Panorama Tools

Panorama Tools, also known as PanoTools, are a free suite of programs and libraries originally written by the German physics and mathematics professor Helmut Dersch. Panorama Tools provides a powerful framework for re-projecting and blending multiple source images into immersive panoramics of many types. An updated version of the Panorama Tools library serves as the underlying core engine for many software panorama GUI front-ends.

Dersch started development on Panorama Tools in 1998, producing some of the most professional and versatile software available for building panoramas and more, but had to stop development in 2001 due to legal harassment and claims of patent infringement by the company IPIX,. In 2003 he released some modifications to the Java-based online panorama viewer PTViewer. One involved a standalone .exe version and another version could display HDR (high dynamic range) panoramas.

Dersch continues to update the site and software with the most recent release being PTViewerME, a panorama viewer for PDAs and mobile devices. Due to the patent infringement claims, the site has no links to his older work on Panorama Tools, but some list members managed to make a copy of his old home page before it shut down.

After Dersch stopped developing Panorama Tools, the members of his mailing-list took over development, and began enhancing the software suite on their own. They started a Sourceforge page which is maintained by a group of volunteers and have fixed some bugs and developed additional functionality.

Sub-components

PanoTools consists of the following components:

PTEditor

Java interactive panorama editor.

PTPicker

Java front end to panorama stitcher and other tools. It provides a graphical interface for feature point selection and position optimization.

PTCrypt

Java tool for scrambling pictures intended to be viewed on-line with PTViewer.

PTStitcher: Panorama stitching tool which remaps, adjusts and combines arbitrary images to panoramic views.

PTOptimizer

Optimizes positions and sizes of images using control-point data.

PTStereo

Creates 3-dimensional objects from 2 stereoscopic or more images.

PTInterpolate

Physically valid true view interpolator. Given two images of the same scene taken from different positions, this tool creates views from any intermediate position.

PTMorpher

Morphing tool.

PTAverage

Averages images to reduce noise and enhance density.

PTStripe

Combines images into movie-stripes for viewing in object-viewers (PTMovie extension to PTViewer).

PanoTools Plugins

Photoshop, GraphicConverter and Gimp plug-ins for image correction and remapping. Also compatible to many other programs that can use Photoshop plug-ins.

pano12 library

The underlying panorama library, currently used by several different panorama front-ends and command line programs.

To make working with Panorama Tools easier and to add functionality, many interactive, graphical front-ends to Panorama Tools have been developed, both free and commercial, along with a variety of other companion applications, which in many cases make interacting directly with the programs in the original Panorama Tools toolset unnecessary.

See also

• hugin - free, open source, multi platform GUI frontend
• PTgui - commercial, Windows and Mac OSX GUI frontend
• PTMac - commercial, Mac OSX GUI frontend
• PTAssembler - commercial, Windows GUI frontend
• Pano2QTVR - transform panoramas into QuickTime VR movies

Further reading

The software PanoTools is mentioned and covered in several books, e.g.

• Jacobs, Corinna - Interactive Panoramas: Techniques for Digital Panoramic Photography ISBN 3-540-21140-3
• Andrews, Philip - 360 Degree Imaging: The Photographers Panoramic Virtual Reality Manual ISBN 2-880-46732-2
• Gulbins, Jürgen & Steinmüller, Uwe - Art of RAW Conversion: How to Produce Art-Quality Photos with Adobe Photoshop CS2 and Leading RAW Converters ISBN 1-593-27067-4