Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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ChrisGreaves
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Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

My first camera (Canon) had (embedded) stitching software that would co-ordinate stored images to create a panoramic view.
I am assembling a street map of Bonavista by taking PrtScr snap-shots of my laptop screen and saving them (MSPaint) as BV001, BV002, BV003 and so on.
A trial of copy/paste in MSPaint encourages me, but I would like to be liberated from my clumsy fingers (mouse-dragging) and have a program identify the matching pixels.

My screen shots from Google maps are always in 50-metre scale, and I know enough about Bonavista to guide an image into roughly the right place.

I’m looking for idiot-proof software than can finesse my movements, “snap into pl;ace” describes it. The software doesn’t have to search my entire multi-megabyte image for the correct location. It needs to hunt around the nearest 10 or 20 p;ixels to locate a matching set.

Thanks in Advance
Chris
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stuck
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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stuck wrote:Look no further than MS ICE.The price is right too, :free: Ken
Thank you, Ken.
I have d/l and will install and play with it tonight.
Chris
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stuck
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

Post by stuck »

It is very simple.

Select the (overlapping) image files in Explorer then RIGHT click and choose 'Stitch using Image Composite Editor'. ICE will open and load the images. Then step through the remaining 3 steps: stitch, crop and export that are on the big breadcrumb trail across the top of the window. Job done.

Ken

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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stuck wrote:It is very simple. ...
ICE: CoolTool! :clapping: :thumbup: :thumbup:

I will go back and snapshot a few “patch” segments of the town and see how ICE copes with incorporating them into an existing stitched map.
One needs to understand the use of over-a-dozen projections, right?

Cheers
Chris
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stuck
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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All you need to do work methodically in a grid pattern and take screen captures that overlap the previous one by a small amount, say about an inch. The more such 'cells' you capture the larger the resulting map that ICE will stitch together from the individual cells. Here's a not very good example of six screen shots stitched by ICE:
Clipboard01-06_stitch_4web.jpg
It took me about 2 mins to create.

Ken
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stuck
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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PS as all you are doing is stitching screen shots of a map you don't need to know anything about projections. ICE will automatically figure out that the images are grid that in effect has been created as if the camera is looking straight down from overhead and being moved around, left/right/backwards/forwards, and select the correct 'planar motion' projection.

Ken

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

Some of the people in my home appear to be Real Slow Learners.
Like me.
ICE - if it is good at stitching it should be able to deal with me taking two sets of 50 shots each in my front and back yard while I rotate through 360+º, right?
IMG_20191110_122136338_stitch.jpg
I started in the back yard because Linda and Hubert already know that “Farmer John” is crazy.
No wonder it took me so long to dig out those vegetable beds in the backyard, all those curves, and the fence palings in such twisty shapes - difficult to get a stable reference point.
IMG_20191110_122220049_stitch.jpg
Then the front yard. Bernadette was not too impressed, sitting there in the van.
But I do like my curved driveway; almost makes me want to buy a car so that I can motor along the quiet tree-lined twisty lane to my back door. Well, side door, actually, on the extreme left-hand side of this stitched image.
If I were keen enough I’d learn
(1) How to maker ICE anchor one side of the stitched image on a specific image and
(2) How to warp the stitched image to make my driveway straight again.

Cheers
Chris
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HansV
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

Post by HansV »

Print out the stitched image blown up to - say 640 cm by 91 cm. Bend it to form a cylinder with a radius of about 100 cm, with the picture on the inside. Stand in the middle. the fences should now appear straight.
Best wishes,
Hans

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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ChrisGreaves wrote:...(1) How to maker ICE anchor one side of the stitched image on a specific image...
As far as I know, this can't be done.
ChrisGreaves wrote:...(2) How to warp the stitched image to make my driveway straight again...
You need to try the various projection options at Step 1 in the ICE workflow and/or use the handles that appear when you mouse over the 'image on a grid' at Step 3 of the ICE workflow. Having said that, I'm not sure how successful you'll be but you know what they say, "Practice makes perfect."

Ken

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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HansV wrote:Print out the stitched image blown up to - say 640 cm by 91 cm. Bend it to form a cylinder with a radius of about 100 cm, with the picture on the inside. Stand in the middle. the fences should now appear straight.
"Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software."

Sixty-four BITS, Hans, not a 640 cm BIN.

I erect a 640 cm bin anywhere on the property the neighbours will start tossing grass clippings and kitchen scraps on top of me!

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Chris
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ChrisGreaves
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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stuck wrote:You need to try the various projection options at Step 1 in the ICE workflow and/or use the handles that appear when you mouse over the 'image on a grid' at Step 3 of the ICE workflow. Having said that, I'm not sure how successful you'll be but you know what they say, "Practice makes perfect."
Thanks Ken.
I'll splice this into my schedule for the search-family-tree-software when I've finished sealing all my windows from the inside (GRIN)
I will give it another try, though.
I like the idea of a panoramic shot as a complete circle..
Cheers
Chris
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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ChrisGreaves wrote:...a panoramic shot as a complete circle...
This one is a complete circle. I have a copy printed out across several sheets of landscape A4 paper and I have joined the ends and stuck my head in the middle :grin:

It's not the same as being there though.

Ken
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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stuck wrote: It's not the same as being there though.

Ken
But you can do it sitting on the setee with your baffies on instead of freezing to death/succumbing to skin cancer outside...
John

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

Post by ChrisGreaves »

So here I sit, the Atlantic Winds Whistling Where the Windows Weep ...
Bought a tube of sealant down to Swyers.
Can’t read the label because the print is so fine.
Brainwave! Take a photo and enlarge it in Windows Photo Viewer. That’s always worked before (Hooray for smart phones!!)
Won’t work because the destructions wrap around half the tube.
Brainwave! Take three photos and ICE them!
A topological inversion, in a manner of speaking, of my experiment out in the front yard before the Green Party sign blew down.
ICE_50.png
This MSPaint-fabricated view is not the real thing.
Three shots doesn’t do it. There is too much distortion for ICE to grab a hold of the edges.
The three original images are 4MB each, so plenty of detail/data for ICE to mull over.
Perhaps If I had taken 5, 7 or even 9 images it might have worked.

Cheers
Chris
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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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Stitching software is not really suitable for this purpose...
Best wishes,
Hans

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

Post by HansV »

You might get a magnifying glass with built-in LED illumination.
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Hans

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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ChrisGreaves wrote: Can’t read the label because the print is so fine...
Would you like somebody to read it out to you. If so, send a ticket (preferably return) to the address in my profile... :innocent:
John

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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ChrisGreaves wrote:Perhaps If I had taken 5, 7 or even 9 images it might have worked.
Perhaps but as you've already noted, the curavative means it's very difficult to get the sort of overlap that ICE needs to align the images.

The geeks go to stitching software is Hugin:
    http://hugin.sourceforge.net/
It's been a long time since I tried it so maybe it's a bit more intuitive now.

Ken

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Re: Win7HP 64bit Image stitching software.

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HansV wrote:You might get a magnifying glass with built-in LED illumination.
While font size is commonly a problem for me, here the problem is curvature.
I could get carpal Tunnel Syndrome by the time I had rotated the tube back and forth to the end of the text.
Cheers
Chris
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