AUTOPANOG(1)                      User Manual                     AUTOPANOG(1)



NAME
       autopanog - Autopano GUI frontend to create a panorama project.

SYNOPSIS
       autopanog [options]

DESCRIPTION
       GUI frontend for the autopano-sift package. It allows the processing of
       input images to create and match keypoint information, from which a PTO
       panorama project file can be created.

COMMAND LINE OPTIONS
       --output <ptofilepath>
              Preset the PTO output filepath in the GUI.

       --imagelist <list.txt>
              Read input image filepathes from a list file.

       --absolute
              Enable  the use of absolute pathnames in the resulting PTO file.

PARAMETER DESCRIPTION
       Source images
              The filenames of the image files that will be  processed.  Using
              the  "Add images" and "Remove selected" buttons, the list can be
              changed. At least two images must be loaded.

       Downscale resolution
              The maximum width and height resolution the image is  downscaled
              to.  That  is, if the image exceeds height or length compared to
              this value, the image is scaled so its longest side  is  exactly
              this number of pixels long. This value is the single most impor-
              tant setting to optimizing memory usage. As a rough  guide,  use
              750  pixels for a 256MB RAM system, 1400 for a 512MB one. Values
              smaller than 400 here lead to poor  matching  for  most  digicam
              images, due to sparse keypoints.

       Save option
              There  are  three choices, "Save keypoints to files", "Save key-
              points to files (compressed)"  and  "Keep  keypoints  in  memory
              only".   The  save  prefix is used to name the file, followed by
              the original filename.  For the first two available options, XML
              files  are  created  with  the  ending ".xml". If the compressed
              option is selected, the XML files will be stored  in  compressed
              gzip(1)  format. For the last option, the keypoint data is piled
              up in memory. For systems with low memory,  this  option  should
              not  be  choosen,  otherwise it speed things up, if the keypoint
              data is not needed afterwards.

       Save prefix
              How to name the keypoint files. The keypoint files are saved  to
              the current working directory plus this prefix plus the original
              filename of each image.

       Maximum keypoints per image pair
              After all filtering (matching,  pairing,  join-matches,  RANSAC)
              has  taken  place, the final keypoints are filtered for the best
              keypoints. A maximum of the supplied number is kept. If  you  do
              care  about optimization speed in the panorama layouting, choose
              a low number. If you do manual work and want  the  best  result,
              you can safely set this to a high number, such as 20 or more.
       Use RANSAC filtration
              If  enabled, the keypoint matches are filtered using a good geo-
              metric model.  That means, only  matches  are  kept  that  "make
              sense".  Although  the  matches  could  be correct matches, some
              matches are unwanted, like the matches moving  objects  (people,
              cars, ...) produce. Those are removed as well. It is recommended
              to leave this option checked except for special lens geometries,
              such as fisheye lenses.

       Use Area filtration
              As  we only keep a limited number of keypoints (specified in the
              maximum keypoint option), we have to discard the rest.  If  this
              option  is  checked,  the points to discard are choosen in a way
              that maximizes the area enclosed by the remaining points. It  is
              believed that a large coverage of area within the picture gener-
              ally leads to better optimization results later.  It  is  recom-
              mended to leave this option checked.

       Automatic pre-aligning of images
              This enables a set of options and will cause an image pre-align-
              ing algorithm to kick in. What it does is to estimate the  basic
              image parameters yaw, pitch and rotation based on the individual
              image  overlaps.  See  the  autopano(1)  manpage  for   detailed
              instructions.  In  general,  you  need to take the pictures in a
              specific order (strict left-to-right  or  strict  right-to-left)
              for  the first row of images. It really pays off to learn how to
              use this option properly, as the nona/PTStitcher optimizers  are
              a lot better on pre-aligned images. Additionally, you can enable
              automatic horizon line creation, which straightens the panorama.

       Input orientation
              Sets  how  the images were taken. If you have "vanilla" orienta-
              tion and the first row is taken as normal pictures,  just  leave
              "normal"  checked.  Otherwise you need to tell the program where
              the bottom is located within the images.  The  automatic  bottom
              finder only works well on flat-horizon images, so better not use
              it in case you explicitly know where the bottom is located.

       Generate horizon lines
              When pre-alignment is enabled, you can also enable the automatic
              creation of horizon information. For this to work, the first row
              of images must have its horizon roughly in  the  middle  of  the
              image.  The  number of points to create can be given in the com-
              bobox, whereas sums of powers of two (6, 14) work best. To  cre-
              ate as much horizon lines as possible/meaningful, choose "*".

       PTO Output
              The filename of the PTO panorama project file to create.

       Use absolute pathnames for image files
              If  enabled, absolute filesystem pathnames are used to store the
              image filenames in the PTO file.  Using this option will  ensure
              the PTO file will work from anywhere.  However, you can not move
              the image files to another  location  afterwards  (for  example,
              burning  the  images  on  a  CD), as the files' pathname change.
              Disabling this option will result in  only  the  filename  being
              stored in the PTO file.

       Output subpixel coordinates
              If  enabled,  sub-pixel  float  coordinates are used to describe
              matches between images in the PTO file.  This  works  with  most
              frontend  programs, such as hugin, but old frontend programs may
              have trouble with this.  In  this  case,  try  to  disable  this
              option.

BUGS
       No  bugs known, if you find any, please send a bug report to me. I will
       try to fix it.

AUTHOR
       Sebastian Nowozin <nowozin at cs dot tu dash berlin dot de>

SEE ALSO
       autopano-sift(7), autopano-complete(1)



autopano-sift                    NOVEMBER 2004                    AUTOPANOG(1)
