Panorama Stitcher help

Panorama Stitcher is an application for combining (also know as “stitching”) multiple photographic images into one composite image with higher resolution. The stitching process is automatic and relies on similarities in overlapping photo regions to properly align images. The app has support for two most common types of source image arrangements: spherical and planar. Spherical is a panorama taken by a rotating camera. Planar alignment method assumes the source images are taken by moving along a plane, like scans, microscope images, aerial maps etc.

How to take source images for a panorama

For better results keep in mind these simple rules while taking source images for a panorama:

Take source photos by rotating your camera around a fixed point. Do not move from side to side while taking images.
Keep an overlap of at least 20-30% between the neighbouring images.
All images should be taken with the same focal length.

How to take source images for planar stitching

For planar stitching you also need to have an overlap between images around 20-30%.
If you are making a multipage scan make sure your source images do not contain white borders without an actual image content. The app has no way to tell the white borders from useful image content and exclude them from blending.

Using Panorama Stitcher

First you can select the preferred alignment method with Alignment pop-up button. The default method is Spherical.

Then just drag and drop source images to the application window to start stitching. Alternatively you can use File->Import menu to select source photos. Stitching will start immediately and may take a while, so you will be presented with a progress bar.

After the stitching is finished you will see a preview of your panorama and its initial crop rectangle:

There are several controls for further panorama finetuning at the bottom of the window:

Crop. Superscribe option keeps crop rectangle outside of panorama edges, Inscribe keeps crop rectangle inside panorama edges. The crop rectangle can be manually modified by dragging one of its corners or sides. Manual option will be selected automatically in this case.
Projection. This popup button has two options Rectilinear and Equirectilinear in spherical alignment case and single entry Rotation in planar.
The rectilinear projection keeps straight lines in the world straight in the image, similar to a rectilinear lens. For very wide angle images the straight line preservation requirement may lead to heavy distortions in the image edges. This is where the equirectilinear projection is useful. It can bend some straight lines but removes edge distortions for very wide angle images. Initial setting is selected depending on the actual panorama field of view.
In the planar case the projection editor only allows to modify the overall rotation of the composite image.
Edit buttons next to Crop/Projection popups. These buttons switch between crop editor and projection editor. Initially crop editor is active. Clicking Edit next to projection popup will bring projection editor:
Projection editor presents horizontal, vertical and rotational handles. Drag these handles to straighten the horizon, change full rotation panorama center etc. You will see an immediate preview of the changes in the projection editor.
Click Edit next to crop popup to return to the crop editor. Switching editors is also possible using View menu or keyboard shortcuts Cmd-1 and Cmd-2.
Exposure. As input images may have slightly varying exposures the stitching algorithm will bring them to some average exposure. If you prefer a different overall exposure set the exposure compensation value by dragging this slider.
Format. Select output format: JPEG, 16-bit TIFF or PNG (with transparency for panorama edges).
Scale. Set output scale less than 100% if you do not need full resolution output image.
Dimensions. Entering an exact number recalculate overall scale to match the desired dimension value.

Once you like the result click Save button and select destination folder for the panorama. Once again you will be presented with a progress bar for the export operation.

Source images for the above panorama are available for download.

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