Using the Nikon Coolpix with Fisheye Adapter for Panorama Photography Helmut Dersch (der@fh-furtwangen.de) Technical University Furtwangen July 30, 1999 updated September 17, 2000

This camera covers a field of view of over 180 degrees, and is capable of capturing a full spherical panorama with just two images. What is needed is a tripod head which very accurately aligns the camera at adjacent positions, and which rotates the camera around its nodal point. The images are converted using free software (Panorama Tools and PTStitcher from this site) and many types of panoramas can be created.

The following example panorama (equirectangular format) is created using images supplied by a friendly user of Panorama Tools, who wishes to not be disclosed. You can download the images (1 and 2) at original size to repeat the steps for yourself.

There are several problems with these source images which you should avoid, although it works out ok in this example:

The lens is not properly aligned with respect to the CCD. The image circle should be centered. I have seen Coolpixes which show even more severe clipping. If this happens with your set-up you should return it for alignment.
The images are made in auto-exposure mode. One should defintely lock exposure although the automatic color/brightness adjustment of Panorama Tools worked out fine in this example.
The overlap region of the two images (both sides!) show many fine details, and are prone to geometry erros. Panorama Tools fits the images, but it is more work than if you choose another angle.

To convert these images into an equirectangular panorama you need a working installation of PTStitcher, available from this site, and a stitching script which you can download here. Select the scriptfile, and the two source images, and drop them together onto PTStitcher's icon. The program starts up, and asks for a resultfilename. Enter 'pano' or whatever you like. Then PTStitcher creates the jpeg-image 'pano.JPG' which is the equirectangular projection of the spherical view.

You can create other panoramic formats easily by changing the scriptfile using a plain-text editor. See the example script file that comes with the PTStitcher distribution about the required syntax and options.

Some more notes about using this script with your own images:

If you have different image size, enter appropriate dimensions of the fisheye circle in the mx/my fields.
Generally, avoid the k-switch ('k3' in current example), and use exposure lock instead.
If you plan to edit the final panoramic image, create Photoshop format instead. A suitable scriptfile can be downloaded here. Open this multilayer image in Photoshop, and you can adjust seam position, color levels of each input image, blending etc.
The lens parameters and image positions have been optimized for this set of images. If your images don't fit perfectly, you can manually finetune them by creating a PSD-file as outlined above, or run the images through the position optimizer of Panorama Tools. This is explained in the separate Panorama Tools documentation.
You can use the interactive Panorama editor of the Photoshop plug-in 'Panorama Tools' to edit perspectively corrected portions of the image, eg add a logo at vertical down position:

Open the just created panoramic image in Photoshop. Must be single layered if Photoshop format.
Select 'Panorama Tools ->'adjust'
Push 'prefs' and set options (b) and (c)
Back in 'adjust', set 'use options' and 'extract'.
Push 'set' and fill the dialog :

Image: 'rectilinear', HFOV: 50, Width: 500, Height: 500

Panorama: 'PSphere', HFOV: 360, Width and Height ignored.

Check 'Save to buffer'. Uncheck 'Load buffer'.

Click ok, and again ok in adjust. You should get a view of the panorama vertically down.

Edit this image and insert your logo. Flatten the image (don't forget that!).

Then select 'PanControls->Apply Changes'

Then Select 'PanControls->GetPano'.

Save the result. It is your final image.

The example image has not been edited in any way. You could probably hide the seam in the sky somewhat better, and also sharpen the image. I used jpeg-compressed source images for bandwidth reasons, which degrades the image somewhat more.

Capturé par MemoWeb à partir de http://www.fh-furtwangen.de/%7Edersch/coolpix/coolpix.html le 30/05/01