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Level 10

How to create a gigapano photograph

This is a re-edition of an old thread I made available only to SVT photographers, but I would like to propose again because this could be interesting for more people.

I'm sharing with you because I love to see people improve their skills and add quality to Google Maps contributions!

 

Hi connect photographers, maybe many of you are already aware of this terminology, but I will start with some definition.

A gigapano is a 360 panoramic photograph that exceed standard size, in terms of megapixels and megabyte.

The terms originate from "gigapixel", that is meant for an image composed at least of 1 billion of pixels, so something around 45.000x22.500 pixel.

 

Using a standard 360 rig, composed by a DSLR (with DX sensor) and a Fisheye lens (8 mm on FX), with commercial cameras with around 16-30 mpixel the final image could be somewhere between 72 and 150 mpixel.

So, pops out that using this rig you will never obtain a gigapano.

Actually, using a smartphone and SV App is the easiest way to obtain something that is closer to a gigapano, but you know that technical issues in stitching could reduce the overall quality.

 

You also have to consider that any pano you upload to Google Street View should be under 72 Mbytes.

 

So, why you should try to create a gigapano?

 

  • because I want to create something that could show to the user the maximum detail
  • because I don't need to upload my work on Google Street View and I want to protect it from download
  • because the customer requires maximum quality
  • because I would love to show the world my area at the best quality

This the last step in the street view photography; you could have started with SV App photography, and then used an all in one camera like Ricoh Theta and finally decided to use your DSLR.

Now you can take this to the next level.

 

First some Google history.

Google was involved in gigapano since 2008, with this project: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gigapan

 

 

And I think that this system is still in use in some Google Art projects when pano is needed.

 

What do I need to create a gigapano?

 

  • a good DSLR (both DX or FF, or even a Medium Format) camera
  • a good lens; you could use a zoom lens or a prime lens, I'm still in the testing phase
  • a sturdy tripod (I use a Manfrotto X190 Pro but I'm considering other options)
  • a panoramic multirow head
  • a stitching software (I use to suggest Kolor Autopano Pro/Giga, but now the company is out of business, sadly. So PTGUI it's a good choice)
  • optional - a remote

 

The best part of this is that you don't need to buy a special kind of camera; you can create a gigapano using whatever DSLR you got.

Essentially you should use the best camera you can, in terms of sensitivity and dynamic range, low noise performance, sensor size; you have to choose carefully the lens, to obtain these results:

 

  • focal length that will fit the panoramic head: a 200-400 mm f2.8 requires huge panoramic heads
  • low borders light fall (vignetting) at the desired focal length
  • low diffraction at high f stops (usually we use f8-f11 to get hyperfocal); have a look to MTF graphs could help 

If you choose a wrong focal lenght you will easily have to mess with vignetting, that will ruin all the work done, like in this example, made with a Nikon D500 + AF-S DX 17-55 @55 mm;

 

 

What you really need is a sturdy pano head on a robust tripod.

Being a customer of Nodal Ninja solutions by Nick Fanotec, my choice was easy; a NN R6 with Nadir adapter

 

This head could accept lenses from 8 to 200 mm, with some exclusions (my great Nikon AF-S 24-70 f2.8 VR it's really too big for this rig).

The rotator is included, and could be blocked with blue pins to these degrees

  • 5 (72 stops)*
  • 7.5 (48 stops)*
  • 10 (36 stops)
  • 15 (24 stops)
  • 18 (20 stops)*
  • 30 (12 stops)*
  • 36 (10 stops)
  • 45 (8 stops)*
  • 60 (6 stops)
  • 90 (4 stops)

Depending on the lens you will use, and the scene you want to shoot, you will choose the right angle accordingly.

Just as example, with my lens, @17 mm i can shoot at 30°, with a great overlap (30% of the frame), that could help when used in crowdy scenes; you could easily mask out undesired elements.

At 55 mm you need at least 15 mm to complete the scene, that means more than 240 shots for a single panorama.

 

This lens could accept robotized rotator in the future.

A nadir adapter is also included; this allow a rotation of the main column on the main axis, to let the camera shot a nadir image at correct height.

 

How the rig looks like

 

 

How to setup the panohead

 

After you have selected your focal length for the image you want to shoot, you have to move the blue pins on the rotator accordingly; so for 17 mm you could choose to rotate each 30° and so on.

 

There is another couple of thing you should do before start shooting a gigapano:

  • nodal point find
  • pupil entry find for parallax error correction

The first setup is easy, if you have live view on your DSLR: just point down to nadir, and move the vertical column slider on the main arm to center the camera on the nodal point (sometimes you could find an optical black and white mark); this is the main point around which your camera should rotate.

The second setup is a little more difficult to achieve, and is needed to reduce the parallax error, something you should know from personal experience (and, in effect, this is what give us a stereoscopic vision):

When you find the exact setup for both rails, you can lock using stoppers.

 

To learn more about these settings, please, have a look to this great video:

 

 

The camera itself needs a setup; first setting is how to find the hyperfocal aperture for your lens at the choosen focal length.

This is the condition where all the elements of the image are in focus (or almost), from near to farther distance; and that's what we want in a panoramic shot!

But you have to be aware of diffraction effects, that will reduce the image quality if you will choose too high f stops.

The right choice depends on the camera, the sensor size, the lens and the desired depth of field.

 

Here is an online calculator: http://www.dofmaster.com/dofjs.html

 

Other camera standard settings are:

 

  • Mode: M
  • ISO: as lower as you can, but don't worry of long exposures, just prepare yourself to stay on the same place for more time if you reduce ISO!
  • Focus: obviously M

 

Now you are done with settings, and you can start shooting gigapano!

 

How to shoot

 

Prepare for a long session; depending on how crowdy is the scene, you could have to stay up to half an hour in the same place for a single pano.

So this is what is shooting a gigapano like (ISO 3200, 35mm on DX, equivalent to roughly 52 mm, Manual Exposure, f11, Raw, post with Adobe Lightroom CC)

 

 

Please note the last shot, for nadir, after turning the main column. The whole process took around 15 minutes, including lens and camera setup.

I prefer using a radio controlled remote, to avoid any camera movement; take care also not to change (a millimiter could change) the tripod position and the zoom ring on the lens.

 

This is the Adobe Lightroom CC import panel for the 216+1 raw images

 

 

How to stitch

 

The software is your choice, but sometimes it will require some setup to get the best results, depending on the scene.

Hopefully you will not have to add any manual control point, as you don't have only 4 or 12 shots, like standard 360 photography with fisheye, now the numbers are huge...

 

This is what I can see in the stitching panel of Kolor Autopano Pro:

 

 

As you can see, when the number of photos to stitch grows, issues do the same! Here we have some images that was not recognized to belong to the same group, and as a result we have some black holes. But the result, at this stage, is not so bad.

Usually recognization process could break into 5-6 image groups!!!!

We will need some manual fixing, but as a indoor test this is quite good; the final result is around 1.4 gigapixel, but I will downsize to 450 megapixel to make some photoshop correction.

Total rendering time is 16 minutes on a iMac with High Sierra, SSD disks 32 Gb RAM, 4GHz i7

 

This is a 1:1 detail of the final render, that is 56.000x28.000 pixel

 

 

Alternative software are: Microsoft ICE (for Windows: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=52459) and Gigapan Stitch (http://www.omegabrandess.com/Gigapan)

 

After stitching you will need some photoshop correction for details and for both zenith and nadir, obviously.

 

How to publish

 

As I mentioned above you cannot simply take a gigapano and upload it to Street View, because will be rejected.

If you want to upload you need first to resize, and this is how a resized gigapano looks like:

 

 

If you want to see it in full resolution you need to use some software that will build a "website" on your pano, with all the required plugins and viewers (usually html5 or flash viewers) that will allow zooming to full resolution, as well as serving of images in slices, so you will not have to wait for the whole image to download to see a single portion.

 

This is how a PTGUI template from a resized to around 350 Mbytes looks like: http://www.360roma.it/gianicolo/

And this is a Kolor Panotour Pro template of the same image looks like: http://www.360roma.it/gianicolo2/

 

Please note that Panotour Pro template allows zooming to full res.

I'm currently buying a license for PTP Pro to show up the 3.5 Gbytes image of the same scene

This is what, hopefully, one day, I will be able to create: 111 gigapixel pano of Sevilla: http://www.sevilla111.com/default.htm (Flash required)

Another good option for publishing is KRPANO, that is cheaper than other options, being the engine inside Kolor PTP: https://krpano.com/

 

Enjoy this 1.3 gigapixel panorama of Half Dome, Yosemite: https://krpano.com/krpano.html?pano=panos/divingboard/divingboard.xml

 

Hope you like and you will start considering shoot a gigapano!

11 comments
Level 9

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

So much  technical things,I almost forgot what all you said at starting when I reached the bottom😅 of the post .

When I will have DSLR and all other required things I will come back here and go step by step.

Former Google Contributor

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

Hi @LucioV.

 

Thank you for sharing. I will take time to read through your post to learn. I am still being at entry level of photography and such material is much appreciated. 

 

Just to be sure, would a gimbal have any chance to make such photos?

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Thank you!
Level 10

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

Hi @sonnyNg a gimbal could help you, if you place it on a top of a tripod, and you tilt and rotate manually using cursor buttons.

But it's a manual process, you could try mount your (i.e. go pro) on the gimbal and try to take the number of photos you require to complete the sphere, using the gimbal both for stabilization and for rotation on two axis.

Never tried before, but could work 🙂

Thanks for your attention

Former Google Contributor

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

Thank you for the explanation @LucioV.

 

I will give a try, hopefully the results would be acceptable.

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Thank you!
Level 10

Rif.: How to create a gigapano photograph

Thanks dear @LucioV ! It is out of my technical skills but it was a pleasure to read the whole post!
If one day I had to arm myself with a good camera, I will keep this post as a reference bible!

 

Have a good day,

David

Connect Moderator

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

@LucioV Thanks for this post with technical description ! I need to learn more about it ...

Happy Guiding !!!

Level 10

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

Level 8

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

@LucioV Wow this is like 360 pro-soldier here ready to shoot any direction, this is mind-blowing, awsome 

Connect Moderator

Re: How to create a gigapano photograph

omg, cannot get better than that. 

its like you have given us years of your skills and pro tips, something very few people even talk about. 

wow, huge respect @LucioV

 

I am going to PM you regarding few questions about the rig

 

cheers