When rendering Cubic QTVRs I have been having a problem getting the opening view—what you see in a desktop icon and also what you seen in the first frame when the panorama opens, before you pan or zoom it—to consistently show the view I select.  At times Stitcher does what the manual says it will do (i.e. show a section of the view in the workspace window at the time of rendering), but at other times it gives a 100% zoomed in view of a single photo from those in the window.  I can’t see any reason (based on what I am doing) that Stitcher is sometimes selecting the zoomed out view I would like, and at other times using another, totally zoomed in detail view as its opening frame.  This is driving me nuts....

Is anyone else seeing this issue, and do you have an answer and/or work around to make it go away.  Am I correct in interpreting what the manual seems to be saying about how to control the opening view of Cubic QTVRs by using the view presented in the work space when I render? 

Thanks,
John

forget about rendering qtvr in stitcher, render an equirectangular image & then convert to flash or qtvr with Pano2VR

http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2vr.php

qtvr is essentially a dead format anyway, as apple has dropped qtvr support from the latest quicktime X incl. w 10.6 snow leopard

flash is the present & future, autodesks built in pure player export is pretty archaic at this point though, flash pano player, krpano, & pano2vr all provide much better results

sam

Sam Rohn :: Panoramic Photography :: http://www.samrohn.com :: Location Scout :: http://www.nylocations.com :: New York City

Sam,

Thanks for your response.  Are you saying if I’m starting with Stitcher (which is, for now at least, the panoramic rendering tool I have), I should then render the pano file as, what, a “Cubical Image”? (there is no save format listed as “equirectangular"), then use an entirely separate program to convert that cubical image Stitcher file to either Flash or QTVR?  Ouch…

And until I can go that route, do you know if there is in fact any way to get Stitcher to behave properly (as the manual suggests it should) and allow me to select a view that I want (instead of some insanely close up detail) in the QTVR render?  (Hey Autodesk people, feel free to step in here, too, if you know the secret to this.)

Thanks to all,
John

p.d. Sam, I checked your website and you are doing some good looking work by the way!  Love the basement image, and the Statue of Liberty with the woman jumping in the air.  Sweet.  Were those images stitched using Stitcher, Pano2VR, or something else?

Sam,

I downloaded a trial version of Pano2VR and yes, it does exactly what I need using the “cubical image” output of Stitcher.  Still frustrating that Stitcher doesn’t seem to do this itself, or at least not reliably.  Anyway, no need to reply, and many thanks.

John

hi john, thanks & np -

i think stitcher refers to equirectangular images as “spherical” images

all of my panos from summer 2008 onwards are stitched w PTGui, some earlier panos have also been restitched w/ ptgui, which gave me better results than earlier stitcher made versions of the same pano

i never really used stitcher to render qtvr directly, always 1st an equirectangular which was then dragged through photoshop, fixed the nadir, then to a qtvr using cubic converter, although im using pano2VR for this final conversion lately

many of stitchers features do not work as promised in the manual (if at all), autodesks totally ignoring their customers on these matters should make their intentions pretty clear, this app is now end-of-life

stitcher is also painfully slow compared to just about any other app on the market nowadays, best workaround is to avoid it altogether i think

check these links for a more lively pano community -

http://www.panoguide.com/forums/
http://www.nodalninja.com/forum/
http://gardengnomesoftware.com/forum/

sam

Sam Rohn :: Panoramic Photography :: http://www.samrohn.com :: Location Scout :: http://www.nylocations.com :: New York City

I finally got my answer, thanks for that. Siticher is unable to produce a qtvr (.mov) since I upgrated to quickTime 7. So now I am stuck I guess since stitcher is dead now, or do you have any suggestions such as a free converter to .mov and html?

Thanks

Marcel