MIDDLEBURGH

Middleburgh in the Round

Ever wonder why, if digital cameras make it so easy to take photos, you simply take more bad snaps as opposed to better ones?

And have you noticed that whilst digital cameras support increasingly higher resolutions, pictures shared over the web are if anything smaller (wide screen monitors and digital TV's not withstanding)?. In practice they are either constrained by the size of display devices eg phones, tablets and netbooks and/or to a less extent by bandwidth and browser capabilities eg Flickr has a maximum capacity of 20MB/image and even if you can download it are you going to wait whilst your browser renders it.

In other words the only apparent benefit of of all theses extra megapixels is if you use software such as Picassa and Photoshop to cut and enhance the best bit out of an otherwise crappy snap. So who does that !!! - well I do - but then I take a perverse pleasure in trying to recover something from my snaps which typically are truly awful! And yes sometimes I get a win like when VOA asked me to share photos of my son's New Year Party.

Have you ever wondered about the panorama option on your camera ??. No ?? Neither have I ...but panoramas by definition should be BIG Pictures ie multi megapixel. Most people have no experience of taking panoramas. My experience until recently was school and university group shots where special motorised cameras were used to get every one in. And these always had someone who who ran behind the group to get from one end to the other in order to get in the photograph twice fast you could get photographed twice (I am in one of those !!).

One perk about my job is that I get to research various IT Tools,and recently whilst doing so, I realised that you don't need a special camera or even a panoramic option to take/make a reasonable panorama This at a time when #2 son is traveling world posting snaps to flickr by the 1K (and not a panorama in sight!!) So just to share with the Kids (Patrick and Sarah).... here's how you do it: you need

• one ordinary camera, optionally with an anti tremor feature if you don't have steady hand. Depending on how it takes you you may need to come off the jug for a few days. Alternatively a stick or monopod may prove be useful.
• Microsoft ICE. This is a free Utility which allows you to "stitch" individual photos into one panorama (Ptgui also works)
• Somewhere online to put the panaramas. I use Flickr, Skydrive, Photosynth or Zoom.it. Each have different merits:
  • Zoom.it is blazingly fast but once posted photos's can't be unposted and are in the public domain.
  • Photosysnth is also fast but files can be deleted and access manged. Also supports posting to Facebook.Its compositing is sometimes "strange" which is why I sometime save from ICE locally and upload to the other mentioned.
  • Skydrive (and Windows Live photos) have no max file size(that I have found) and honour 360 degree panoramas, unlike flickr which apparently changes/loses key metadata during upload so I have read (may be an urban rumour!)
• a panoramic view to shoot !!!!

It's worth noting that for

• performance Photosynth and Zoom.it both use Microsoft DeepZoom technology to tile large images. This is similar to the way Google tiles maps/street views and works of art. If you have access to your own webserver you could tile images and serve them youself using tools such Zoomify or Google Map Image Cutter (also click image) and
• Microsoft has another related solution: HD Viewer solution.Unfortunately although it has excellent features I find it a little flaky and slow; (its still in Beta)

And this is how you make it happen:

• Turn in a circle (assuming 360degree panorama) and take a series of overlapping picture (Microsoft recommend overlapping photos taken every 15 Degrees although this seems a bit excessive)
• import photos to ICE and let it run automatically
• Trial export to Photosynth and check. If panorama is "rubbish" try alternative "camera motions", save locally and upload to Skydrive/Flicker etc
• If uploaded to Photosysnth optionally post to Flickr or cut and paste the "embed" code into your web page
• If uploaded to Flicker/skydrive use ZOOM.IT to create a zoom and pan image post URL to Facebook as a link or paste "embed" code to your web page
• If you don't like the previous options you can always try out HD Viewer

So here are some proof of concept examples. (at worst they demonstrate that you can take a load of bad snaps and stitch them together to make a very large bad picture !!!) Also beware that you may be promoted to install a plugin for HDView and that you may find you PC video

Photosynth: South Horizon Phase 4 Podium Garden

This is my garden (downstairs). You have a 360 degree view and can pan full circle right/left. You can also pan up/down and have some perspective (like Google Street View) and zoom in/out

Photosynth: South Horizons, HK: Phase 4 Sports court and Kiddies Playground

There are several kiddies play areas on the estate, this one is next to basketball/tennis courts within Phase 4

Photosynth: Aberdeen Harbour, HK

For this case I walked along the promonade facing Aberdeen and round the point towards Lamma taking overlapping photos every few yards so is not fixed point panorama.

Zoom.it: Marina Square West Shopping Mall

Click Here

This was purely opportunistic.No attempt to photograph carefully; The Stitched photo shows all 4 floors. On ground floor right are temporary promotional booths.There is a man watching TV on one of the columns. Across from me on first floor with lights on is a Chinese Chemist. On second floor above it is a music shop and piano studios and on third floor (Food Hall) s McDonalds. Compare this to the enlarged Google Map Image above and note the group of people including 2 shots of same woman !! Mouse over the image displays controls in lower right hand corner. Go here to open the Aberdeen Harbour view.

Skydrive: Podium

Here: This will take a while to load - you may be prompted to install a plugin - DON'T PANIC!!!

This example shows the "Podium" file displayed from Skydrive using HD View Mouse over the image shows controls in top left. in addition to Zoom and pan feature there are options to change perspective and "lighting" This is supposed to enhance the 3D effect. The full screen option works. For reasons I don't understand image is sometimes not found (I assume that this is due to time out!!)

Posted at 2/05/2011 05:41:00 pm by David Middleburgh   Permalink

|