I've been casually following Autotstitch for a long time.
It was experimental for some time, not available on the Mac and the claims they made were pretty bold. "Autostitch is a breakthrough technology for panoramic photography, VR and visualisation applications. This is the first solution to stitch any panorama completely automatically, whether 1D (horizontal) or 2D (horizontal and vertical). Autostitch is built using cutting edge research from the AI lab at UBC, but it's incredibly simple to use! Just select a set of photos, and Autostitch does the rest: digital photos in, panoramas out."
The first time I read about Autostitch they were looking for partners to license their code. You couldn't even test it directly. That's all changed now.
A few weeks ago I looked at their site again and saw they had a free downloadable demo version for Windows, but more importantly, I saw that several very inexpensive applications had been built on their code. Autopano Pro ($119, Windows, Mac), Serif Panorama Plus ($49.99, Windows), and Calico ($39, Mac). I tested all three applications and the free demo version as well (which is fully functional with no watermarking). I finally chose Calico for my own personal use, because it was the least expensive of the three. Except for a few bells and whistles, they all work on the exact same base code. They're all brain dead simple. And they all yielded the exact same result.
The example on the main page of their website is pretty amazing, because of how it's done. So I set out to test it with some difficult scenery. The example below was done without a tripod.
Here are the 15 photos I snapped in a heavily brushed trail at Towsley Canyon.
As you can see from the thumbnails, there is a great deal of complexity in the images. Lots of intricate detail. And the photos all have a different color saturation. I shot using the automatic setting for scenery with the Kodak v705. The Kodak v705 I own does autostitching in 1D, horizontal, but in some situations can be daunting. It's hard to line up the sample swatch on the small screen. Autostitch can handle 2D, both horizontal and vertical, so you don't have to be precise at all... and I didn't attempt to be. Again, no tripod, just standing, pointing and shooting.
Here is what the program spit out, with zero input from me.
The result is pretty amazing, given the detail and absence of tripod. The file was 8773 pixels wide by 3781 pixels high. If you'd like to look closer at the details. A 4000 pixel wide version is linked here.
The resulting cropped image:
Here's a shot with some tough tile floor lines. No manual involvement on my part at all.
I like simple and fast. I'm an expert in Photoshop, but I don't want to spend my time doing anything I don't have to do. I've used many stitching programs in my life. They have all required some level of manual intervention in the process to get decent results. Not these. The programs built on the Autostitch technology are truly automatic.
Here is an example to show how it deals with wood flooring. I thought this would be a tough test, since there are lots of straight lines and I was, again, not shooting with a tripod. But as you can see, it nailed the myriad of straight lines in the wood floor.
And here is the detail on the floor. The program connected all of the straight lines with no input from me at all.
If you don't currently have the ability to stitch photos for a good panoramic shot, this is for you.
The demo is free and whether it's Windows for $49 or Mac for $39... it's a no brainer. There's nothing to learn. Upoad photos. It does the rest. And if you're using a stitching software that isn't this simple, you may want to give this more than a casual glance.
Here are a few more from Towsley Canyon, all shot without tripod:
Test it for yourself and let me know what you think.
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