(Small) panoramas from yesterday's ride

[Kerry]

I changed my oil yesterday (I regret to say that it had been a little over a year and just over 3,000 miles since the previous change) and I thought I should take a test ride.  I rode some new roads and went to the top of the (paved part of) Little Cottonwood Canyon -- home of the Snowbird and Alta ski resorts -- for the first time ever.

Slightly lost   ... a ritzy neighborhood in the foothills on the east side of the Salt Lake Valley (14 images):





This is what part of the Snowbird ski resort looks like when it's not buried under snow (5 images):




The view that was behind me when I took the previous set (5 images):




The Alta ski resort, at the end of the pavement (15 images):



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Thanks to JetSwing for reviving my interest in digitally-stitched panoramas.  On his recommendation I downloaded a copy of the free [AutoStitch] demo.  It doesn't get any easier than this!

    File => Open
    Highlight all of the individual image files
    Click "Open" button
    Wait!

On my PC I have associated the JPG filetype with the free [IrfanView] image viewer program.  When AutoStitch completes the stitching process, it pops up a copy of IrfanView with the panaorama inside it.  I:

    * Crop the rough edges out
    * (optionally) Tweak things like Contrast, Gamma, Saturation & Sharpening
    * Reduce the image down to a usable size

and I'm done.

Thanks for the find, JetSwing!

[pandy]

Purdy pics! Looks like a great place to ride! I'm going to have to pass the stitch site to my boyfriend. He takes beautiful pics, too!  

But...but...say it ain't so..... a year and 3k miles!?  

[Phaedrus]

Those are really nice photos Kerry  

[ratz]

Not only are they beautiful, I think you have a great eye for photography.
You have foreground, background, focal points and peripheral subjects... its like 3D.

[Roadstergal]

Like Pandy said - ah, man!!!

Stunning pics, though.  You're not wasting the limited saddle time.  

[roguegeek]

Kerry, that stuff is definitely not bad at all.

Have you thought about doing any full panoramic VR or even cubic VR? My company specializes in this type of imaging and is the leading provider of automotive VR imaging. I've been doing it for a while on my own also so there's a lot I know about it. A member of IVRPA and try to always to participate in the World Wide Pano events. This seems like something you'd be interested in.

I wish I had something decent to show you right now. Here's a couple of older samples from 2000. They suck, but I've got a crap load more to put up that are much more recent. The last two ("Parent's Home" and "Rainy Courtyard") are from 2004 I think. Check it out.
http://projectrich.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=30

I've been friends with many members from the original Apple QTVR development team for a while now and am very active in the community. If it's something you're interested in and have any questions, I think I can help ya out.

[roguegeek]

Found some finished VR on my old site made from static images I linked to above.

- Angeles Crest Highway
- Hilly Park
- La Canada Hills
- La Canada
- Rainy Courtyard

[GSJames]

Nice pics...  I was a Teacher's Assistant at UofT for a graphics course, and one of the projects was to make one of these programs that would stitch together images for a panorama.

Course it was easier (and probably also worked faster) cause the algorithm was to select 4 common points in both images, and perform a warp on one to match the other, and then cross-dissolve the two.

Very beautiful scenic images...  How long did you have to wait for them to generate?  

[pantablo]

very beautiful countryside Kerry.

[Kerry]

Just for you, Pablo ... here's a memento of our group ride up Angeles Crest Highway last year.  From the turnaround point past the tunnels (4 images):

[kvgs]

Dang! I love the panoramas, those are sweet shots.

[Kerry]

What the heck ... here's another one from last year's drive near Moab (5 images):



(This post contains links to individual pics that I shared at the time.)

[Phaedrus]

Between Kerry and Roadstergal, we have some top notch photographic talent on GStwin.   My only experience with panarama photos is I had to do a couple for a website I was working on for a nursing home. I took some photos and made a panaramic of a resident room to give people a real feel for what it looked like. Nothing as good as this though, w00t!

[Kerry]

OK - you twisted my arm!  Here is another one of the Colorado River, at the upper end of Lake Powell during our recent multi-year drought.  The mud at the left is normally under water, the boat ramp in right-center usually reaches the water, and the boats moored downstream on the right are way out-of-place.

I took these 7 images with my first digital camera (a 2-MP fixed-focus Fuji) on a Southern Utah ride I did in January 2003.  You can see my shadow about 1/4 of the way in from the left edge:



While I'm at it, here are the other 2 sets that I took earlier on the same day:

Near Boulder, Utah (3 images):




Near Caineville, Utah (4 images):

[Alphamazing]

Wow. Those are absolutely gorgeous. I think I might try some panoramic shots on my next ride. Thanks for the inspiration!

[Kerry]

A few tips:

• The photos need to overlap a little bit, say 20% to be safe.  Shoot, hold still until the "live view" on your LCD panel comes back, then move to the next frame.  Some cameras have a mode that will assist with aligning the images, but I prefer to do it myself.
  
  
• A tripod can make things more precise, but only one of my sets in this thread (the river bend near Moab) were taken using a tripod.  I'm still looking for a happy medium...
  
  
• If you include much foreground in your panorama, spin the camera on its axis between shots, rather than swinging it in an arc in front of you.  This will cut down on distortion and bad stitching boundaries.
  
  
• AutoStitch can automatically handle 2D spreads (X by Y photo sets) but depending on the subject it may be simpler to take a single row of images with your camera turned sideways, then rotate them on your computer if necessary before opening them in AutoStitch.
  
  
• If your camera has a manual mode, or some way to lock the exposure, use it.  I was only able to do that with the shots I took on Saturday -- some of my earlier sets (with point-and-shoot cameras) have obvious boundaries and patches of sky that are different colors, etc.  Oh well ... it's still fun to see AutoStitch pop up that first panorama, no matter how bad it is!
  
  
• You can get even fancier (using the smallest possible aperture to put everything in focus, etc) but let's worry about that after you get comfortable with the process.[/list:u]Good Luck, and Have Fun!

[Alphamazing]

Yeah, thankfully for me my camera has a "panorama" function, which takes a part of the image before, and puts a little in the LCD screen to aid in lining up. I'll do a few tests around campus before I post the good ones here.

[RVertigo]

ENVY! :mrgreen:

Now I want to make some...  Too bad I don't have any pics worth while.  

[JetSwing]

kerry, you're awesomely out of control!  :mrgreen:

[1998_GS500]

Sorry to threadjack, but here are a couple of shots from my ride yesterday.