We've just received the new Stitcher 5.7 release which is now available to purchase as a download only. Things look good and although there's no new major features added to this release the new interface and other enhancements seem stable.
 
More details to follow.

Looking forward to hear what you have to say. I've just got my copy as well, and it looks fine indeed. Also the support was fast, got answers within an hour :-)

Do we have to pay for the upgrade from 5.6 to 5.7 ?

Yes. $90 or £48.

Thanks, should have clicked through a bit further.
 
Just tried loading several tif files that are identical in size, 5.7 tells me it only loads files of the same dimensions and then ignores them.

Just converted tif to psd and the same thing happens. Then tried jpg and still no luck. The source files came from a slide scanner so no exif information is present - does this make any difference ?.

Dear Th Crofter,
missing EXIF shouldn't be a problem.
Are all of your images at exactly the same size (width and heigth, not even 1 pixel difference!) and all in the same orientation (landscape or portrait) and color-depth (8bit)?
Best regards
Tim

Hi to All!
 
And specifically addressing those with the 5.7 upgrade:
---------------------------------------------------------------
Does the new GPU capability noticeably affect the overall time/performance of your workflow?
 
Is there spelled out anywhere in the release notes of a graphic card limitation to this GPU feature (i.e. only certain types of cards can take advantage of it)? I could not find details on the website regarding this possible circumstance.
 
Thanks.

The only info on the new GPU feature is what's covered in the PDF user guide.
 
Tim's 100% correct, the most likely suspect for images not loading due to "wrong size" is because one is in a different rotation to the others.

Seems that something threw a wobbly last night, test pics are identical and have been used on several occasions. A reboot solved part of the problem but I could not for the life of me find any settings that did not hang the program during render. Rolled back my pc to version 5.6, loaded the files and all is ok.  
 
I was hoping that various issues with the interface would have been addressed in the new version to make it a little more freindly but it seems the render options/area settings are still as clunky. My pet hate is the lack of a real time progress bar so you can see when it has crashed. The time display is meaningless as this is often stationary and then jumps forward as the rendering continues.
 
I will stay with 5.6 for now and see if anyone else has issues. Sods law says it is just me having a bad day....

Hi,  
I tried the demo version 10 minutes ago.
I loaded 7 tiff fullframe fisheye that create no problems with v5.6.
Click the AutoStitch function, wait 5minutes and ........ CRASH
I'm so frustated.
Eric

All working fine so far here and no reports of issues from our customers. Can you make available online the images for me to test? Or contact me offline and I'll send you ftp upload details.

I've desactivated the GPU options in the preference and now It seems to be ok.
No crash anymore.
But, WHERE IS THE BATCH FUNCTION !!

Hopefully V6....

batch, batch, batch ! Waiting for real complete batch features I hope to see it in V6

Th Crofter wrote
> I will stay with 5.6 for now and see if anyone else has issues. Sods law says it is just me having a bad day....
 
Anyone has a lot of problems. 5.7 simply doesn't work at all. Wasted 4 hours trying to get any result from this great new version. GPU acceleration option crashes the program in couple of seconds, so turned it off. Anyway I couldn't finish any render - even simple ones (3 TIFFs for example). Old 5.5 Pro works with those images without any problems. HDR support doesn't work at all. I pay for upgrade for HDR only, and surprise, surprise - *.hdr produced by Photomatix 3 don't load at all (crashes), *.exr from Photoshop manage to load (not every time), but render crashes with any options selected (render in *.hdr, in *.exr, in *.tiff). This guys have managed even break old working functions. Define Render Area goes crazy - with HDR render just ignore render area and shows full size of panorama, with TIFF displays wrong pixel size (for 3000 pix tall says 7000 pix tall area). I haven't seen such buggy release for many years - even for handmade programs. Is anybody out there who could render out anything HDRish with this PRODUCT ?

Hi Alexander,
 
Are you problems related in anyway to the issue identified by REALVIZ support here:
 
http://forum.realviz.com/realviz/D [...] htm#t10655

Nope. I sit on Windows.

Hi,
No batch and a lot of bugs, I'm so disappointed.
I would like to know IF the stencil bug is still here in V5.7.
I can't test this because the demo version doesn't allow to save project.
- Create a stencil
- choose a kind of stencil different from "Delete Inside" , for example, "delete outside"
- Save project
- Close the project
- Re-open the project
- Look at the stencil attribute ? Is the same that You had chosen ?
 
This bug is in v5.6.2 version and is very annoying.
Create a lot of problem when using batch function because my stencils aren't save like they should be in each project.

I'd like to report my problems in using stencil tool in Version 5.7 as follows:
 
1. When i tried to adjust the handler of stencil, a lot of system resources were used. Whenever i moved one handler, the programme would be busy for about 2 seconds before i could move another handler. This made the process of stencil adjustment extremely slow. I repeated the same project file in 5.5.2 and did not have such problem.
 
2. For each move of a handler, the memory usage went up. After moved about 10 handlers, the memory usage went from 50% to 92% or 95%.... and at that point, the programme crashed. Repeat this process twice and crashed twice. On 5.5.2, the memory usage was stable at about 50%.
 
3. Blending. The blending was not smooth along the stencil boundary. In 5.5.2, the feathering was much better. Same project file showed different blending result in 5.5.2 and 5.7.
 
 
END
P.S. My system is Windows Vista, E6600 CPU, 8800GTX GPU and 2G ram.

Hi,
this last problem of stencil manipulation doesn't crash in XP (it increases the CPU nevertheless). I guess that it is linked to your ATI under Vista. Is it a laptop ? we had a lot of problem in the past with this configuration. Maybe that would be fine to update your driver from ATI's website.
 
In the future, please prefer the website contact form at:
http://stitcher.realviz.com/your-r [...] quest.html
for any support request.
 
thanks
Autodesk support team

Hi there,
 
Thanks for your quick response and i'm happy that someone will look into this. For your investigation, i have now submitted a ticket to the support team using your link above.
 
And about my system, it is a desktop using Nvidia display card with the latest driver.
 
Hope your guys find a fix soon!
 
Cheers,

Are there any screenshots of 5.7's new interface?  I didn't see any after a quick review online.  

Is the QTVR Preview button now enabled for the Windows version in v5.7 yet?
 
I took a large number of panos over the weekend at Blenheim Palace.
It was a real PAIN setting the QTVR parameters by trial and error.
 
If it's not been fixed when will it be fixed?  
Do I have to pay to get the fix?
 
I'd be really disappointed if I have to.

Hi terrycym!
 
If you export your pano to TIFF, JPEG, etc. and then use the "Load Panorama..." command to import it back into Stitcher, you can use the "QTVR Preview" feature to set the QTVR parameters (at least in v5.6.2) then export to QTVR movie.

Hi Jim,
 
I'm using Windows.
When I import a pano in v5.6.0 and click the "QTVR Preview" button I get a crash.
In v5.6.2, the "QTVR Preview" button is disabled - I guess this is Realviz's "FIX"
 
Maybe is different for the Mac?
 
Terry

I think the QTVR Preview button is still not 100% functional across both platforms.

Hi Terry and All!
 
Well, this is disappointing - I thought I had some good news for you! Unfortunately, there seems to be a discrepancy between Windows and Mac in this regard.
 
------------------------------------------------------
Can other Mac users duplicate my workaround? (v5.6.2)
 
Again, this is using the "Load Panorama" command. I have experimented with both TIFF & JPEG sphericals in the import. In the "Render" menu > "QT Movie Settings" tab > "QTVR Preview" button, I can set parameters (dragging in the proxy preview window, or numerically) then render to QTVR.

The last time it worked on Windows was v5.5 I believe and it's exactly as Jim has just described.
It's sorely missed!
 
I spoke to the French Realviz rep on Andrew's stand at Focus 2008 at the NEC and he said that all I needed was an update to the latest version of Apple QuickTime, err, no!!