Programs for creating collages and panoramic photos on Windows

The time that many have been waiting for almost a year has come. The session is over, the stress at work is over - you can relax for at least a couple of weeks. Summer adventures and a lot of different impressions lie ahead. One will bring trophies and souvenirs from distant countries, another will have time to make pleasant acquaintances in a short time, and someone will master the skills of a surfer and learn how to “catch a wave.” No matter what you do in the summer, no matter where you go, there's one thing you're almost guaranteed to take with you on the road: a digital camera.

When telling someone about where you vacationed, you really want to somehow magically find yourself hundreds of kilometers away again and personally show your interlocutor how beautiful it was there. Photos and videos are great, but they only capture part of what's around you. By showing a photo, you force them to look from a certain angle, which may interest the interlocutor less than other details that are not included in the frame.

If you want a photo of the area where you were without losing a single detail, you should get acquainted with the technique of creating panoramas. Yes, not simple panoramas, but circular ones.

⇡#Shooting circular panoramas

In order to create panoramas, you do not need any special equipment or deep knowledge of photography. Once you discover the technique of taking panoramic photos, you will realize that until now you did not realize what capabilities a regular digital camera has. Its potential is not limited by passport characteristics - you just need to know how to get around the “restrictions”. Modern software tools for stitching individual frames into a wide-angle panorama make it possible to create masterpieces in very high resolution from ordinary photographs - without visible seams and taking into account an even color balance.

The simplest way to create panoramic images is using a special mode, which is available in almost any modern digital camera. This mode works differently in each camera: in some models, the camera on the display “suggests” the edge of the previous photo so that parts of the panorama can be more accurately aligned, in others it completely automates the shooting process, and the user only has to slowly circle the viewing angle with the lens. Of course, it’s better to take such pictures with a tripod, but if you don’t have one at hand, it’s quite possible to shoot handheld.

If you're using a smartphone camera to take pictures, keep in mind that there are apps that make the process of creating a panorama much easier. For example, in Android 4.2 Jelly Bean, the ability to shoot circular panoramas is implemented by default. Well, if there is no such tool or default mode, you can use third-party software. For example, for Android devices there is a free Photaf Panorama application that helps you correctly orient your smartphone when shooting, and also stitches the resulting images into a panorama in automatic mode.

For iOS devices, we recommend the Cycloramic app. With its help, you can take photographs, stitch together a panorama, and create a virtual 3D tour. Owners of the iPhone 5 can use the automatic mode for shooting a circular panorama: you need to place the smartphone on a flat surface, after which the application will turn on the vibration mode and take the required number of pictures, each time rotating the device to the desired angle.

⇡#Assembling panoramas on a computer

Unfortunately, there are not very many free programs for stitching panoramas on your computer. One of the most effective tools is an application called Hugin. This program is cross-platform - it can be installed on Windows, Fedora, OS X, Ubuntu, Gentoo, FreeBSD.

As an alternative to Hugin, we can also recommend the graphics editor GIMP. True, by itself it cannot combine parts of a multi-pixel image, but there is a Pandora add-on for it, which, although not very correct, still copes with its task. This add-on is presented as a file with the extension .scm. In order for GIMP to work with it, you need to copy the file to the directory where the program scripts are stored.

For those who want to get the most out of the process of creating panoramas, we recommend paying attention to the Kolor Autopano Giga program. Without exaggeration, we can say that this program is one of the best tools for creating panoramic images.

A lot can be said about the advantages of Autopano Giga. It has a universal set for correcting distortions in the resulting photo, a very effective algorithm (traces from moving objects), the use of HDR technology to level exposure, and the ability to manually correct stitching control points.

But the most important thing is that in the vast majority of cases, Autopano Giga does not require intervention in the process of combining images and produces such an ideal result that the finished panorama sometimes does not even require final processing in a graphics editor. In addition, Autopano Giga parallelizes calculations very efficiently, allowing the application to process snapshots very quickly on multi-core processors.

Features of installation and operation:

Recommended requirements for the composition of hardware and software: - processor: Intel Pentium III type - 2 GHz and higher; — RAM: from 2 GB and above; — free space in one hard drive partition: from 2 GB and above; — presence of a USB port available for the application; — screen size of at least 1024 by 768 pixels; — operating system: MS Windows XP and higher.

To run version 11.x software on a 64-bit OS, you must install a special security key driver. The installation of this security key driver is located on the software installation disk in the section: “\System\WinKey5-x64\”. Before installing the dongle driver for a 64-bit system, you must make sure that there is no other version of the Guardant driver already installed on the system. If the specified driver is on the system, you must uninstall it, then reboot the system and install the key driver for a 64-bit system.

To run the XML Validity Checker (XmlCheck), you must have Microsoft NET Framework version 3.5 or higher on your computer. To work with databases on a 64-bit OS, you must install the BDE system for x64.

When installing GIS Map 2011, BDE version 5.01 is simultaneously installed in the \Program Files\Common Files\Borland Shared\Bde folder.

When installing GIS Map 2011 on Windows 2000, you must ensure that GDI+ functions are performed. The GDI+ function support package can be downloaded from the link https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms533798%28VS.85%29.aspx To silently install the program, you can use the keys /s /l=language /p=path , for example: Setup.exe /s /l=Russian

⇡#Creating interactive panoramas

An interactive panorama can be created using the PanoramaStudio Pro program. What distinguishes this from similar applications is the ability to work with full spherical panoramas of 360×180 degrees. PanoramaStudio Pro can also help create panoramas consisting of several rows of images. Like any serious application for working with panoramic images, PanoramaStudio supports automatic alignment and stitching of images, correction of lens distortions, and also has a special mode in which you can manually specify key points for adjusting frames.

Having visualized the panorama in the PanoramaStudio Pro window, the user can choose one of the options for saving it. The program offers to save a virtual tour not only as a graphic file, but also in various interactive formats.

PanoramaStudio Pro can create an interactive screensaver in SCR format or save a virtual tour in EXE format. For online publishing, you can choose to create an interactive Flash-based panorama. In this case, the program will create several files that are necessary to view the virtual tour in a browser. Visually, it looks like a fragment of a computer game: using the navigation buttons or the mouse, you can “look around”, look around, zoom in or out on individual details of the panoramic image. When viewing an html file, you can also switch to full screen mode and enable automatic playback.

In virtual tours it is not necessary to use only circular panoramas. You can generate galleries from regular panoramas or even “narrow” images. However, it should be borne in mind that the smaller the viewing angle of the photograph used, the less impressive the result.

All software products on this site are full working versions. Existing restrictions in operation are eliminated after purchasing a license. Without a license (key), it is possible to work with maps of scales 1: 2,000, 1: 100,000 and 1: 200,000, consisting of one nomenclature sheet and having no more than 20,000 objects. The software may be used for evaluation purposes in one copy within 30 days. For its subsequent use, you must pay the cost of the software and obtain a License.

⇡#Creating virtual tours

Let's say you've created a whole series of panoramic photos taken in approximately the same place. Based on them, several interactive views were created. Panotour Pro has another useful feature: combining all these panoramic “spaces” into an interactive tour.

Such a tour is nothing more than a set of panoramas interconnected by links. These links are established during the virtual tour setup process. Visually, they can look like special marks on the image, for example in the form of a marker, a geometric shape, or a thumbnail of a picture. Links can not only lead the user to another panoramic view, but also forward to the address of a network resource, download a file, and so on.

When a virtual tour contains a sufficiently large number of panoramic views, it is difficult for the user to retain all the links in memory. In order not to lose views when generating the final tour due to the lack of links to them, it is convenient to use the link map of the Panotour Pro project. This map is a link topology diagram. It shows the panoramas in use, and arrows indicate links leading from one panorama to another.

To see which views a specific panorama contains links to, you need to select its thumbnail, after which the directions of the involved links will be displayed. When you go to a certain “slide” of the panoramic tour, you can set the angle - the direction of view and viewing angle.

To control the view, it is suggested to use the mouse or navigation buttons. In the Panotour Pro settings, you can select templates for the design of these navigation elements, as well as add musical accompaniment. Moreover, it is not necessary to include music in your tour: for example, a panorama of the sea coast can be decorated with the sound of the surf and the cries of seagulls. Panorama control templates allow you to use the full-screen viewing function. In this case, traveling on a virtual tour will be as realistic and comfortable as possible.

You can also add the effect of glare from light entering the camera lens to a panoramic image. If you use it in a bright area, such as the sun in the frame, the presence effect will be enhanced. When you change the angle inside the virtual circular panorama, the highlight will change direction.

Projects created in Panotour can be saved as a gallery of swf files. In addition, the program is able to prepare HTML code for publishing a tour on a website.

By the way, interactive panoramas and virtual tours are suitable not only for creating a virtual walk through memorable places, they can also find other, quite practical applications. With their help, you can, for example, create visual presentations of architectural projects, exhibition pavilions, apartments and other things.