Microsoft ICE for stitching?

[Hood]

I had been giving stitching a go for the first time and after I posted my first try here:
http://forum.mflenses.com/the-big-stitch-and-in-camera-panorama-thread-d-t46683.html
One of the guys suggested that he uses a software stitching program to help.
So I went looking around the net and came across Microsoft ICE, it was free so I gave it a whirl.
I wrote my experiences with it here:
http://protas.metalforfishes.com/?p=372

I was just wondering if anyone else had used this software and what were their thoughts/experiences with it?
Is this a pretty standard program as far as these go or are there ones that are much better?

[WolverineX]

i use it when i want to make a panorama. it's just the recently made by Microsoft (in last year or so), so it's not a standard for stitching panoramas, there were other programs from other makers before that, but most of them are not free, ICE is. I think most people will recommend you Hugin,free open source , as a standard but i find ICE more compact to install and easier to use,and it gets the job done.
Also in Photoshop , there is an option for stitching panoramas

[Hood]

Ahh, excellent. Thank you for sharing your experiences.
Do you know what the option is called in Photoshop that allows you to do this?
I would love to compare results.
My mate Max was telling me that this ICE is actually based off software developed for scanners, that was designed to make sure the lighting was right etc.

[WolverineX]

[Hood]

Cheers, yes I have already done 4x4 grids...my latest is here:
http://forum.mflenses.com/the-big-stitch-and-in-camera-panorama-thread-d-t46683.html

it is a 33 image stitch... it is not perfect because of my inaccurate grid shooting but came out passable in the end.

I will look into the posts you have recommended. Cheers.

[Lloydy]

I'm using ICE for pano's, both single height ones and multi height ones. The most images I've used so far has been 15 ( 3 high - 5 wide ) and I've had some good results with it.

I have experimented a bit using fairly close shot images of an ancient hedgerow, but it couldn't manage the rotational pictures. So I'm planning to try and do it by keeping parallel to the hedgerow by walking sideways.

[iangreenhalgh1]

I used ICE for a while and it does work well.

I now use Photoshop CS5 instead as it seems to be better at avoiding stitching errors and blending.

Some examples, they are 10-16 shots each:

[ilguercio]

I'm using it since i find it quicker and easier compared to hugin.
I noticed that if you use focal lenghts longer than, say, 50 mm, the application thinks you've done a planar movement while i always do, as expected, a rotational one.
Changing between them doesn't alter the result, which is good most of the time.
I just had a couple of issues with the big panos (50 pictures) where i got some straight lines split up for no apparent reason.
Sometimes the error is marginal and hidden by the repetitive pattern or the coarse detail but it is annoying nevertheless.
Hugin, for some reason, takes much more time to render the same set of pics.

[Lloydy]

This one is 30 pictures - 15 wide x 2 high, and I think it would print to about 7 meters wide. The step in the viaduct is actually there, it's not a fault with the stitch. I've studied this carefully and at 200% I can see the bricks, and I can't see one join in the stitch.




This is bigger again, 75 pictures in 3 or 4 layers. This nearly crashed my computer!

I took the pictures for both on the NEX5 with a Takumar 135 / 3.5. The log picture isn't as sharp as it could be because I couldn't get any further back without standing in the river, so I was at the closest focusing distance, hand holding the camera on a grey day in the shade so it was quite wide open, and the DoF was barely 40 cm, the log is deeper. I need to that one again with a shorter lens and some light.

[ilguercio]

Wow, are you sure there's no sign of stitching?
Even on my good ones there are always a couple of them that drive me mad as hell.

[Lloydy]

[buggz]

I too like MS ICE, it works great for me.

[Lloydy]

The picture of the clock tower is from 5 pictures taken with a Chinon 300mm 5.6 lens on a Sony NEX5, stitched with ICE.
I have done quite a bit of PP as well to get the colours and levels better, but it wasn't bad without.
The 100% crop shows the level of detail from the IS0 800 shots. To print at 100% would give an image 2.2 meters high at that resolution.

The clock tower is on the top of the old Coalbrookdale Ironworks building where Abraham Darby was the first to commercially smelt and cast iron and kickstarted the Industrial Revolution.