch a product that has not been registered.

Stitcher

User Guide

NOTE If you are installing and using Stitcher on both operating systems of a dual-boot operating system, you must obtain a separate activation code for each operating system.

The license file stays on your workstation when you uninstall Stitcher. If you reinstall Stitcher on the same workstation, the license information is still valid. You do not have to reactivate Stitcher.

Chapter 1 Introduction

Manage Your Stand-Alone License

This section provides information about advanced stand-alone licensing tasks such as license types and behaviors, viewing product information, saving your license file as a text file, updating your serial number, registering and activating Stitcher, and moving a license.

Check Product Information

You can view detailed information about Stitcher and your license (such as the license usage type and the license behavior).

License usage types

Commercial A license for a product that was purchased commercially.

Not for Resale A license for a product that is not sold commercially.

Educational (EDU)/Institution A license designed specifically for educational

institutions.

Student Portfolio A License for students who are using an Autodesk product as part of their curriculum.

License behaviors

Tria l A license that allows individuals to try the product in trial mode for a specified number of days. The trial period starts the first time you launch your product. When the trial period expires, the product must be registered and activated in order to continue use.

Permanent Allows permanent use of an Autodesk product.

Ter m E x te nd abl e Allows access to an Autodesk product for a limited period of time.

The term can be extended at any time.

Stitcher

User Guide

Term Non-Extendable Allows access to an Autodesk product for a limited period of time. The term cannot be extended.

View Product Information

You can view detailed information about Stitcher and your product license, such as the license usage type and the license behavior.

To view product information

1 Launch Stitcher. 2 From the Help menu, click About Stitcher. 3 In the About Stitcher window, view details about your product and product license. 4 In the About Stitcher window, click OK.

Chapter 1 Introduction

Update Your Serial Number

If you installed Stitcher with the trial serial number (000-00000000), you should update that trial serial number with a valid serial number. Your valid serial number is located in the Autodesk Upgrade and Licensing Information email you received when you purchased or upgraded Stitcher online.

When you register and activate Stitcher, you are asked for the product serial number, which gets automatically updated upon completion of the activation process.

If you have a multi-product bundle of software that uses a single serial number, only the first product you register and activate displays the updated serial number. For other products to display the serial number, you need to update them from the Help menu.

NOTE In order for the updated serial number to display, you need to be logged into the system with Administrator rights.

To update your serial number

1 Launch Stitcher. 2 Select Help > Activate. 3 In the Stitcher Activation window, enter your product serial number. 4 Click Activate.

NOTE If you have lost your serial number, contact the Autodesk Business Center (ABC) at

800-538-6401 for assistance.

5 Click Close. 6 Exit Stitcher and restart for the updated activation to take effect.

NOTE To see the updated serial number in Vista, exit the product, right-click the product icon, and click Run as an Administrator.

Stitcher

User Guide

Before you can activate the license for Stitcher, you need to go through the registration process. Once registered, the activation process is greatly simplified. You can register and activate Stitcher either when you start the program or while you are running Stitcher.

There are two ways to register and activate Stitcher: Online and Offline.

Online Registration and Activation

Online registration and activation requires that you have Internet access. This process allows you to create one or more password protected user accounts that can be accessed when activating any Autodesk product(s).

To activate Stitcher

1 Launch Stitcher

2 Select Help > Activate 3 In the Stitcher Activation dialog box, enter your user account information and

click Next.

4 Onscreen instructions will inform you of registration and activation status. Click

Close.

5 Restart Stitcher for the activation to take effect.

Offline Registration and Activation

If online registration and activation is not possible, you can still register and activate Stitcher offline. Your registration data can be submitted by email, fax, or phone (Americas only). Within two business days, your activation code is sent back to you by email or fax.

Offline registration and activation is necessary under the following conditions:



An online request has timed out

Chapter 1 Introduction



A processing error occurred such as an invalid serial number

To register Stitcher offline

1 If you are unable to register online, the Register Today’s Connect to the Internet

page indicates the reason why online registration and activation failed. Click the Use Another Method link.

2 On the Product Registration page, specify the following:



Whether Stitcher will be registered to a company or individual.



The country or region where Stitcher will be used.



Whether the product is an upgrade. If it is, you also need the previous Stitcher serial number.

Click Next.

3 Enter your personalization data on the Customer Information page and choose how

you’d like to receive your activation code - email, fax, or postal mail. Click Next.

4 Review your personalization data on the Customer Information page and choose

the method you’ll use to submit your request. Your request can be sent by email, fax or phone.

If you choose Send My Request by Email, an email message will display for you to complete. If you choose to forward your request by fax or phone, the Contact Autodesk page will display with pertinent contact information.

You will be sent your activation code by the method you specified on the Customer Information page.

5 If you want to print a copy of your registration information, select the Select Open

Activation Request Form. When you are finished, click Close.

Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

The Stitcher Interface

Stitching Window

Main Menu

To o lb a r

The Stitcher interface is composed of the following elements:

Stitcher

User Guide



Main Menu: If a shortcut is available, it is shown next to the functions in the Main Menu.



To o lb a r : The To ol b a r contains a set of contextual toolbars for working through the Stitcher five-phase workflow.



Stitching Window: The Stitching Window is the 3D environment that you use to build your panoramic view.

The size of the sphere is determined by the focal length of the camera used to shoot your images.

Phase 1. Load images into the project (for detailed information, see “The interface” on page 71).

Phase 2. Automatically stitch the images (see “Stitching images” on page 105).

Phase 3. Automatically align the viewing horizon (see “Setting the horizon in the Align Panorama mode” on page 133).

Phase 4. Equalize the lighting or brightness (see “Equalizing images” on page 139).

Phase 5. Render and export the final panorama (see “Rendering Your Project” on page 149).

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

The 5-phase Stitcher Workflow

1 Load your image files (see “Phase 1: Loading images” on page 17 for the complete

list of the supported file formats).

2 Stitch your images using the automatic stitch function. If there are inconsistencies in

your shots for which you will need to compensate, you can manually stitch or forcestitch your images.

3 Align the viewing horizon. Sticher can center the panorama automatically, or flip it

upside down (or the right way up, depending on how your images were loaded before the auto-stitch command was executed).

4 Equalize the brightness of your panorama. Stitcher can compensate for contrast in

the lighting between the stitched images and automatically make the lighting in the panorama more uniform.

5 Render your panorama into a variety of formats for external publication.

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User Guide

Phase 1: Loading images

All images used in a panorama must be the same size in pixels (height and depth), and they must be shot with the same focal length. Stitcher reads any EXIF data in the images and displays the information for you to keep or edit (the edited values are only used by Stitcher - the EXIF data in the images remains the same).

To load your images:

1 Click Load Images . The Load Images browser opens.

2 Select one or more image files to load. 3 Click Open to load the images in the Stitcher Thumbnail View.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

TIP Alternatively, drag the images directly from Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) into the Stitching Window.

4 Stitcher reads the EXIF information in the images and asks whether you want to

keep the settings.



Click Ye s to keep the EXIF data settings.



Click No to open the EXIF data properties box and edit the settings.

TIP Select Edit > Properties to change your data settings (such as the focal length) at any time after loading the images into your project.

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Working with thumbnails

When you first load images into your project, they appear in the Thumbnail View. In the Thumbnail View you can select an image, modify its rotation, and view information about it.

You can zoom in and out of the thumbnails by moving the vertical slider at the top of the Thumbnail View - when you move the cursor over the top of the Thumbnail View, it changes to arrows and you can drag the view to the size you prefer.

If you have a large number of images loaded into your project, a horizontal slider appears below the thumbnails to allow you to scroll through them. You can also click

the left

TIP Click an image in the Thumbnail View and drag it to the left or right to scroll quickly your loaded images.

or right arrows to move to the right or left end of the thumbnail list.

Indicators in the thumbnails display the status of the corresponding image in the Stitching Window (showing whether the images are stitched, not stitched, or manually stitched).

Working in the Stitching Window

The Stitching Window is the sphere in which your panorama is created. To begin stitching your images together, drag each image from the Thumbnail View into the Stitching Window.

By default, the first image you put into the Stitching Window is centered and stitched in place. As you place and stitch more images in the Stitching Window, colored markers and lines in the thumbnails show you the status of images and the relationship between them.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Using the navigation controls, you can view your panorama as you place images in the Stitching Window and stitch them together. You can also set the camera orientation precisely with numerical values.

To select an image, click the image. The selected image is highlighted.

Press Ctrl+click (Windows) or Shift+click (Mac) to add images to the selection.

Before stitching images, you can:

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User Guide



Move the selected image to overlap and align it with another so that you can stitch them together.



Rotate the selected image by pressing Shift+right-click (Windows) or Shift+Ctrl+click (Mac) in the Stitching Window to designate the pivot point.



Center the selected image by selecting View > Look At or pressing =.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Create and Organize Stacks

To create an HDR panorama (32-bit image), you can have stacks in which to hold however many exposures you have for each shot. You can also shuffle each stack to change the exposure that is displayed on top, or (if you have no images selected) you can change a panorama’s whole exposure value.

1 Load your images (see Phase 1: Loading images) 2 To determine how your exposures are stacked, do one of the following:



Select HDR > Stack exposure by and choose the number of exposures (brackets) you have for your shots.

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TIP For example, if you have shots in 6 positions for your panorama, with three exposures for each position, you will have 18 images loaded. Choose Stack exposure by 3 and Stitcher will automatically create 6 stacks of 3 adjacent images.



Select all the exposures you want to stack together, then right-mouse click one of the thumbnails and choose Stack exposure by > Selection from the context menu.

3 To change the display image for a stack, select the stack, right-mouse-click it and

select HDR menu, then select one of the following:



Exposure UP



Exposure DOWN



Exposure RESET

TIP To unstack images, either right-mouse click directly on the current thumbnail and choose HDR > Unstack Selection

or from the HDR menu, select Unstack Selection.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

TIP Stitcher can load 32-bit images (EXR and HDR format) generated by external software and it can render the panorama either as a 32-bit image or a tone-mapped image.

For more information about 32-bit or tone-mapped images, see “Displaying HDR images” on page 64.

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Phase 2: Automatic and Semi-Automatic Stitching

You use the Stitcher automatic stitching or semi-automatic options to stitch your images together. If you use the semi-automatic option, you need to add images to the Stitching Window and then place them as you want them before stitching them.

Automatic stitching

You can use the automatic stitching option to stitch all of the loaded images, or only selected images. If you select thumbnails, then only the corresponding images are stitched. If you do not select any thumbnails, then all images are stitched.

To automatically stitch your images, click . Stitcher assembles all images in the Stitching Window.

Semi-automatic stitching

1 After you load images, you drag them into the Stitching Window. 2 Move and rotate images so that they are aoverlapping and aligned with each other.

For best results, ensure that 15% of each image is overlapping with the image next to it.

3 When you are satisfied with the alignment of the images, either click or press

Enter.

4 If a green (by default) border appears around the image, the image is stitched, and

you can begin to stitch another image.

If you get a “Cannot adjust images. Do you want to re-adjust it yourself?” message, choose Re-adjust and re-align your images.

TIP Press Tab to toggle between adjacent images and to check the quality of the stitching. Press Ctl + P to preview the panorama.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Phase 3: Alignment

Before equalizing and rendering your panorama, you can align it based on what appears in the Stitching Window.

To automatically align the panorama, do one of the following:



Select Tools > Auto-Align Panorama.



Click .

The alignment command is best used on a single row of at least three or four images.

You can view your panorama upside down or correct your panorama’s rotation by selecting Too l s > F l ip P an o r am a .

Use the navigation controls in the Render Preview window to select a viewpoint for QVTR renders.

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Phase 4: Lighting equalization

If your images vary in their brightness or contrast, you can use the Stitcher equalization process tomake the image lighting more uniform for the panorama.

To automatically equalize the brightness setting in the panorama, do one of the following:



SelectRender > Equalize All Images.



Click .

NOTE You can undo an equalization command, adjust the equalization level settings and run the command again. See “Equalizing images” on page 139 for more detailed information.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Modifying exposure

To change the exposure of the panorama, make sure no image is selected and select HDR menu, then select one of the following:



Exposure UP



Exposure DOWN

Exposure RESET

Exposure example 1

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TIP You can also change the exposure of the panorama by right-mouse-clicking anywhere in the Stitching Window and selecting Exposure UP, DOWN, or RESET.

Exposure example 2 - after changing the panorama’s exposure value.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Phase 5: Projection Types and Rendering

The type of projection you choose to render your panorama depends on how it will be used (for example, the Web, film production, or product packaging) and whether or not you will edit the stitched images in an external graphics application. You can select from the following types of projections.

Snapshot projection

The snapshot projection renders a flat map, without deforming it, making the panoram look similar to a photograph.

This type of render is useful for creating images for the Web and for print. Be aware that what you see in the Stitching Window is what is rendered. So, to adjust the content of your snapshot render, reposition the image view in the Stitching Window.

Snapshot projections work best for a maximum of four to five images. If you are rendering more than five images, use the cylindrical projection.

To choose a snapshot projection, select Snapshot Image from the Typ e list in the Render Parameters dialog box.

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Cylindrical projection

The cylindrical projection creates a cylinder that accurately shows a row panorama without distorting the top and bottom of the original image.

This projection is ideal for print or for creating Internet banners. Be sure to reposition your view in the Stitching Window if you want to adjust the center of the cylindrical panorama. Zoom in or out to adjust the height of the images in the projection.

To choose a cylindrical projection, select Cylindrical Image from the Type list in the Render Parameters dialog box.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Cubical projection

The cubical projection creates six images that correspond to the six sides of a cube (front, back, right, left, top, and bottom). Using this type of projection, your panorama will look as if it is being projected onto the inside surfaces of a cube.

Cubical renderings are particularly good for rendering backgrounds in 3D scenes and for producing Cubic QTVR movies that you will edit in external graphics applications.

To choose a cubical projection, select Cubical Image from the Type list in the Render Parameters dialog box.

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Spherical projection

Like cubical projections, spherical projection shows an entire 360°×180º panorama in a single image.

Choose spherical projection to create:



printed panoramas



environment maps for 3D packages



JPG files to be used by Java spherical viewers on the Web



cubic QTVR movies that need to be modified as one image

To choose a spherical projection, select Spherical Image from the Typ e list in the Render Parameters dialog box.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Cylindrical and Cubic QTVR projection

Cylindrical QTVR and Cubic QTVR projection types render cylindrical and cubical movies, respectively, which can be viewed in QuickTime. These projections are useful for publishing your panoramas on the Web or inclusion on a CD-ROM.

To choose cylindrical QTVR or cubic QTVR projections, select Cylindrical QTVR or Cubical QTVR from the Typ e list in the Render Parameters dialog box.

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Rendering your panorama

To r end e r a p ro ject i on:

1 Select Render > Render from the menu or click . The Render Parameters

dialog appears.

2 In the Render Parameters dialog box, do the following:



Browse to the directory to which you want to save your rendered projection, a filename (avoid special characters).



From the type list, select the projection type, a file type (see “Snapshot projection” on page 30, “Cylindrical projection” on page 31, “Cubical projection” on page 32, “Spherical projection” on page 33, and “Cylindrical and Cubic QTVR projection” on page 34)



Set the image resolution (in pixels) by adjusting Width and Height.

3 Click Render.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

TIP Avoid special characters such as & # * % ! “ / < > \ | and accented letters and spaces, when naming rendered files.

Saving your project

To s ave a pro je c t:

1 Select File > Save As from the main menu. The Save As dialog box opens. 2 Enter a file name, select the destination directory for your project and click Save.

NOTE To revert to the last saved version of your project, Select File > Revert.

TIP After you have saved your project once, click to re-save it.

Stitcher Command shortcuts

Stitcher provides the following types of shortcuts:



Contextual (shortcut) menus

The contextual (shortcut) menus contain commands for the image or thumbnail in the Stitching Window. To access the contextual menus: Right-click (Windows) or Ctrl+click (Mac) in either the Stitching Window or on the thumbnails to open the contextual menu.



The Toolbar

The To o l b a r contains icons for working through the Stitcher five-phase workflow. See “The 5-phase Stitcher Workflow” on page 16 for details.



Keyboard shortcuts

The keyboard shortcuts are shown next to the main menu commands or actions.

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Essential shortcuts

There are several shortcuts to help when you are using Stitcher. The following table lists Stitcher project actions and their keyboard shortcuts:

Action Shortcut

Auto-align panorama

Detach image Backspace

Equalize All Images

Go Back to Horizon

Load Images Ctrl+L (Windows)

Ctrl+E (Windows) Command+E (Mac)

H (Windows) or Command+H (Mac)

Command+L (Mac)

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Action Shortcut

Look At =

Maximize/

Spacebar Minimize Live Preview

Pan Alt+click

Preferences P (Windows)

Command+, (Mac)

Proof Preview Ctrl+P (Windows)

Command+P (Mac)

Properties Alt+Enter (Windows)

Command+I (Mac)

Render Ctrl+R (Windows)

Command+R (Mac)

Rotate (image) Shift+right-click (Windows)

Shift+Ctrl+click (Mac)

Save Ctrl+S (Windows)

Command+Shift+S (Mac)

Save As Ctrl+Shift+S (Windows)

Stitch image Enter

Zoom Alt+Ctrl+click (Windows)

Command+S (Mac)

or +/- keys

Command+click (Mac)

General Stitcher Operational shortcuts

Action Shortcut

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Change

Shift+Page Up, Shift+Page Down

exposure

Delete Delete

Duplicate Ctrl+D (Windows) or Command+D (Mac)

Exit Stitcher

Alt+F4 (Windows) Command+Q (Mac)

Flip panorama F

Focal length

Shift+(-)

decrease

Focal length

Shift+(+)

increase

Full Screen Ctrl+Shift+F (Windows)

Command+Shift+F (Mac)

Select

B (Windows) or Command+B (Mac)

Bookmark

Help Contents F1 (Windows)

Live Preview Shift+L

Manipulate Click

New Project Ctrl+N (Windows)

Open Project Ctrl+O (Windows)

Command+? (Mac)

Command+N (Mac)

Command+O (Mac)

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

Action Shortcut

Open Te mp la te

Prev/Next

Ctrl+T (Windows)

Command+T (Mac)

Page Up/Page Down Image in Stencil Mode

Redo the last action

Reset the

Ctrl+Y (Windows)

Command+Y (Mac)

Shift+Home exposure

Related menu Right-click (Windows)

Ctrl+click (Mac)

Roll (panorama)

Alt+right-click (Windows)

Ctrl+Alt+click (Mac)

Select All Ctrl+A (Windows)

Command+A (Mac)

Set Bookmark Ctrl+B (Windows)

Shift+Command+B (Mac)

Show/Hide Display Grid

Show/hide image information

Undo the last action

Unstitch image Shift+Enter

G (Windows) or Command+G (Mac)

Shift+I

Ctrl+Z (Windows)

Command+Z (Mac)

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User Guide

Customizing keyboard shortcuts

You can create and edit custom Stitcher keyboard shortcuts from the Preferences dialog box. Select Edit > Preferences.

To create and edit keyboard shortcuts:

1 From the Preferences dialog box, select Shortcut Management. 2 Select an action from the Functions list (you will see a short description of the

function). If a shortcut has already been assigned, the key combination is shown in the Current information field (no shortcut will be displayed if the action has not yet had one assigned to it).

3 If you want to change the shortcut, click in the text field and enter your shortcut.

Onscreen instructions will inform you about whether your chosen shortcut is free to use or not. Click Assign to activate the shortcut.

4 Click Delete to clear the text field. You can now define a new key combination for

the shortcut in the blank text field. Click Assign to activate.

5 Click Get Default Shortcut to reset the shortcut back to the original system value.

Click Assign to activate.

Chapter 2 Quick Start to Stitcher Projects

User Guide

Shooting photographs

The following sections provide guidelines for photo shoots that will help achieve the best results in Stitcher.

Recommended equipment

You can use any high-resolution digital camera. Whenever possible, use a tripod and panoramic pan head for capturing panoramas. This not only prevents parallax, but also ensures sufficient overlap between images. If you use a traditional camera, either scan or have a photo lab digitize images to transfer them to your computer. Make sure the images are scanned at the same resolution and size in pixels.

Planning your shots

To capture a full 360° × 180° view of the scene you need to capture your images in rows. That is, in addition to capturing images in a 360° circle as you normally would to make a panorama, you also need to capture rows of images with the camera tilted up and down.

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Here is an outline of the procedure:

Top R ow : Tilt the camera up +45° and capture an image. Rotate the pan head by 30° and capture another image. Continue capturing images at 30º increments until the row is complete.

Middle Row: Level the camera to 0° pitch. Capture an image. Rotate the pan head by 30° and capture another image. Continue until the row is complete.

Bottom Row: Tilt the camera down by –45°. Capture an image. Rotate by 30° and capture another image. Continue until the row is complete.

For example, a panorama might consist of three rows of images. Each row of images consists of 12 shots. The images in each row are captured at 30° increments:

Chapter 3 User Guide



The top row is captured with the camera tilted up at 45° pitch.



The middle row is captured with the camera leveled at 0° pitch.



The bottom row is captured with the camera tilted down at –45° pitch.

This creates a total of 36 images.

Figure A (side view) shows three rows of images captured at –45°, 0°, +45° pitch and figure B (top view) shows 12 images per row captured at 30° increments.

The number of images, rows, and spacing needed to capture a panorama depends on the FOV of the lens being used.

User Guide

The tables below show the approximate FOVs for some common lenses and the number of images needed to capture a full 360° × 180° view. You can use this information as a guide when planning your shots..

Focal length Image FOV Images required

15 mm 14

Image layout One image at +90° pitch; six images every 60° at

+30° pitch; six images every 60° at –30° pitch; one image at –90° pitch

Focal length Image FOV Images required

Stitcher

20 mm 26

Image layout One image at +90° pitch; eight images every 45° at

+60° pitch; eight images every 45° at 0° pitch; eight images every 45° at –60° pitch; one image at –90° pitch

Focal length Image FOV Images required

17 mm 18

Chapter 3 User Guide

Image layout One image at +90° pitch; eight images every 45° at

+30° pitch; eight images every 45° at –30° pitch; one image at –90° pitch

Focal length Image FOV Images required

24 mm 29

Image layout One image at +90° pitch; nine images every 40° at

+50° pitch; nine images every 40° at 0° pitch; nine images every 40° at –50° pitch; one image at –90° pitch

Focal length Image FOV Images required

28 mm 32

Image layout One image at +90° pitch; ten images every 36° at

+45° pitch; ten images every 36° at 0° pitch; ten images every 36° at –45° pitch; one image at –90° pitch

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Focal length Image FOV Images required

35 mm 50

Image layout One image at +90° pitch; 12 images every 30° at

+60° pitch; 12 images every 30° at 20° pitch; 12 images every 30° at –20° pitch; 12 images every 30° at –60°; one image at–90° pitch

Focal length Image FOV Images required

8 or

10.5 mm

3-8 depending on the camera

(fisheye lens)

Image layout 3 or 6 images at 0 pitch; 1 at +90° pitch; 1 at –90°

pitch

Photograph overlap

Stitcher requires an overlap of about 30% between adjacent images. The number of images you need to take to achieve 30% overlap will depend on the FOV of the lens you are using. Wide-angle lenses are usually preferred for capturing spherical panoramas because they reduce the total number of images required.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Shooting the panorama

In addition to your rows of images, in most cases you will also want to capture one image straight up (+90°) and one straight down (–90°). By taking a shot straight up, you ensure that the upper region of the panorama blends well with the images that compose the topmost row.

Taking a shot straight up will also guarantee that your panorama does not end up with a hole (black space) at the zenith.

By capturing a handheld shot downward, without the tripod, you can eliminate the tripod from your scene. These images will be stitched together just like all the other images in your panorama. If the tripod is visible in some of your shots, you can remove it using the Stencil Tool (see

Figures A and B demonstrate the technique for capturing straight up and down images. In figure A, capture a shot straight up to make sure you get complete coverage of the scene; in figure B, take a handheld shot straight down without the tripod. Keep the camera at the same height it was when mounted on the tripod.

“Stencils” on page 126).

You may need to try capturing a panorama without using a tripod or pan head. To guarantee good results from a handheld panorama, you should be aware of the following points:



Use a wide-angle lens to reduce the number of images required



Capture sufficient overlap between images

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User Guide



Avoid parallax. When you reposition the camera for each shot, try to pivot your body around the camera (as opposed to standing in the same spot and pivoting the camera around you)

The goal is to photograph the scene while keeping the camera at the same point in space. Reducing parallax will ensure that the images stitch properly.

Figures A and B below demonstrate the handheld shots technique for reducing parallax:

Figure A shows the incorrect position. Do not pivot the camera around your body - this will cause parallax between images. Figure

B shows the correct position. Keep the

camera in the same place, and pivot your body around the camera.

Camera settings

To achieve optimal results, all images in your panorama should be shot consistently. Set your camera to manual exposure and manual focus and make sure the white balance setting is not on automatic mode. This is to ensure that the images blend together seamlessly in the final panorama. If you are scanning film, be sure to scan each image using the same settings.

Tips for taking shots

Avoid the following when you take your shots:



Trees with moving leaves



Blue skies without clouds or with moving clouds

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

Zooming between your shots



In interiors, if you have white walls and ceiling, incr ease the overlap to have he more

textures in common.



Also, interior panoramas could have stark lighting natural lighting contrast between the backs of rooms and windows. In this situation it is best to try to shoot HDR images (see “Loading HDR images” on page 80)

Stitcher projects

A Stitcher project is any set of stitched images. Any Stitcher session can be a project and can be saved withSelect the file extension *.rzs (Windows).

To start a new project, do one of the following:



Select File > New.



Click .

To open a project:

1 Do one of the following:



Select File > Open.



Click .

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User Guide

2 Select the project that you want to open. 3 Click Open.

NOTE Select File > Recent Files and choose from the four last saved files (Windows).

To s ave a pr oj e c t:

1 Select File > Save As. The Save As browser opens. 2 Enter a file name, select the destination directory for your project and click Save.

TIP When you have saved your project once, click to re-save it.

NOTE To revert to the last saved version of your project, Select

File > Revert.

Chapter 3 User Guide

The Stitcher workflow

The Stitcher workflow takes you through the stages to create a panorama, including removal of artifacts, color adjustment, and the creation of hotspots for the Web. For more information, see

During the workflow, you can:



Define Stencil regions for images that contain artifacts (see “Stencils” on page 126).



Drag images and stitch them together using automatic stitching (see “Automatic stitching” on page 105).

“The 5-phase Stitcher Workflow” on page 16.



Adjust the camera regularly (see “Evaluating focal length” on page 117).



Close the panorama (see “Closing the first row of a panorama” on page 120).



Run the luminosity correction tool (see “Equalizing images” on page 139).



Define hotspots (see “Hotspots” on page 141).



Align the panorama (see “Aligning the panorama” on page 133).



Render and export the final panorama (see “Rendering Your Project” on page 149).

Preferences

You can set various project and display preferences in the Preferences dialog. For example, in the Colors page, you can change the default colors of the interface and in the Display page, you can define the thumbnail and maximum texture size.

To s how t he Preferences dialog, select Edit > Preferences or press P:

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Changes in the Preferences settings are automatically saved in an initialization file in the local settings folder.

If you are running Stitcher from a network drive and you do not have permission to write on that drive, you will be prompted for a location to save the preferences file.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Setting the temporary files directory

Stitcher needs to create temporary files to operate. By default, these files use the default system temporary directory, but you can change it and choose specifically where you want to put the temporary files.

To set the temporary files directory:

1 Select Edit > Preferences and select External Links. 2 Click Temporary files ... to set the temporary files directory. 3 Browse to the directory and click OK. Stitcher

“RzTempFiles” folder to your selected directory.

4 Select Default to return to the default temporary file directory.

NOTE When you render a PSD or multi tiff file and you do not specify a temporary file

directory, Stitcher your files will be saved in the specified temporary directory. You can also delete the temporary directory each time you close Stitcher by checking the Clean Temporary Files

on Exit

option.

creates these files in the same directory as your rendered files. Otherwise,

will automatically add a

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User Guide

Setting the blending application

You can use an external tool for blending your images. To set the external blending editor:

1 Select Edit > Preferences and select External Links.

2 Click Blending Software ... to set the blending software directory. 3 Browse to the external blending editor (only Enblend (XBlend) and Smartblend are

supported).

4 Click Open. The external application is set.

Editing in an external application

You can edit your images in an external application before rendering by following a similar process as for blending. To set the external image editor:

1 Select Edit > Preferences. 2 Click the External Links tab. 3 Click Image Editor ... to set the image editor directory. 4 Browse to the external image editor. 5 Click Open. The external application is set.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Modifying the display of images

After you have loaded images into Stitcher (see “Loading images” on page 77), colored frames appear around the images as you select, move, and stitch them. These colors can be set in preferences. You can also have Stitcher move an image as a frame rather than redrawing the entire image. Or you can decrease the size of the texture, which reduces the amount of processing power required to redraw.

You can also adjust the transparency of images to be able to see through them to better overlap and align them.

NOTE All of these modifications affect only the display of the images, not the images themselves.

Changing the frame color

To change the frame color of a selected or stitched image:

1 Select Edit > Preferences:

2 In the Colors tab, select either: Stitched Frame, Selected Frame or Manual

Stitched Frame.

3 Pick a new color, then click OK to close the Color dialog. 4 Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.

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User Guide

Moving images as a frame

Moving images as a frame temporarily removes the content of the images to speed up the redrawing process as you move images or pan, zoom, or roll your view.

NOTE To retain the content of images, but reduce the drain on processor performance,

change the texture size (see “Changing the texture size” on page 61).

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To move images as a frame:

1 Select Edit > Preferences. 2 In the Display tab, click Move As Frame:

3 Click OK.

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Changing the texture size

The quality of display depends on the resolution of your images and the quality of your graphics card. The higher the resolution, the better the display quality, but performance suffers since large amounts of video memory are required to redraw the image.

NOTE Reducing the texture size affects only the display and not the quality of the stitching or the rendered panorama.

To c han ge t h e te xtu re s ize :

1 Select Edit > Preferences. 2 In the Display tab, select an option from the Max. Texture Size drop-down list:

NOTE Max. Texture Size defines the image definition display quality as stored in the buffer

of your video card. A low value gives better movement but lower definition. The default value is 512.

3 Click OK.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Changing the Stitching Window background color

The background appears gray by default. To change the Stitching Window background color:

1 Select Edit > Preferences. The Preferences dialog appears. 2 Select Colors. 3 Click the Stitching Window box to show the Color dialog.

NOTE If you want to change the color of the Stitching Window in either the Hotspot, Close Panorama, or Align Panorama modes, click the Interactive Modes

box.

4 Pick a new color, then click OK. 5 Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.

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Adjusting the transparency of images

Adjust the transparency of images to be able to see through them. A value of 1 gives an opaque image. To reduce the opacity of the image, reduce the value in this field.

To adjust the transparency of images:

1 Select Edit > Preferences. 2 Select Display, and then enter a value between 0 and 1 in the Blending field.

3 Click OK.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Displaying HDR images

An HDR image cannot be displayed correctly on modern monitors because the image dynamics are too large. To be able to visualize this kind of image, the entire dynamics need to be reduced to display only a part of them. Stitcher uses a special feature of a computer’s video graphics card that is able to display 32-bit (HDR) images. You will only see a subset of the image dynamics at one time, but you can change this subset.

Another way to display HDR images is to use a tone mapping algorithm, which maps the entire HDR dynamics on a low dynamic image, i.e., an 8-bit image, which can be displayed on any monitor.

WARNING If you want to display a 32-bit image, make sure that your video card is able to do so. You need at least 128 Mb of video memory. You can change the display type in

Preferences > HDR with the Display 32-bit images option.

Changing the exposure

You can change the exposure of one or several selected HDR images or all HDR images if none are selected by pressing Shift+Page Up to increase the exposure and Shift+Page Down to decrease the exposure.

If you want to go back to the initial, press Shift+HOME.

You can set the exposure step in Preferences > HDR.

NOTE Regenerating a large number of HDR image textures can take a long time. Select at least one image and do a test to see if the calculating time is acceptable.

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Displaying the Live Preview

The Display Live Preview option in the Preview page of the Preferences dialog toggles the display of the Live Preview in the Stitching Window (press Spacebar as a shortcut).

Settings in the Preview page of the Preferences dialog determine the display of the Live Preview as either a flat cubic, cylindrical, or spherical panorama and the size of

the preview window as small, normal, or large.

You can switch on the different modes (cubical, spherical, cylindrical, snapshot) by right clicking in the Live Preview and choosing the mode.

You c an resi z e t h e Live Preview by dragging the small arrows at the bottom left of the Live Preview. A double-click on the small arrows displays the Live Preview in full screen. Another double-click takes it back to its original size.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Managing memory

After installing Stitcher, you should set the Stitcher memory management preferences.

Settings in the Memory page of the Preferences dialog determine the memory management.

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Setting the Cache Size

Use the Image Cache Size sliding scale in the Memory page of the Preferences dialog to set the maximum usage of your RAM by Stitcher. The default setting should be sufficient for your projects. This memory cache contains the input images. Sometimes before rendering, it will be helpful to decrease its value toward 0% to leave more memory for the render, but it is not recommended that you change this setting unless you are an advanced user.

Stitcher reserves some memory for its own internal use. This slider takes this internal memory into account.

Managing the Undo Buffer

In Stitcher, Select Edit > Undo or Edit > Redo to undo or redo the last action performed.

The Undo Buffer holds data required to undo/redo actions. However, the number of actions is unlimited and the Undo Buffer can take up a large proportion of your system’s memory.

To reduce the demand that the Undo Buffer makes on the memory cache, the Clear Undo Buffer on Save option in the Memory page of the Preferences dialog is checked

by default. This option flushes the Undo Buffer every time you save your project to disk.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Setting the Manual Stitch Magnifier

In the Other tab of the Preferences dialog, you can set the zoom and the size of the Magnifier display when you do a manual stitch:

Setting the GPU preferences

The GPU (Graphic Processor Unit) is the processor of the graphics card. The GPU can do real time blending of the stitched images in the Stitching Window and in the Live Preview if the Real Time Linear Blending is checked.

NOTE To see the real time blending, no image should be selected. To unselect all the images, press Shift+D.

The Render GPU Tile Size option allows you to define the size of the tiles you want processed by your GPU. Images will be broken down into tiles so that the processor can render images in smaller pieces, using the memory more efficiently.

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The following image shows stitched images in the Stitching Window without GPU Real Time Linear Blending:

Chapter 3 User Guide

The following image shows stitched images in the Stitching Window with GPU Real Time Linear Blending

A appears at the bottom right of the Stitching window if your graphics card includes a powerful enough GPU. The icon appears crossed ( ) if:



the GPU Real Time Linear Blending option is disabled (Preferences > GPU)



your graphics card’s GPU is not powerful enough



also if you have one or more images selected

The interface

Stitching Window

Status

Indicators

Main Menu

To o l b a r

Thumbnails

Live Preview

General Information

The Stitcher interface is composed of the following elements:

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NOTE Toggle Full Screen mode by going to Windows > Full Screen or press CTRL + Shift + F.

Chapter 3 User Guide

The Main Menu

The main menu contains all of Stitchers commands. Shortcuts available to main menu options are shown next to the function. See

“Stitcher Command shortcuts” on page 37

for more information about shortcuts.

NOTE Some main menu functions are available directly through toolbar icons.

The Toolbar

The Too lb a r contains a set of contextual toolbars for working through the Stitcher fivephase workflow (see

“The Stitcher workflow” on page 54):

The Stitching Window

The Stitching Window comprises the entire Stitcher interface. The Stitching Window is the environment that you use to build your panoramic view.

The size of the sphere is determined by the focal length of the camera you used to shoot your images.

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Thumbnail View

When you load images, the image thumbnails appear in the bottom half of the Stitcher interface. You can drag thumbnails to the Stitching Window to stitch them. See “Phase 1: Loading images” on page 17 for more information.

Status Indicators

The and the symbols to the right of the Thumbnail View indicate the status of how you’re working with your image files and your panorama (the symbols are not

displayed at all unless they’re relevant to what you’re doing). The

shows whether

you’re using your computer’s GPU for processing (see “Setting the GPU preferences” on page 68 for more information), and the shows whether you’ve aligned your

panorama and locked your vertical and horizontal panning option (see “Setting the horizon in the Align Panorama mode” on page 133 for more information).

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General Information

The General Information box provides useful image information right in the 3D working area (Stitching Window).

To display or hide the general information box, do one of the following:



Select View > Display > General Info



From the Live Preview, click the white plus symbol to display General Info, or click the white cross symbol to hide General Info.

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The Live Preview

The Live Preview window displays a cubic, cylindrical, spherical, or snapshot preview of your panorama in the top right corner of the Stitching Window:

As you stitch and manipulate your images in the Stitching Window, the Live Preview also updates, giving you an idea of your final panorama in real time.

The Live Preview is a real time visualization of your working area according to the projection chosen.

Use the shortcut Shift+L to switch on/switch off the Live Preview.

You can switch on the different modes (cubical, spherical, cylindrical, snapshot) by right-clicking in the Live Preview and choosing the right mode.

You c an resi z e t h e Live Preview by dragging the small arrows at the bottom left of the preview. Press the spacebar to toggle between full screen Live Preview and its original size.

Chapter 3 User Guide

The Image Strip

As in previous versions of Stitcher, the Image Strip appears in the bottom half of the Stitcher the Thumbnail View or the Image Strip to the Stitching Window and stitch them and undock the Image Strip to place it in the Stitching Window.

The Image Strip is also used with the smart blending function to find automatically the image containing the most information in the overlap area between the images.

To rearrange thumbnails in the Image Strip, see “Modifying the display of thumbnails” on page 94.

To clo se the Image Strip, click Close in the left corner of the Image Strip (Windows) or the right corner (Mac).

interface when you select Window > Image Strip. You can drag images from

Toggle the Image Strip display by selecting Window > Image Strip from the menu.

Double-click the left side bar of the Image Strip to undock it.

To change the background color of the Image Strip:

1 Select Edit > Preferences. 2 Click the Colors tab. 3 Click on the Image Strip color box and select a new color. 4 Click OK to select it and close the Color dialog. 5 Click OK to close the Preferences dialog.

Preparing images for stitching

Loading images

The first step when using Stitcher is to load the image files that Stitcher supports.

Import formats Extension

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Cineon

*.cin

JPEG *.jpg, *.jpeg

Maya® Image Files

*.iff, *.tdi

OpenEXR *.exr

Photoshop

Portable Network Graphics

*.psd

*.png

Portable Pixelmap *.ppm,

*.pgm, *.pnm

Radiance *.hdr

SGITM Image Files

Softimage® Picture

*.sgi, *.rgb

*.pic

Files

Tagged Im age Fi le Format

*.tiff, *.tif

Tru ev is ion Ta rga *.tga

Windows Bitmap *.bmp

8-bit and 16-bit images; n/a, not applicable

Chapter 3 User Guide

Images must be the same size in pixels and the same pixel depth. They must have been shot with the same focal length. To load your images:

1 Do one of the following:



Select File > Load Images.



Click .

The Load Images browser opens:

2 Use the drop-down list of the Files of type (Windows) or Show (Mac) field to show

only the image files of the type that you want to load, or select All Files to view all the files in the folder.

3 Select an image to load it or select more than one image file to load by doing one of

the following:



To load more than one image, click one image file you want to load, then Ctrl+click (Windows) or Shift+click (Mac) the other image files you want to load. The image files are highlighted.

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

To load all images in the Load Images list, press Ctrl+A (Windows) or

Command+A (Mac). All images files are highlighted.

4 Click Open to load the images into the Thumbnail View.

TIP Alternatively, drag the images directly from Explorer (Windows) or Finder (Mac) directly into the Stitching Window.

NOTE The time taken to load images depends on the size of the images.

If you want to stop loading images, click Cancel in the Loading Images dialog.

When loading finishes, Stitcher displays the images in the Thumbnail View and in the Image Strip.

If Stitcher can read the EXIF data, a popup appears asking you if the automatic choice is satisfactory. If not, click No to edit the settings.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Loading HDR images

Stitcher can load high-dynamic range (HDR) images in the OpenEXR (.exr) and Radiance (.hdr) file formats.

HDR images are created in a software such as Photomatix® from several photographs with various exposures, for example, one shot with dark light intensity, one with medium light intensity, and another with high light intensity. You can then import the image into Stitcher.

Depending on the display mode (see Preferences > HDR), the images are displayed as a tone-mapped version (8 bits) or a full 32-bit image. The thumbnails are always displayed as a tone-mapped image.

NOTE An icon appears in the bottom right corner indicating that the images are HDR images.

Loading HDR image (.hdr or .exr) is the same as for another format image. The image displayed is at an intermediate exposure. You can increase or decrease the exposure with Shift+PageUp or PageDown. The step is defined in the Preferences > HDR page.

Loading fisheye images

When you load fisheye images, if you have checked in the preferences Read focal from EXIF data, the software tries automatically to calibrate the images and asks if you want

to keep the setting or not.

The Properties dialog opens and you can then calibrate the fisheye image with the red circle (see

“Fisheye images” on page 101).

Setting the camera parameters

The camera parameters are modified using the Properties dialog.

To open the Properties dialog, Select Edit > Properties.

The Properties dialog opens in the Camera tab.

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

The Camera page represents the properties relevant to the camera with which you took your images. You need to choose the lens type that you used to take the shots: rectilinear, or fisheye circular or fisheye full-frame or sunex. Rectilinear is the default value (see “Fisheye images” on page 101 for information on full-frame and circular images).



The Viewing Camera page allows you to modify your on-screen display. You can rotate and magnify your images.



The Hotspot page allows you to link hotspots to any URL and define pan, tilt, and zoom parameters for a target panorama.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Image resolution

The Properties dialog shows three read-only fields: Width, Height, and Ratio that describe the size of the loaded image. Ratio is the value of the width divided by the height. When an image is displayed on different screens, the aspect ratio must be kept the same to avoid stretching in either the vertical or the horizontal plane.

Relationship between image property values

Field of view (FOV) is determined by the focal length of the lens and the size of the film back. For instance, a 25 mm lens for a 24 × 36 camera would be exactly equivalent to a 50 mm for a 48 × 72 camera.

The same lens produces a different FOV for different film back values.

For example, the figure below shows the default film back and focal length values:

In the next figure, increasing the film back value decreases the focal length and increases the FOV. If you increase the focal length, but keep the same film back value, the FOV decreases:

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Rectilinear lens properties

If you choose rectilinear in the drop-down menu of the Camera Properties box, the following parameters can be set.

Film back values

The film back value is the size of your film. For instance, a Reflex camera has a film back height of 24 mm and a film back width of 36 mm. Digital cameras do not have film, but they have a CCD sensor that plays the same role. However, to be able to compare the focal length of the lenses, this value is converted to an equivalent film back size.

The default settings for Stitcher film back height and width values are 24 mm and 36

mm, respectively. You can change these values according to your project.

NOTE Modifing these values is not recommended unless you are an advanced user.

Focal length

The focal length is the distance from the lens to the film back.

When you load an image, Stitcher assigns the focal length defined in the Preferences dialog.

The focal length value has a direct effect on the angle and the size of the sphere in the Stitching Window: a larger focal length gives a larger sphere size.

You may want to change the focal length if you have an idea of its value, but in most cases, you can run Adjust Camera Parameters and Stitcher

will calculate it for you (see

“Evaluating focal length” on page 117).

To change the focal length:

Chapter 3 User Guide

1 In the Properties dialog, set the Focal Length parameter type to Fixed if you know

the exact value. If you do not know the exact value, select Initialized and Stitcher will estimate the parameter value.

2 Enter a value in the Focal Length field and press the Ta b key on the keyboard.

As the focal length and the angle are proportional, Stitcher automatically computes the values in the text field degrees and adjusts your images.

NOTE If you prefer to work with the Viewing Angle, you can modify this value directly. The focal length in millimeter will be calculated automatically by Stitcher.

The default focal length is set in the Preferences dialog. If camera information is available for the images, you can select the Read Focal from EXIF data checkbox and Stitcher will initialize the focal length value for each new project:

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Sensor shift values

The sensor shift value helps to compensate the displacement of the sensor with regard to the optical center of the lens. In modern digital cameras, the sensor is not usually exactly centered with the camera axis.

To change the sensor shift values:

1 If you know the exact value for the Sensor Shift select the parameter type Fixed

from the drop-down list. Otherwise, select Initialized.

2 Enter a value in the x and y fields to set the displacement and press the Tab key on

the keyboard.

NOTE The parameters are calculated automatically when the camera is adjusted. The parameters can change from one panorama to another; the adjustment is specific to each project.

Distortion values

Lens distortion causes straight lines in images to appear curved. If a picture is taken of a square that almost fills the film area, the edges of the box are rarely perfectly straight and the center of each side of the image will bow slightly inward or outward.

Zoom lenses may typically exhibit a positive linear distortion at their shortest focal length and a negative one at the longest focal length. The default value is set to no distortion. However, taking distortion into account improves the accuracy of the camera calibration.

TIP If your images are too distorted, calibrate them first (see “Stitching highly distorted images” on page 116). In this case, the distortion edit field shows the residual distortion that calibration failed to correct.

Chapter 3 User Guide

To change the distortion value:

1 If you know the exact value for the Distortion select the parameter type Fixed from

the drop-down list. Otherwise, select Initialized.

2 Enter a value in the Distortion field and press the Tab key on the keyboard.

To toggle distortion display:

By default, the images are displayed with their own distortion, and the values are shown in the Properties dialog. Even without changing these values, you can display the images without any distortion.

1 Select Edit > Preferences. The Preferences dialog appears with the Display tab

shown.

2 Uncheck the View Distorted Images option to display images without distortion:

NOTE If you choose fisheye lens in the drop-down menu of the Camera Properties box, see

“Fisheye images” on page 101 for information on full-frame and circular images.

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Fisheye lens properties

Before stitching fisheye images, you need to define the camera lens type and the associated properties: the radius, the angle, the distortion, and the circle center.

The camera parameters are modified using the Properties dialog.

1 Click on an image and Select Edit > Properties to open the Properties dialog:

The Camera page represents the properties relevant to the camera with which you took your images.

2 The default setting in the Camera Lens Type drop-down list is Rectilinear. Change the

option to either Fisheye Full Frame, Fisheye Circular or Sunex. The Circular, Radius, Angle, and Distortion values are updated accordingly.

NOTE An appears in the Stitching Window signifying that you are in Fisheye Mode.

Chapter 3 User Guide

Flat stitch properties

The Stitcher engine works best on images taken in the same plane, for example, scanned images. A flat stitch is a series of images, where the camera moves in parallel to the plane of the object being captured.

This type of stitch can be simulated using images that have a very high focal length.

The stitching workflow is the same as for stitching images not taken on the same plane. However, before stitching any images, you should set the Focal Length status in the Properties dialog to Flat Stitch.

This option is not available for fisheye lens.

NOTE You can only render flat images as a snapshot projection. The Adjust Camera Parameters, Close Panorama, Align Panorama, and Hotspot Creation Mode options are

disabled.

To set the focal length:

1 Select Edit > Properties. 2 In the Camera page, select Flat Stitch from the Focal Length drop-down list:

3 Continue the stitch as usual.

Manipulating images

16-bit

image

unstitched, stitched,

or manual stitched

image with

stencil polygon

image with

psd stencil

The Stitching Window is a sphere and as you place and stitch images, you can look around in it by using navigation controls. You can also set the camera orientation precisely with numerical values.

About thumbnail lines and markers

As you work with images, colored frames, lines, and markers show the status of images and the relationship between them.

Indicator markers

Indicator markers in the thumbnails display the status of the corresponding image in the Stitching Window:

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Chapter 3 User Guide



Stitched images - A green indicator marker indicates that the image in the Stitching Window is stitched (see “Changing the frame color” on page 58).



Unstitched images - Thumbnails that you select in the Stitching Window have a red indicator marker until you stitch the image, then the marker changes to green.



Manually stitched images - Manually stitched images have a yellow indicator marker in the corresponding thumbnails (see “Manual stitching” on page 110).



Force-stitched images - Force-stitched images have an orange indicator marker in the corresponding thumbnails (see “Manual stitching” on page 110).

Autodesk 551A1-05B111-1001 - Stitcher Unlimited 2009, Stitcher Unlimited 2009 User Manual

Specifications and Main Features

Frequently Asked Questions

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