I'm trying to calibrate panoramas created by stitcher, but I don't the normal automatic calibration, I've placed more than 30 locators and I obtain, if I force calibration, residual between 1 and 15 pixels..
I'm using the camera from stitcher (saved during the render process in *.cam). I've of course three differents cameras for my three panoramas,  that don't help IM for calibration... I've used the same camera for all the shooting.
Some person had already used sticher and IM, but I don't know how?? Could you give us a method for that? Should I use planar render in stitcher like actually or another way?
 
Thank you for your answer

Hello Virgile,
 
  What you have done seems correct:
1) rendered in planar mode with Stitcher
2) used different devices
 
How many images (in the same band) did you stitched together ?
 
Find here some tips that could help:
 
- I would say that 3 or 4 images stitched in the same band is a max. With more IM will have really difficulties to calibrate as the engine was not designed for that.
 
- I usually realise 2 bands panos (3x2 or 4x2) with 50% overlap. You will get more accuracy when estimating the focal length in Stitcher.
IMPORTANT: do not forget to ask Stitcher to estimate the focal length at the end of the stitching process.
 
- Avoid placing points (markers) too near of the stitched image border, as it is less precise than in the "heart" of the stitch ...
 
Hope it helps,
 
Stef

Thanks for your answer, effectively I didn't know that I should ask stitcher to ask for the focal length at the end of the process, I think I should read the manual
My process:
*I've used only 1 image vertically and up to 5 horizontally with a lot of overlap (50% approximatively).
*first I placed two imagesm then I calibrate the high distortion. after I placed the two or three others photos, equalize all images, set the planar render area, and render it (and saving the cameras off course).
 
A guys from the support, Dominique, told me :

ok, but the camera aren't lod automatically into IM, I'd to choose Import camera when I loaded the images (one by one).
 
another point with the camera, by default IM fix the distorsion to: "known=0.000". for normal photos that's no good, of course, but for stitched photos with high distortion calibrated, what value should I set??
 
thx!!
 
PS: I think it's easier to do support in a forum than email, moreover others persons could learn lots of things with that without asking you. and don't forget that we couldn't phone you simply because we're at GTM+10 here.. thx for listening.
 
edit: I didn't find the command for ask Stitcher to estimate my focal length. Moreover the default focal length is 40mm, and I'm sure that I took my photos at 35mm focal length (8.9mm digital, in the exiff1-2 infos), but when I fix 35mm in focal length, the results are not good at all! With the same camera, fixing focal length at 35mm in IM worked fine, I don't understand what's the pb?? I'm in the obligation to use the high distortion calibration process to have quite good result (39.2mm focal length and -0.012 distortion calculated).
 
I'll shoot another photos of the same place to be sure..
 
edit2: When I import my camera into IM while load image, the focal length is 24mm. When I look into the property of the images in the Scene Browser, the focal length for this camera is 7.762mm. I think this second value is more accurate... but why 24mm so?
 
edit3: ok, calculating the focal length is done by "Adjust all images", I'll do it again..
 
edit4: ok I confirm the last "Adjust all images" is IMPERATIV, i'd see huge difference in focal length before and after, thx for the tips
 
edit5: answer to edit 2: If I import the stitcher file when importing camera (normally *.cam file??), the focal length is the good one!! i've got always the difference between the two focal length but that's 'normal' I think.
 
sorry for a so long post, but I've no other way to find help...
 
last minute news: the automatic calibration works, not really fine but it's better than nothing, it thnik the problem cam from the lack of the use of "Adujust all images" in stitcher and the importation of the wrong camera in IM (it wasn't evident at all...).

 
The overlap is ok, but 5x1 is probably too much to get a good calibration...
 

Stitcher renders planar images without distortion (according to what it has estimated), so you should let known=0 in IM.
For "normal" images, i agree with you, distortion should be constant or variable by default according to the focal parameter.
 
 

Repeat the operation until the difference is "low"
 
 

While importing a camera device, its not automatically associated to an image. Have you made the association with your stitched images ?  
=> Select the stitched images, and change the camera device field to the one imported.
 
Hope it helps,
 
Stef

Virgile/Stef,
 
I too have found myself wanting an easier method of using many stitched panos in IM.  It sounds like you eventually found the correct method - but I agree the IM manual should be written with specific topics like this in mind.
 
I think that Stitcher and IM should be able to 'talk' to each other more efficiently than the user having to import an image and a camera manually.

Hello,
 
  The calibration engine was originally designed for stills. So using stitched images is more a side effect than a real feature (remark: it is the same with very wide angle lenses), but with some "reasonable" focal length values (less than 120 degree), it works well and helps a lot as you get more information in the same image.
For sure, a better connection with Stitcher would be very nice, and it is one of the stongest request we have to consider.
 
Stef

I was lucky enough to have used the IMPano beta that was based on the IM 2.1 engine.
 
this brought in cubic panoramas (6 images to make the cube).  It allowed realtime rotation of the view in IM so that locators could be used to calibrate and model between two/three etc panoramics.
 
Stef - have you had experience of this software.  Surely this is something that needs to evolve with the software?
 
(btw ... IMpano beta was absolutely brilliant and although some problems aros, they could be cured perhaps if more development were done with it)

Hello,
 
  Sorry for this late answer, I'm just back from Apple Expo in Paris.
Yes, for sure I know IMPano, which is a prototype based on IM2.1.
As said before, we know this is a nice feature to have, and we really consider it, as a main evolution of IM3.5.
 
Stef