101 Course in New Photo Realistic Field Generation

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PeterJPayne

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Has anyone put together a step by step tutorial on how to produce a quality photo Realistic field in RF7? I am new to this process. The three paragraphs in the manual leave a lot of questions to be answered; What is the best focal length to use on a digital camera? What readily available program is suitable for the stitching process? How do you achieve the 2X1 ratio or 360 deg. X 180 deg. image on a camera format that is base on thirds, 4 X 6?

Thanks for you help.
 
There is so much information on the topic, that it is beyond the scope of this forum.
Your search keyword for Google and Youtube is "equirectangular panorama"

There you will find videos, and hundreds of sample panoramas that you can import into realflight.

Don't worry too much about focal length, or anything too technical, I've seen some decent quality sim panoramas done with an iphone.
Your goal is to understand the process first, then you can worry about the technicals.

Good Luck.
 
Thanks to 12oclockhigh and phrank for pointing me in the right direction. I was not using the correct search request.

Thanks again,

Pete
 
Have you searched the Real Flight 6 designers forum? I remember that there was a lot of discussion on creating these panoramas for RF.

Ive been told that it is both easy and hard. If you do figure it out - how about posting your own DIY Guide to Building Photo Realistic Field if Real Flight for the rest of us?
 
Has anyone used one of the many Apps for 360 photos for the iPhone? I was under the impression that bigger and more expensive was the only way to go, however, the iPhone with the right App seems to do everthing in seconds that my big SLR takes hours to complete. Sizing the competed image to 2 X 1 may be an issue. The iPhone with the propper application may be the key to everyone being able to produce their own photo realistic air fields.

Thanks for your help.

Pete
 
yes
another user Jeffpn sent me a pano done with his phone ..I stitched it together and was really impressed how well it did the job ..I was asked not to post it and will respect that

if its for your own personal use it'll do ..not sure how many Mega pixels his phone was or yours
Imo 8MP is the minimum for expectable detail for something that you would post to the swap page ...I don't have an iphone so I don't know ...the only other problem I can possibly forsee is that many times using automatic exposure settings can be a problematic in some situations ...bottom line is yes you can use an iphone ...but even if I owned one I'd still always use my Camera
 
The iPhone apps I am talking about will do a 360 and stitch the photos in seconds. One of my friends at the air field pulled out his iPhone and produced a nice 360 and emailed it to me in less than 2 minutes. I later tried to import the image, however, the ratio was not right so the image did not work. The image sharpness and clarity surprised me, there were no preceptable stitch lines. I think that if I turn the iPhone in the portrait position and use the horizon as the top border on the field shot and the horizon as the bottom border on the sky shot I may be able to capture the 360 deg and the 180 deg to complete the image. The iPhone 5 has a better lens and higher memory which may get the job done, if I can contol the 2 X 1 ratio.

Thanks for your help

Pete
 
I downloaded a app on my iphone called 360 Panp Camera, by Go2Share, I think it cost $2.00.
This program has 2 pano settings, I chose the one that pans up and down and side to side. The stitching is completed in a couple of minutes. This produced a 180 deg x 90 deg file that I was able to import directly in to RF-7. The resulting image is not as sharp as what we are accustomed to, however, I was able to try flying my light weight 3D biplane in my front yard, something I always wanted to try.

The iphone 4s and up can produce a pretty good image at about 35 mm. These images could be stitched together to make a working image. I tried to use the panoramic mode built in to the camera an got good sharp photos however when I tried to stitch these panos on different horizons the stitching software could not handle it. I think that the iphone can be a qick way to generate fields, however someone will have to build an app specifically for this function.

Pete
 
What is there to build? Apps already exist for stitching. The largest pano you can import in RealFlight is 10,000 x 5,000 pixels or 50mpxl image. Your image ratio needs to be 2wide x 1high. I really don't think the a iphone is strong enough to process an image as large as this. Wrong tool for the job.

Everything exists... ,maybe not for your iPhone, to do this kind of work. Can you even open a 50mpxl image (on the iPhone)?

I think that just about any modern digital camera is capable of taking the image if you have a system of pointing and shooting and keeping the nodal point steady between shots. Hand held panoramas are not going to work and tripod panoramas are only slightly better.
 
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You are of course right. I am looking for an faster easier way to get the custom image imported into the simulator. The iphone app that I mentioned in the previous post was designed to generate a nice looking panoramic image that exceeds what is a currently installed feature of the iphone. However, if the parameters were changed to meet the needs of RealFlight, it would be a handy way to generate photo realistic fields, fast and on the cheap. I found that the lack of resolution was not as distracting as I though it would be. You are concentrating on the plane so the lack of sharpness mimics your peripheral vision or the vision of an old geezer, which I resemble.

I am waiting for the weather to clear so that I can get back to the field and try to build a quality image using my more capable professional Canon cameras and the good information that you and others have provided since I started this project.

Thanks again for your good work.

Pete
 
Peter...Did you say Canon :D ....your in luck..... read on .............

Its not that hard or complicated (even hand held 12)
I Have done one 90x360 and several ?x180 panos hand held that are almost flawless.with out any touch up ....and perfect after a little manipulation with my Canon G9
I've posted several at RF retreat

I have done several panos hand held successfully and then there were some that I had given up on .... after trying 2 different versions of Photo shops stitching
and a Pgui trial ( or what ever its called) and they did not turn out very good

I wrote them off due to the fact they were done hand held ...I was wrong , enter Canon

After getting a new PC I was installing software and ran across a disc that came with my Canon G9 (Great little camera !) that I thought only had a photo editor on it and as I have PS and Gimp I didn't pay it much attention and never got around to installing
It was only then that I realized what was really on it .....a RAW file editor, a conventional photo editor and ........... stitching software ! (teach me not to read the manual :rolleyes: )

So after installing it I grabbed a set of one of those panos that in the past did not work very well and that I had gave up on
Canons software produced a nearly perfect alignment on the first try automatically and after using its built in alignment fine tuning tool
it simply amazed me

I have since been told (by a knowledgeable source, I'm still trying to find documentation of that from canon ) that it reads the metadata and histogram information generated only when the camera is in stich assist mode to aid itself in the stitching process and it works remarkably well ......even on hand held panos
it wont work miracles , but I'm very impressed.... it has rescued 6 out of 6 that I previously thought were useless (not bad ..with a few more on deck)

Any 180x360 done on a level tripod and swung (actually a pivot)even close to the nodal point AND in stich assist mode .....should be a piece of cake for any Canon using the proprietary software...... that or I'm a lot better than I thought at doing hand held panos.....but I'm sure its the former ... rather than the latter


I suggest you look for the program that came with your Canon if its a pro level Canon I'm sure you already have it ...try it ...I'm pretty confident it will surprise you how well it works if you used the stitch assist while shooting .....what Canon model do you own ?
 
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12oclockhigh said:
Hand held panoramas are not going to work .
Click to expand...
I would have agreed with that statement a few months ago .... .but now I'm not so sure that's true
Yes a 180 x 360 would be a little more of challenge hand held than in my following examples, and admittedly have not tried one yet
but from what I'm seeing using my canon camera/ software combo it certainly seems feasible...but if I were to make a serious attempt at a photo field you can bet your butt I'd still be using a tripod

but as they say ....proof is in the pudding......

here's one ..... handheld 180 Canon G9 and Canon stitch assist w/ canon stitching software .....cropped (height) and then reduced for posting here

12oclockhigh said:
and tripod panoramas are only slightly better.
Click to expand...
only slightly better ?....why would you say that ???

12oclockhigh said:
I think that just about any modern digital camera is capable of taking the image if you have a system of pointing and shooting and keeping the nodal point steady between shots. .
Click to expand...



I agree but think about it 12 ..given the relatively thin thickness of an Iphone its almost impossible not to pivot it on its nodal point !.....as long as you pivot ..not swing the phone
 

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Canon software Automatic stitch.... un touched ..no help from me ... what you see is what I got
there are a few exposure inconsistences in this one (easily fixable)
leading me to believe that it may have not even been done using the in camera assist ...but I definitely remember it being done hand held ...its not as hard as many make it out to be ..at least not using a Canon .(the only 35mm Cameras I used as a pro.. F-1 , A-1 , AE-1 )

note that even the hardest part to align in a panoramic image
those near camera objects .......are aligned beautifully....kudos Canon !

original is 370+ degrees... but this one cropped (height and length) and then further reduced for posting here
 

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Even with an iPhone App ( Yes I've tried 360 Pano for the iPhone and others ) with a newer ( better camera ) iPhone you STILL need a PANO head, bubble level and tripod to do this.

If you don't have both, the result will be a tilted panorama with the wrong aspect.

There are a lot of such airports on the swap pages.

If you run the plane on the ground towards the horizon, you quickly see that the 3D parallax does not correspond to the photographic parallax at ALL.

So the plane seems either further or closer than it is via the 3D rendering and size, or the terrain can not be set to line up with the virtual horizon plane.

The iPhone App is slick though. It assembles pictures as it snaps them, into a 360 degree globe, filling in the missing photos automatically as you move the phone through the virtual "globe".

Unfortunately the results are not good enough for Realflight.
 
Its been a long time but I recall RF had a "room" for the lack of a better term
with grids for walls
where you can tilt ,raise and lower the horizon of a panorama to make small corrections for problems like the ones you're talking about
 
Thanks for the Canon information. I have the Canon G1X, which is the latest version of the G9 you mentioned. I tried the canon stitching program that you mentioned and had problems, but I may not have been doing it right. I put my camera in the panoramic mode, mounted it on a tripod and carefully overlapped my photos. At the time, I did not know about the nodal point, so I had those problems. I have since learned how to use a string and weight to rotate around the nodal point. When I loaded the images in to the PhotoStitch program, I got fair results on the horizontal shots. I tried to take a second series of horizontal shots and stitch them to the lower horizon and got nothing. I have several high end Canon cameras and remembered a very small compact Canon SD4000 IS, I purchased for my wife, that has the panoramic feature, but has a wider lens which may be the ticket. This camers takes high resolution shots with image stabelization, but is so small that the nodal point should be insignificant. When the weather clears, hopefully Saturday, I will take several cameras to the field and see what I can get. I would like to know what settings you used in PhotoStitch to produce your images. The one thing that that PhotoStitch lacks is the ability to size the finished photo to the 2 to 1 ratio. How did you control the ratio issue?

Thanks for your help.

Pete
 
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