Hello All,
 
Ok I need to know for sure now. I am trying to do the most basic work with this program and it will not allow it to happen. Trying to render a sphere today the program stopped responding at 99% and 76% completion.Yesterday it crashed totally. I am new to the program so i respect that I may be placing my settings wrong but at some point the program should be able to reference the error without crashing. It has been incredibly frustrating moving forward with this program and if you look at the forum for what it is, how often do you see positive things about the program.  
 
I'll give one. Of all the programs I checked it has the most practicle layout for working with images, it's really simple to see how to do the work. Learning to stitch is actually easy with some practice.
 
But what gives? Does Stitcher 5.6 actually work, cause is it realistic to follow the learning curve path, when I'm trying to teach myself soemthing that does not work. Like trying to learn how to drive but no roads exist and have never existed.
 
Mac users unite please and fill me in. I am using my photography skills which have been refining for ten years to make a good living. I am using Virtual Tours as an entrance point into business and expand into  
Architecture and Design Photography later.  
 
Is this program worth the wait. I send messages to the Techs in Europe with no response.  
 
Am I a sucker? How long do I have to wait before I change to a competitor? Do you Technicians realize that without us you do not have a job. I'm sure you do, and do you undersdtand that we are your market research and development.  
 
OK enough rant, my frustration is obvious but please understand that i put up alot of doe and alot is resting on this simple act of rendering to drive an excellent business forward.
 
 Would upgrading my Mac and running the program on the Windows Partition make things run smoother?
 
A good question, does any body know?
 
If it wasn't for the forum here I would be totally lost and to all you users out there keep on keeping on. It has been a great value to me to read carefully all that is going on. I would love to go back to the old days when I was just an artist, but man I gotta pay the bills and this is how I want to Pay them.
 
Topper

Hi Topper,
 
It could be your problem is due to rendering using Smartblend. Try the same render, this time using Morph as the blending method in Render Parameters. If that works, you may then want to take a look at using Enblend instead of Smartblend.
 
See here for info on how to do this:
http://forum.realviz.com/realviz/D [...] 2745_1.htm

Badders
 
Thank You for the reply. I went off last night I feel silly for it and I don't want to come across as a badass just want things to run smooth. I'll give your ideas a try. Thanks again for your advice. In the morning is a better time to try new ideas.

I also run into this 99/76% problem very often (using Stitcher Express 2 under WinXP). Can I change the perhaps default "SmartBlend" setting somewhere in SX2?rtBlend" setting somewhere in SX2?

Your issue is different. Check these first:
 
1. You have the latest version of Quicktime installed
2. You have the latest graphics card drivers installed
3. You are not running other applications at the same time
 

Hi badders.
 
1) QT PRO 7.2 installed (I always do the recommended Apple updates).
2) NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 drive is uptodate.
3) You'r kidding, right? I am running the MultiTasking OS Windows XP and could not stop other apps (like MS Explorer) even if I would like to. Of course I can close all other apps (even my Phone and Fax receiver programs which cut me off the world). I will submit this message and quit my Firefox in order to do everything you suggested.

Me again.
 
I just did some tests. SX2 runs into the 99/76% error when the image size is too large (but I don't have any idea about the break-even point).
 
Creating a "Snapshot Image: JPG: Quality 100: Smoothing 0: 11332 x 8018 pixel" will run into this 99/76% error.
 
Creating a "Snapshot Image: JPG: Quality 100: Smoothing 0: [x] Use defined Viewport: 8970 x 764 pixel" will create a JPG file of 1.776KB.
 
I have also managed to create JPGs of about 4MB already.
 
My WinXP PC has 2 GB RAM and it doesn't play any role if other apps run (assumed they don't eat up all available RAM).
 
Do you have any idea about image size limitations?

Hi Topper!
 
Could you bring me up to date on your set-up?
 
As I've tracked some of your posts - you are using an iBook G4 w/Stitcher 5.6. But I haven't come up with any more specifics in my perusing.
 
------------------------------
What is your iBook's RAM?
 
What are your camera/image specs? (Camera Body, Focal length, source image sizes, shooting schedule [number of shots per row, number of rows - plus cap shots]).
 
What memory setting percentage (in Stitcher Preferences) are you using?
 
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Can you make your source images from a pano available for me to download (high quality JPEG; full res)?
These images will be the best way to assess the situation.
 
 
================
Andrew's suggestion of using enblend instead of SmartBlend is a good one - especially with the iBook (which I have). enblend v3.0 is faster than v1.3, but under certain circumstances yields inferior results. Try v1.3.
 
One definition of Hell would be trying to render a large pano (e.g. a spherical > 8000 px) using SmartBlend on an iBook - this platform is not up to the task IMO.