Fantastic and easy Paranorama tool
21/09/07 18:30 Filed in: Technology
For ages now I've been looking for an easy tool to stitch together photographs I've taken while on my travels.
Now, there ARE a number of OpenSource alternatives that give good results. But to be honest, none of them (at present at least) offer the kind of drag and drop interface that a 'purchase' bit of software can. Not that there is a vast amount of choice.
Clearly Photoshop and Photoshop Elements will contain such a tool. It's called PhotoMerge and while it is present in Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Windows; it's not so clear whether the current Mac version (4.0) contains it.
Am I crazy, or did previous versions of Mac OS X (10.0? 10.1? 10.2?) contain a free Panorama tool? Just me then.
There's some appealing about being able to give a 'big picture' of the location and it helps to show people who've never been there a feel of how it all fits together.
So, armed with a bit of cash in PayPal I bought an unwanted version of Serif's PanoramaPlus 3 (retails at $49.99) to give it a go. OK. Firstly, this is a Windows only product. But I run Parallels (and I'm in MSDN) so that's not a problem. It was easy to setup and the results are actually pretty good. Although the application can occasionally blow up in your face and bizarrely, doesn't appear to have the ability to save 'work in progress'.
Anyway, I've played around a bit with some images I took in Disney June 2007.
One of the great things you can do is that you can create both panoramic images AND Quicktime VR movies. Both of which I've included below.
Here is a Quicktime VT of Main Street USA, in the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Florida.
While here is the link to the Curious George Goes to Town play area, Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida.
Finally, I've create a quick panorama of the Lights Motors Action Stunt Show, Disney Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World, Florida. (That's Disney MGM Studios of late).
Finally, I've published the source combined images in a quick gallery. Sorry if it blows up your browser! Some of the images are nearly 10,000 pixels wide.
Please be patient as the images are so large they can take a few minutes to fully download. As can be seen in this image here.
Now, there ARE a number of OpenSource alternatives that give good results. But to be honest, none of them (at present at least) offer the kind of drag and drop interface that a 'purchase' bit of software can. Not that there is a vast amount of choice.
Clearly Photoshop and Photoshop Elements will contain such a tool. It's called PhotoMerge and while it is present in Photoshop Elements 5.0 for Windows; it's not so clear whether the current Mac version (4.0) contains it.
Am I crazy, or did previous versions of Mac OS X (10.0? 10.1? 10.2?) contain a free Panorama tool? Just me then.
Motivation
There's some appealing about being able to give a 'big picture' of the location and it helps to show people who've never been there a feel of how it all fits together.
So, armed with a bit of cash in PayPal I bought an unwanted version of Serif's PanoramaPlus 3 (retails at $49.99) to give it a go. OK. Firstly, this is a Windows only product. But I run Parallels (and I'm in MSDN) so that's not a problem. It was easy to setup and the results are actually pretty good. Although the application can occasionally blow up in your face and bizarrely, doesn't appear to have the ability to save 'work in progress'.
Anyway, I've played around a bit with some images I took in Disney June 2007.
One of the great things you can do is that you can create both panoramic images AND Quicktime VR movies. Both of which I've included below.
Here is a Quicktime VT of Main Street USA, in the Magic Kingdom, Walt Disney World, Florida.
While here is the link to the Curious George Goes to Town play area, Universal Studios, Orlando, Florida.
Finally, I've create a quick panorama of the Lights Motors Action Stunt Show, Disney Hollywood Studios, Walt Disney World, Florida. (That's Disney MGM Studios of late).
Finally, I've published the source combined images in a quick gallery. Sorry if it blows up your browser! Some of the images are nearly 10,000 pixels wide.
Please be patient as the images are so large they can take a few minutes to fully download. As can be seen in this image here.