Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

[mikep]

Hi

In an earlier Pano thread, MX5 said he used Microsoft ICE for stitching. I've loaded it, and I think it's great, so thought I'd put this thread on here for anyone else to follow!

You can download ICE Here. It also allows you to download HD View (beta) which you can use to view specific types of saved panos.

One of the great things about ICE is that you just point it at the photos, and it sorts them out itself! Even several shots high. Today I produced a pano of Reigate Hill, Surrey, using 34 individual shots @ 300mm. I can zoom in to quite a level of detail using HD View - incredible!

Again - thanks to MX5 for the tip!

All the best, Mike.

[MX5]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Mike - Glad you like ICE. I often compare with Canon's own offering and Photoshop and find ICE makes a better job. But the stitch process ain't fast which I use ... happen I need more poke in my laptop or get that Mac I dream about ;-)

[mikep]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

MX5

I know what you mean. I tried to tempt it first of all with 34 RAW files, but I gave up waiting! I converted the 34 to JPG in DPP, then gave it those... it was marginally quicker, but I still went and got a cup of coffee whilst it sorted them out! Clever stuff though... I especially like exporting to Deep Tile Set, and viewing in HD View... pleasing to scroll and zoom with just a mouse!

The 34 pano I did on Saturday, was 2 high, 15 wide (with a few overlaps and unintentional doubles!). On my laptop, it took about 15 minutes, start to end. I know it sounds 'corny', but you can't see the join!

Thanks for the tip! All the best, Mike.

[Colin]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Thanks for the pointer to this M$ software. I just tried it on my Cartagena panorama which was 6 hand held photos. It did a great job and on my PC (Quad core with 8 gB ram) it was like lightening took about 10 seconds unlike CS5 that took a couple of minutes.

[DaveH]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Mike - Glad you like ICE. I often compare with Canon's own offering and Photoshop and find ICE makes a better job. But the stitch process ain't fast which I use ... happen I need more poke in my laptop or get that Mac I dream about ;-)

Hi MX5

What is Canon's version of this software?
I have photoshop but as I use a Mac won't be able to have a bash on ICE.

Thanks

DaveH

[MX5]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

DaveH - It's on the EOS Disk and is called Canon PhotoStitch Version 3.1 (at least the Windows version is). It's not bad (far from it) it's just not as effective (naturally IMHO) as ICE but Canon may have a MAC version which will help you.

[paul linton]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Thanks for the link, ICE now down loaded had a few shots to try it out and seemed to do a good job. Could be interesting never thought of doing many panorama's but that could all change now.

Paul

[DaveH]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

DaveH - It's on the EOS Disk and is called Canon PhotoStitch Version 3.1 (at least the Windows version is). It's not bad (far from it) it's just not as effective (naturally IMHO) as ICE but Canon may have a MAC version which will help you.

Thanks I'll have a look and give it a try along with the photoshop stitch.

dave

[Mark]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

or get that Mac I dream about ;-)

When you get that Mac you won't be able to use Microsoft ICE as it's a windows only thing.

[George Bear]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

When you get that Mac you won't be able to use Microsoft ICE as it's a windows only thing.

He can run a hypervisor ... that way a Mac will run a virtual windows session (Apple's Guide to Running Windows). I use virtualisation on my Windows laptop to run Ubuntu (Unix) and it works very well.

[MX5]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

When you get that Mac you won't be able to use Microsoft ICE as it's a windows only thing.

Mark - I'd probably use CS5 to do my stitching.

[DeeGee]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Heres a question... whats planar motion??

[MX5]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Heres a question... whats planar motion??

Like planetary motion ... so it's you taking a sequence of pictures by moving the camera from left to right (if you are right handed) making sure you track the horizon. It's the normal way I think.

[mikep]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

The first pano I ran through ICE was from a tripod set, and yes, I got 'planar motion' too, but the second set was 34 shots hand held, and it said 'rotating motion'!

I've checked the ICE forum, and here's the techno babble...

Rotating Motion: used for when you stand in a single position and rotate your camera about a fixed point. This is how you should shoot most panoramic scenes.

The other motions are for less common stitching tasks.

Planar Motion 1: compute the best overlap between the images, but don't peform any skewing or perspective distortion. This is useful for doing multiple overlapping flat-bed scans of a large document. This can also be useful if you want to achieve a panography effect (although note that ICE doesn't have all of the blend modes that you might use for a panography.

Planar Motion 2: allow for skew between the images. Probably the least useful, but can be used if planar motion 3 gives poor results.

Planar Motion 3: allow for full perspective distortion between the images. This is useful for stitching images of a large flat surface, for example a white-board. As long as the object being photographed is flat you don't need to rotate about a fixed point like most panoramic shots and can move to capture different shots of the flat scene.

Automatic: this is the default. In this mode ICE will automatically choose based on the input set. Note that some set of photographs, especially those taken through a long tele-photo lens, can show up as planar motion 2/3 instead of rotating motion. This is one case where you may need to manually indicate the camera motion.

Hope that helps, but I suspect not!

All the best, Mike.

[MX5]

Re: Panoramas - Microsoft ICE

Thanks Mike ... helps a lot. I hadn't had time to visit the ICE technopages so was guessing (wrongly).