Image Composite Editor

Re: What are the different types of Camera Motion?

nickhoover — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 02:49:50 GMT

Which type of motion would I use, if any, if I were to move along a long wall taking photos of the room? My pictures overlap well, but ICE doesn't seem to stitch the photos properly. It only stitches a few photos at once.

Re: What are the different types of Camera Motion?

mattu — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 06:55:24 GMT

Rotating motion is by far the most common case. This was the correct selection for the way that you shot your images.

Rotating Motion: used for when you stand in a single position and rotate your camera about a fixed point. This is how you should shoot most panoramic scenes.

The other motions are for less common stitching tasks.

Planar Motion 1: compute the best overlap between the images, but don't peform any skewing or perspective distortion. This is useful for doing multiple overlapping flat-bed scans of a large document. This can also be useful if you want to achieve a panography effect (although note that ICE doesn't have all of the blend modes that you might use for a panography.

Planar Motion 2: allow for skew between the images. Probably the least useful, but can be used if planar motion 3 gives poor results.

Planar Motion 3: allow for full perspective distortion between the images. This is useful for stitching images of a large flat surface, for example a white-board. As long as the object being photographed is flat you don't need to rotate about a fixed point like most panoramic shots and can move to capture different shots of the flat scene.

Automatic: this is the default. In this mode ICE will automatically choose based on the input set. Note that some set of photographs, especially those taken through a long tele-photo lens, can show up as planar motion 2/3 instead of rotating motion. This is one case where you may need to manually indicate the camera motion.

Also, note that the orientation adjustment view is currently only enabled for 'rotating motion'.

What are the different types of Camera Motion?

Morty40 — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:08:47 GMT

Hi, I used ICE to stitch together a group of photos I took of the side of a pier from a quay that was parallel to it. I used a tripod, with the camera set in portrait orientation and rotated the camera taking several overlapping images. The results in ICE were excellent; I used the Rotating Motion setting because I guessed this was the most appropriate. However I experimented with the other camera motion settings and could not see much difference.

Under what circumstances would I use Planar 1, 2, or 3?

And what does Automatic do - does it somehow pick the most appropriate of the other settings or is it a different setting again.

The easiest stitching tool I have ever used!

Thanks.