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luuuuuuke
Inspiring
November 21, 2018
Answered

360° Spherical Panoramas

  • November 21, 2018
  • 9 replies
  • 16973 views

I've been taking some 360° spherical panoramas with my DJI Mavic 2 Pro drone. Due to gimbal limitations, it does not photograph the sky; it can only tilt to 30° above the horizon. It can, however, point straight down. The drone does it's own stitching, and these are okay but quite low resolution. It also saves individual high resolution RAW files.

When I open the individual RAWs into PS and Photomerge into a spherical panorama, the results aren't correct; the bottom (nadir) is pinched (see image).

The idea is to stitch them together, then change the image ratio to 2:1 for a true equirectangular 360° spherical panorama, and the let it do a Content-Aware Fill for the missing portion of sky on the now blank bit of canvas.

This works perfectly if I stitch them together first in another program (I'm using MS ICE) then do the rest in PS. However, it's clunky doing it this way and I'd like to be able to do it all from end to end in PS if possible.

Why is PS not able to stitch it together properly? Other software seems to manage. I've played around with all the various different settings and options, but can't get it to work.

The drone manual says the images are 3x8 +1, but for some reason there are 26 images, not 25 as would be expected.

Please help!

      This topic has been closed for replies.
      Correct answer luuuuuuke

      Nope.

      I think the answer is that Photoshop simply can't do it for some reason. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

      9 replies

      O
      Oskar5F9B
      Participant
      October 31, 2023

      I got similar problem - for the small part of the ground exactly below the drone and for the sky.
      Looks like it can be fixed by using 3D options and the generative fill (for something less complex). Unfortunately the new panorama layer looks very bad on my PC - it's much darker and it looks like in lower resolution.
      Also on Photoshop 3D | Common questions on discontinued 3D features (adobe.com) we have:

       

      Spherical Panorama editing and support (Note that non-3D panoramic stitching, available under 'Automate > Photomerge', will continue to work, but 3D > Spherical Panorama will not)

       

      - so looks like it will be not possible to fix the panorama using this approach.
      Ok - let's say it will work on MS ICE. But it's 2023 and this software is not available (maybe it's possible to find the old installer from untrusted source). Also some people can me the Mac users - I'm not sure it will work.

      Should i look for another paid software just fo fix small part of the image?

      mikea592
      mikea592
      Participant
      August 5, 2020

      It's 2020 and as far as I can tell PS still can't handle these Pano's from Drones - anyone have any updates?

        A
        Anonymous
        May 10, 2020

        You just need to edit the limitation from your dji app. Than the gimbal can go much beyond 30 degree. 

          S
          Shaheen
          Participant
          December 27, 2018

          If you shrink the vertical dimension of the image it will project correctly in the 360 view...

            kosharm31520179
            kosharm31520179
            Participant
            November 28, 2018

            Have you found a solution yet? I need to do something similar but can't manage it

              L
              luuuuuukeAuthorCorrect answer
              Inspiring
              November 29, 2018

              Nope.

              I think the answer is that Photoshop simply can't do it for some reason. Hopefully they'll fix it soon.

                E
                Ellest
                Participating Frequently
                November 26, 2018

                If it can help, I have two posts on this... one here in the adobe forum and one in the dji forum.

                https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=172920&page=1&extra=#pid1660406

                https://forums.adobe.com/thread/2564374

                L
                luuuuuukeAuthor
                Inspiring
                November 26, 2018

                The be clear, I just want to know how I can get Photoshop to stitch it properly, so that I can do it all in one bit of software.

                ICE manages it perfectly with exactly the same images, as does the drone itself. I could do it in ICE first then import it (which is what I have been doing - successfully), but this is clunky.

                And like Ellest said, ICE doesn't output RAW, so it's somewhat limiting.

                JJMack
                Community Expert
                JJMackCommunity Expert
                Community Expert
                November 26, 2018

                The images you selected from your drone can not be stitched  using either of  Photoshop  stitching methods you have tried.  If ICE does a partial job and you can fix up in Photoshop be it clunky you have something the works for you.  There are many images that ICE can not stitch.   There is stitching software that can stitch imaged that Photoshop and ICE can not stitch, To Stitch 360 Spherical Panoramas perfectly you need set of image can where carefully taken to be stitch.   Photoshop and ICE are not the best Stitching software around.

                JJMack
                  L
                  luuuuuukeAuthor
                  Inspiring
                  November 28, 2018

                  Even if ACR produces a DGN file it is not RAW data it still manipulated stitched pixels not raw data from a lens and sensor.  Pixel quality is only as good as the software is capable of producing for good output you need the good input required.  Does the ACR Produced DNG file have  RGB Pixels or generated RAW camera data for Pixels.  ACR  Work with RGB pixels as well as with RAW data.   You can Process Pixels layer and jpeg files where there is no raw data with ACR as a Filter or File opener into a layer through ACR UI.   When I stitch my Jpeg Files using ACR and ACR produces a DGN stitched image file where would RAW sensor data come from.   IMO any stitched image or HDR image file produced by ACR is likely to only contain RGB pixel data.   How would any software be able  stitch and blend RAW data into seamless well blended mosaic image.


                  Sorry, you've lost me.

                  E
                  Ellest
                  Participating Frequently
                  November 22, 2018

                  I'm having the same problem, it seems that the bottom part of the panorama is missing in the stitched one.

                  check the difference bethween the image that you stitched and the jpeg stitched by the drone

                    JJMack
                    Community Expert
                    JJMackCommunity Expert
                    Community Expert
                    November 23, 2018

                    Cut and paste from his video

                    Patched with CC 2019 3D

                    JJMack
                    E
                    Ellest
                    Participating Frequently
                    November 23, 2018

                    The problem with this is that he isn't using the raw images nor producing a raw pano, so not much editing is possible after that

                    JJMack
                    Community Expert
                    JJMackCommunity Expert
                    Community Expert
                    November 21, 2018

                    Photoshop I first a image editor.  Many features have need added to Photoshop over the years it is more that an image editor these days its a professional tool.   However is is not a dedicated image stitcher.   360 Panorama have been created for years and fisheye lens were often used and panorama tool were programmed and were able to do wonders with these images and only 5 well taker image were need to stitch perfect 360 panoramas.  There was even a Plug-in for Photoshop the author was getting flack so the professor put his into the public domain so anyone could use its source to develop their own tools. However Programs like Microsoft ICE does not support fisheye images its not a great stitcher.   There are some good stitching application marked now..

                    If your drone software or firmware stitches  360 Panoramas that have a whole in the Sky you may be better off opening  them in Photoshop. Then use menu 3D>Spherical Panorama>New Panorama Layer from selected Layers.  Patch the Sky then export the 360 Spherical Panorama with the patched sky.

                    You may want to try opening all the images in ACR and see how well its stitching may work.

                    JJMack
                      L
                      luuuuuukeAuthor
                      Inspiring
                      November 22, 2018

                      My issue is that the ready-stitched panoramas the drone produces are very low resolution. I therefore want to work with the individual RAWs to achieve a much higher resolution final image.

                      I just want to know if there might be a setting I'm missing somewhere in Photoshop that's causing the nadir to be pinched?

                      Like I said, it seems to work fine with exactly the same images in ICE, so not sure why PS can't handle it? It'd be nice to be able to do the whole process in one bit of software, rather than faffing about with several.

                        JJMack
                        Community Expert
                        JJMackCommunity Expert
                        Community Expert
                        November 22, 2018

                        Because the no nadir image to stitch the software may try to close the whole in the sky most likely. Does ICE leave a whole  in a spherical projection.  I tossed ICE in the trash.

                        JJMack
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