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creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular image)

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 8:34 am
by cotty
INTRODUCTION

Here is my little tutorial for the creation of a rendered spherical panorama.
These sperical panoramas can be used as environment map for example.
The resulting equirectangular picture has an aspect ratio of 2:1 (e.g. 4000x2000 px).

Normally, I use the described technique with digital photos (taken with fisheye lens) to create sperical panoramas for 360cities.net (which goes to the image layer of google earth).
Some more of my pictures (DevalVR-Plugin required, no mac version, sorry) can be found here: kupano.de


PROGRAMS

Here is a short list of the used programs:
- Sketchup 8, Indigo 3
- Sketchup plugin: CubicPanoOut by John Wehby (http://www.smustard.com/script/CubicPanoOut)
- pano2qtvr (short for panorama2quicktimevirtualreality ;-) http://gardengnomesoftware.com/pano2qtvr.php)
- DevalVR player (http://www.devalvr.com)


INSTRUCTIONS

1.
- create a sketchup model of the environment (see example model in zip)
- move the viewpoint to the later center of the sperical panorama
- turn on shadows (!, for CubicPano out needed)

2.
- Camera --> CubicPano Out (plugin)
- resolution: 835 pixel (e.g.)
- create cube pages: true (for creation of scenes)
- top image correction: true
- OK
- Select filename for images (quadratic cube surfaces)

3.
- SkIndigo render settings
a output: 835 x 835 px (important: quadratic)
b tonemapping: linear or camera (no Reinhard!)
c camera: no vignetting (!, new Indigo and Skindigo needed)
d render scene and save image as filename_0..5.ext (!, jpeg or tiff)
- change to next scene and repeat a-d

4. Pano2QTVR
- Create new project
- project tab: select project type as cubic
- Cube face base name: select first images (3.) with dialog (three dots at the end)
(- the original SU-images saved with the plugin CubicPano Out can be used too)
- Convert to Equirectangular
- select filename for image

5. DevalVR player
- View the created equirectangular picture with any VirtualReality-viewer (e.g. DevalVR player, freeware)

6. Publish some created panoramas here, ask questions or diskuss further possibilities ;-) ...

I hope, someone will try to follow my instructions and show some results here...
Cotty

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 10:28 am
by CTZn
Great Cotty, thanks a lot !

Does Pano2QTVR support hdri via EXR ?

One could save untonemapped exr out of Indigo and still stich them ?

It would be much better to have a high dynamic range environment.

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Sun Jul 03, 2011 7:47 pm
by cotty
CTZn wrote:Does Pano2QTVR support hdri via EXR ?

One could save untonemapped exr out of Indigo and still stich them ?
Pano2qtvr supports only jpg and tiff and there is no HDRI.
I tried to stitch the images with hugin (which supports HDR) but the first rusult looks... :(
One possibility perhaps is to save three different exposured images (-2 EV 0 +2EV) in indigo for each scene and create a blended HDRI out of the three equirectangular images afterwards? I haven't tried yet...

Cotty

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Mon Jul 04, 2011 9:04 am
by marcbartels
To convert cubical HDR envmaps to other projections, youd can use good old HDR Shop (http://gl.ict.usc.edu/HDRShop/).
It can't deal with EXR files so you have to convert to HDR before.

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 9:31 am
by cotty
cotty wrote:To convert cubical HDR envmaps to other projections, youd can use good old HDR Shop
Thank you for the link!

I have tried HDRshop (after converted the saved cube faces from exr to hdr with picturenaut) but the desired transformation from 6 separated images to one Latitude/Longitude image didn't work for me. Did you try this way too?
With another program (cube2cross) and the right filenames it works, but the direct way would be much easier...
I will add some detailed instructions in the near future after some more tests.

Cotty

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Tue Jul 05, 2011 8:47 pm
by marcbartels
I think I stiched the six EXRs to one vertical cross in Photoshop, exported as HDR and converted in HDR Shop.

Marc

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 9:33 pm
by tarikb
Is there a way to save HDR from sites like this one? Thnx a lot.. :)

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:40 pm
by cotty
cotty wrote:I will add some detailed instructions in the near future after some more tests.
Cotty
:?
Time for an update.. in the near future
tarikb wrote:Is there a way to save HDR from sites like this one? Thnx a lot.. :)
Which one do you mean by "this one"?

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Wed Apr 03, 2013 10:53 pm
by Zom-B
tarikb wrote:Is there a way to save HDR from sites like this one? Thnx a lot.. :)
Indigo now supports a spherical 360° camera (simply change in Indigo GUI if exporter doesn't support it).
So stitching seems quite outdated...

If you have full Indigo license, simply save as 32bit EXR.
If not save multiple 360° PNGs with different exposure and create a HDRI out of that :)

Re: creating rendered spherical panorama (equirectangular im

Posted: Thu Apr 04, 2013 5:58 am
by tarikb