Panorama Tools

Infobox Software
name = Panorama Tools



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author = Helmut Dersch
developer = Helmut Dersch
released = 1998
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license = GNU Lesser General Public License
website = http://panotools.sourceforge.net/

Panorama Tools "(also known as PanoTools)" are a suite of programs and libraries originally written by the German physics and mathematics professor Helmut Dersch. Panorama Tools provides a powerful framework for re-projecting and blending multiple source images into immersive panoramics of many types. An updated version of the Panorama Tools library serves as the underlying core engine for many software panorama GUI front-ends.

History

Dersch started development on Panorama Tools in 1998, producing software available for building panoramas and more, but had to stop development in 2001 due to legal harassment and claims of patent infringement [cite web | url=http://wiki.ffii.org/SwxaiIpixEn | title=iPIX vs. Dersch: German Mathematician silenced by US patent | publisher=Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure] by the company IPIX. Dersch released the core library (pano12) and some of the programs of Panorama Tools (most notably PToptimizer) under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The rest of the applications were made available as binary executables only and for free without a proper license.

The development of the source code of Panorama Tools was continued by some members of the original Panorama Tools mailing list. In December 2003 they initiated a free software project which is currently hosted by SourceForge. SourceForge requires all hosted software to be released under an open source license. For this reason Dersch's binaries are not hosted there but can still be found on mirror websites.

On 5 August, 2007, Helmut Dersch announced his intentions to relicense the Panorama Tools source code.cite web|url=http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/message/11850|title=Panorama Tools License|accessdate=2007-08-10|last=Dersch|first=Helmut|date=2007-08-05|format=HTML|work=PanoTools.org Mailing List|publisher= [http://www.panotools.org PanoTools.org] |archiveurl=http://www.panotools.org/mailarchive/msg/57813|archivedate=2007-08-09] On 9 August, 2007, Dersch changed the license to a GNU Lesser General Public License.cite web|url=http://webuser.fh-furtwangen.de/~dersch/|title=Panorama Tools License Change|accessdate=2007-08-10|last=Dersch|first=Helmut|date=2007-08-09|format=HTML|publisher=self published|quote=The license to the Panorama Tools library (pano12.dll, pano12.lib, pano12.so, etc) used by several image processing utilities is changed from this license to the GNU Lesser General Public License. This change is in effect from today (August 9, 2007).]

ub-components

Original release

PanoTools consists of the following components [Dersch's original home page] :

;PTEditor: Java interactive panorama editor.;PTPicker: Java front end to panorama stitcher and other tools. It provides a graphical interface for feature point selection and position optimization.;PTCrypt: Java tool for scrambling pictures intended to be viewed on-line with PTViewer.;PTStitcher: Panorama stitching tool which remaps, adjusts and combines arbitrary images to panoramic views.;PTOptimizer^†: Optimizes positions and sizes of images using control-point data.;PTStereo: Creates 3-dimensional objects from 2 or more stereoscopic images.;PTInterpolate: Physically valid true view interpolator. Given two images of the same scene taken from different positions, this tool creates views from any intermediate position.;PTMorpher: Morphing tool.;PTAverage: Averages images to reduce noise and enhance density.;PTStripe: Combines images into movie-stripes for viewing in object-viewers (PTMovie extension to PTViewer).;PanoTools Plugins:Photoshop, GraphicConverter and Gimp plug-ins for image correction and remapping. Also compatible to many other programs that can use Photoshop plug-ins.;pano12 library^†: The underlying panorama library, currently used by several different panorama front-ends and command line programs.;pano13 library^†: Current version of the library. No longer compatible with programs for which no source code is available.^†Open source.

Further developments

In 2006 the functionality of PTstitcher was reproduced by the developers of Panorama Tools. Its functionality was broken into several program, in an attempt to modularize it:

;PTmender^†: Remaps one image at a time;PTblender^†: Implements the rudimentary colour correction algorithm found in later versions of PTstitcher;PTmasker^†: Computes stitching masks. It implements the ability to increase depth-of-field by stacking images;PTroller^†: Takes a set of images and merges them into a single one;PTcrop^†: Crops an image to its outer rectangle.;PTuncrop^†: Opposite of PTcrop: takes a cropped file and creates an uncropped one.;PTtiff2psd^†: Takes a series of input images and creates a Photoshop PSD file where each input file is a layer.^†Open source.

Front-ends and applications

To make working with Panorama Tools easier and to add functionality, many interactive, graphical front-ends to Panorama Tools have been developed, both open source (e.g. hugin) and commercial (e.g. PTgui and PTMac), along with a variety of other companion applications (e.g. smartblend and enblend), which in many cases make interacting directly with the programs in the original Panorama Tools toolset unnecessary.

Further reading

The software Panorama Tools is mentioned and covered in several books, e.g.
* Jacobs, Corinna - "Interactive Panoramas: Techniques for Digital Panoramic Photography" ISBN 3-540-21140-3
* Andrews, Philip - "360 Degree Imaging: The Photographers Panoramic Virtual Reality Manual" ISBN 2-88046-732-2
* Gulbins, Jürgen & Steinmüller, Uwe - "Art of RAW Conversion: How to Produce Art-Quality Photos with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Leading RAW Converters" ISBN 1-59327-067-4

External links

* [http://panotools.sourceforge.net/ Panorama Tools SourceForge] project page
* [http://webuser.fh-furtwangen.de/~dersch/ Helmut Dersch] author's site.
* [http://www.panotools.org/ PanoTools.org] primary community portal recommended by the SourceForge projectcite web |url=http://panotools.sourceforge.net/ |title=Panorama Tools: SourceForge |accessdate=2007-05-03 |date=2007-05-03 |format=HTML |publisher=SourceForge |quote=Questions and answers about usage of the various tools and front-ends belong on the [http://groups.yahoo.com/group/PanoToolsNG/ PanoToolsNG mailing-list] , you might want to consult the [http://wiki.panotools.org/ PanoTools wiki] before posting. There is a panotools-devel mailing list for questions regarding compiling the source and developing it further. The PanoTools wiki aims to be the definitive reference for Panorama Tools. It contains a lot of usage documentation for the tools hosted here on sourceforge.]

References