(Stitcher Suggestions)

PTMac is a front-end for Panorama Tools, a comprehensive series of image processing filters which can make panoramas from images photographed by virtually any type of lens, including fisheyes. Developed by mathematics professor and panorama expert Helmut Dersch, Panorama Tools offers limitless flexibility and various forms of the software are used extensively by panorama enthusiasts and professionals alike.

PTMac eases the steep learning curve of Panorama Tools' workflow by taking the user step-by-step through the panorama construction process. It offers an organized approach to supplying the necessary parameters and thus makes it much easier to harness the power of Panorama Tools.

Full support by the enthusiastic Kekus Digital team is available for PTMac, and a fully working trial version can be downloaded from here.

REALVIZ Stitcher is a panorama creation tool for making VR panoramas from wide-angle lenses. The program features sophisticated pattern matching algorithms which allow images to be joined together a bit like putting together a jigsaw. Additionally, templates can be created which automate the process.

Although it cannot be used with fisheye lenses and thus requires a variable number of wide-angle shots, the result is that REALVIZ Stitcher offers a highly scalable choice of resolutions for the final panorama and can output the result in a variety of VR media formats, including cubic format QuickTime VR. More info and trial downloads are available from links on this page.

Panoweaver is a fisheye approach to creating panoramas very quickly. It allows two or three 180° fisheye images to be joined into a complete panorama. With so few shots required and an easy to use GUI based stitcher, very rapid turnaround is thus possible, making it ideal for shooting tours consisting of many nodes.

The cubic QuickTime VR format is supported by Panoweaver. More information about Panoweaver is available online from here.

Photovista Panorama 3.0 is an easy to use GUI based stitcher, long popular on the Windows platform and recently returned to the Macintosh.

Its emphasis is on creating Java-based Zoom Viewer panoramas for web site promotions, however the panoramas it stitches can be turned into QuickTime VR movies using CubicConverter. More information about Photovista Panorama is available online from here.

Single-shot Systems

The demand for rapid, stitch-free panorama making has seen the rise in popularity of "single-shot" systems, which allow most of the important viewing area of a scene to be captured in one image. While the resolution is often lower than a traditionally stitched panorama, the ease and speed of creation may outweigh this, depending on requirements.

A Mac-friendly, self-contained single-shot solution is the 360 One VR which creates movies directly to the QuickTime VR format.

Most single-shot systems on the market produce a cylindrical image or movie of varying field of view. If necessary, these can be converted to cubic format using CubicConverter.

Additionally, CubicConverter 2.0 offers a conversion option suitable for producing cubic or equirectangular panoramas from "mirrorballs" - shiny spherical balls similar to Christmas ornaments which reflect almost all of a scene apart from a hole directly behind the camera.

Other Panorama Making Software

Although the above products are the main ones Click Here Design recommends for ultimately creating cubic format QuickTime VR panoramas, there are many other products around which can also be used.

Most digital cameras these days are packaged with panorama making of some description, for example, most Nikon cameras come bundled with Arcsoft's Panorama Maker. While often these types of software create cylindrical panoramas, these images can still be converted to cubic format QuickTime VR using CubicConverter.

Legacy stitchers from the "cylindrical era" of panorama making can also be used to create cubic format QuickTime VR movies, via the additional step of using CubicConverter to convert the cylinders to cubics. When high FOV lenses are used (for example, fisheye images converted to rectilinear images using the program DeFish), almost spherical panoramas can be created, with relatively small gaps at the top and bottom. Apple's time-honoured QuickTime VR Authoring Studio is renown for its smooth seams, and is still viable for creating panoramas in this way.