Inspired by this conversation on Mastodon
YouTube hosts 360 videos. Here's one of mine, wandering through the Houses of Parliament. You can drag the video to see all around.
If you let YouTube-DL download the "best" version, you'll end up with a video which looks like this:
Each lens' view has been horizontally stretched, and then stitched into an over/under view. This is in Google's Equi-angular Cubemap format. Grim!
There are two options available to you to get the equirectangular version needed to playback easily on Linux
Running youtube-dl -F https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=... will show you all the formats available.
136 mp4 1280x720 720s 2325k , avc1.4d401f, 30fps, video only, 24.94MiB
248 webm 1920x960 1080s 2375k , vp9, 30fps, video only, 25.53MiB
137 mp4 1920x960 1080s 4127k , avc1.640028, 30fps, video only, 41.92MiB
18 mp4 640x360 360s 705k , avc1.42001E, 30fps, mp4a.40.2@ 96k (44100Hz), 7.63MiB
22 mp4 1280x720 720s 2514k , avc1.64001F, 30fps, mp4a.40.2@192k (44100Hz) (best)
I found that -f 22 worked. And there's a way to test that!
If you run ffmpeg -hide_banner -i filename.mp4 then you should see this in the metadata:
Side data:
stereo3d: 2D
spherical: equirectangular (0.000000/0.000000/0.000000)
That's the magic which tells a video player that this is a spherical / 360 video.
If you play back the video in, say, the default Linux video player, it will look like this:
It's a weird view out of both lenses simultaneously. Yeuch!
But if you play it using VLC version 3 or above, you'll be able to drag the video around.
There is a downside. This only gets the 720p version. If we want the full resolution version, we need a bit more trickery.
There's a bug in YouTube which means YouTube-DL sometimes gets served up slightly weird formats. The fix is to pass a blank user agent:
youtube-dl --user-agent "" ...
Now, when you download the video, you'll get the full resolution copy in equirectangular format. HORRAY! But without the correct metadata. BOO!
This is because ffmpeg strips out Side data. *sigh*
So, run this:
youtube-dl --user-agent "" -k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=...
That tells YouTube-DL to keep the original video and audio separate. They need to be merged with the standard compliance mode to unofficial .
ffmpeg -i video.mp4 -i audio.m4a -c:v copy -strict unofficial spherical.mp4
Phew! Easy when you know how, eh?
I collect my experiences with panorama photos here.
https://360x180pano.blogspot.com/2022/06/smartblend-still-works-with-2021-hugin.html
https://360x180pano.blogspot.com/2022/06/smartblend-still-works-with-2021-hugin.html
I have just completed a series of hand-held panorama photos during my trip to Kelambu Beach, Sabah, Malaysia, and uploaded results and pictures to Google Maps and Photos.
My older works are still preserved in Google Maps done with older versions of Hugin.
The camera used was Sony A5100 mirrorless. The cheapest and lightest of the NEX class cameras but no longer updated. It still has a 24 Mp sensor butsufficient for Google Maps because it only accepts 16000x8000 panorama photos.
It has bracketed exposes. I tried +-3 EV hand held. The ghosting appears because alignment with the same stack is poor. There are errors after optimising these stacks using hugin allign stack feature.
The HDR menu in the sticker does not work, sometimes. However, the user output works all the time. I even managed to stitch single photos but its quality is not as good as raw picture processing usinng Sony's raw software Imaging Edge Desktop's D-range optimizer at 100% manual setting. Sometimes it creates more noise but HDR stiching using hand-held bracketed stacks.
Hugin was able to create the stack numbers automatically if the EV exposure bracketing setting is input into the EXIF of the picture. I used the stock lens 16mm-50mm F3.5 when the sun is bright. For the sunrise and sunet photos, I used the manual Samyang 12mm F2 lens. Then I need to assign the stack number manually.
Smartblend is better than the latest builtin blending software used by Hugin. It still leves dark areas at the stiching areas but it appears sharper than previous Enblend stiching and appear faster as well.Feels as fast as Smartblend.
Using Smartblend is actually easy but do not use the User outputand make sure the output files are not cropped. It is in the Nona setting. Just input the Smartblend executable file as the alternate Enblend in Program settings. However, I still prefer to run the Smartblend using the Enblend GUI.
Enblend GUI has the best user interface ever. It shows the progress in % and time left. Once the project is completed, the total time is shown. You can save the project setting of the input and output files. The only weakness is the inability to delete the input files from the GUI.
https://goo.gl/maps/bZ5LwtQHpQTXQ5BaA
I identify them by the lack of dicontinuities at the horizon because I have learned to zoom in as closely as my computer processing allows and manually move a set of vertically linked pictures together, i.e. the centre, slightly up, and slightly down. The top picture with an estimated pitch of 90 degree is usually difficult to link so are set manually. The bottom picture with pitch of 90 degree, is taken to remove my legs so are not as aligned as the other pictures, so should cause more parallax error. No need to edit out my feet, I just mask them out. Even mys shadows disappear using builtin blending but reappeared using Smartblend. Multiple pictures of moving people or shadows will be cancelled by Enblend-type blender but not Smartblend. Smartblend has the ability to choose the best picture which contributes to its sharpness.
Take a look at Kelambu Beach and Max Campsite for pictures and panoramas. It is the best beach in the world, but the poorest in the world, despite its immense resources, the largest producers of oil palm, timber and petroleum in Malaysia. If only Malaysia had diverted the huge subsidies to the poor through direct cash handouts, poverty will be removed from Malaysia entirely instantly.
Smartblend is still faster and better than the builtin blending tools in Hugin 2021 version.
I thought it no longer works, but actually I forgot the procedure the run Smartblend usinng Enblend GUI, still the old version. Do not crop the remapped pictures during nona stitching. By default it should be uncropped.
https://blog.hdrihaven.com/how-to-create-high-quality-hdri/
If you don’t use the script above, also be sure to enable True HDR mode to be able to output to HDR formats (my script does this automatically):
Finally, double check all the output settings are correct (100% optimal resolution, HDR only, no LDR) and hit that Create Panorama button 🙂
Congratulations, you’ve created an HDRI!
You can view this HDRI in a few different ways, my favorite being with LizardQ Viewer, or just Photoshop/Gimp/Affinity/Krita/Blender.
You now know everything you need to create a basic HDRI, but if you really want to create a quality HDRI that could be published on HDRI Haven, there is still more to learn.
Unfortunately Google Street only take panoramic pictures of streets,
not inside compounds and buildings. That is where amateurs and
professionals can contribute, until Google start providing pano
pictures tourist attractions all over the world, but I doubt it will
be able to meet the requirements of most people, just as photographs
of sites had not stopped tourists bringing in their own cameras of all
types.
360cities.net was launched in 2007 as shown by this post.
http://ivrpa.org/forum/public/1350
By 2010, its photographer has published on the net the largest
panoramic picture on Earth. Who says higher Megapixel cameras are not
required?
http://www.360cities.net/prague-18-gigapixels
High resolution cameras are not useful if you just want to print 3R
photos or watch on you PC or TV. Even Full HD TV and monitor can show
a 2Mpixel quality only. They are most useful for panoramic pictures.
There are many sites for published 360 degree panoramic pictures but
only 360cities.net are integrated with Google Earth. I though it was
Panoramio and actually published it there but it does not have a pano
viewer. In 2007 there are many more panoramio pictures in Google Earth
than 360cities pictures so I don't click 360cities that much, until I
started looking at Singapore streets for the intention of planning my
trip to Singapore, last week.
Without going to Singapore, I feel confident that I won't get lost in
Singapore. Mind you, I lived in Singapore for 3 years but that was
more than 20 years ago.
There are not many 360 degree panoramic pictures for Malaysia and
Singapore in 360 cites. For Malaysia I noticed that there are 2
prolific photographers but the number of pictures is only about 50. I
have uploaded more than 50 of my panoramic pictures in RC Flight Sim
resolution and full resolution but at the highest compression rate
because of problems uploading.
I have just started but it could be the best way of publishing
panoramas.
I have successfully uploaded 8192x4096 pictures which I use for RC
Flight Simulators but highly compressed to 30% or less so that the
image size is less than 2Mbyte. Successfully uploaded but not yet
published. They have to view the picture to establish its copyright,
which is fair enough.
I tried to upload my pano stiched from 10Mpixel photos resulting in
more than 17,000 horizontal resolution but failed so far using my
512Kb/s connection.
360cities is capable of up to:
TIFF can be up to 65,536 x 32,768.
The maximum JPEG size is 30000 x 15000.
Uploading should be the problem. Viewing should not be much of a
problem because you view only portions at a time and streaming is also
done. That should explain why I was able to view many excellent
panoramas in 360cities.
Another way to view panoramas is through google "street view" but
these are just views from the street of famous cities. Unfortunately
my city, Kota Kinabalu, is not so famous so we must resort to
360cities to show it to the world.
Even in famous places such as Makansutra and Esplanade of Singapore
still do not have panoramic pictures widely available. I shall visit
Singapore this end of January and try to take panoramic pictures of
various places that do not have panoramic pictures in Singapore.
This is a Tikiwiki v2.0 site.
Unregistered users can still send articles but will have to be
approved by me. Registered users can upload pictures of unlimited
sizes.
Don't use the image galleries for large pictures.
You should be able to use the ptviewer module by using the code:
{MODULE(module=ptviewer,pano_file=img/wiki_up/filename.jpg)}{/MODULE}
The code above to be inserted in articles and wiki, is not tested.
I'm busy showing the panoramic pictures that had already been
uploaded. In addition, I also show 6Mpixel pictures that are part of
the panoramic pictures before they are stiched.
You are encouraged to insert your own adsense adverts for any
contribution. The module is called newadsense.
For more information, please refer to tikiwiki documentations.
I should be preparing better documentations for tikiwiki as I go
along.
--
Sabah is heaven. Beautiful shark-free beaches and mountains next to
civilisation with no natural and man-made disasters except Malaysia.
My homepage:
http://othman.000webhost.info/
http://othmana.tripod.com/
. I initially subscribed it almost a year ago.One additional technique that I used, is the Philipod, a piece of
string attached to weights, instead of a tripod.
It worked well, but it was very tiring. The errors for distant objects
such as this beach is virtually negligible that autopano-sift was able
to join all the pictures together except pictures of the sky and the
ground. The ground where I took the pictures from, I just take it by
extending my hand, without the Philipod. This area is very minimal
because the Philipod is just a piece of string so I can take pictures
as close to the string as possible.
The sky and ground, I try to take at yaw and roll of zero degree, and
pitch of +90 and -90, and enter these values into hugin for its
preview. Don't optimize these two points as they are not well
calibrated. They are useful as fillers only.
The result is the missing tripod from my panoramic pictures.
enfuse software allows the adjustment of exposures as shown by this
KYC pano picture. Just make sure that you have lots of hard disk space
for the swap/temporary files,i.e.more than 12 Gbytes.
This could be the state of the art in panoramic equipment. It is
capable of taking panoramic photos in realtime and convert it into
realtime panoramic video.
It is used by google to give panoramic pictures of famous streets but
in the meantime only in USA that I can find out at the moment.
For more info on my attempts at learning about this technology, you
may refer to my blog at
360x180pano.blogspot.com
If you want a place to be captured in full 360 degrees view with high
professional quality panoramic photos, visit the above site.
You can even view panoramic photos there of interesting places in UK.
If you want to view panoramic pictures of Sabah with an amateur
quality, you can visit my homepage at othmana.tripod.com or panorama.
000webhost.info
The amount of work required to make it of such professional quality is
impressive. I'm not willing to spend so much time doing just that but
I'm interested in capturing the beauties that I capture in my everyday
living.
It is not a complete 360 degree but displayed as a 360x180 degree
panoramic picture format. There is no tripod used. I only used my hand
to take all these pictures. It shows that Panorama Tools can handle
these pictures as well.
Additional techniques that I find useful is to use the lens data from
previous pictures to quickly speed up the optimisation process.
I no longer need to do the lens view and distortion optimisation any
more.
I also notice that this is a very effective way of measuring lens
parameters.
It also shows that it is no longer important to have an extremely low
distortion lens because they can be corrected digitally.
I'm still using Hugin 1.7 beta 4 which is the latest and yesterday
accidently completed a pano within about 2 hours, enough time to post
it before Power Boat F2000 starts today.
When I reread my past blogs, I notice that earlier I had used
autopano-sift as a separate program, instead of the autopano that is
distributed with Hugin.
This morning, it is just too slow. After 3 hours I left for work and
my son restart the PC because he found it too slow. Just now, within a
few minutes autopano-sift 2.3 for windows completed its task which
hugin took hours. Of course the setting is different. 12 for autopano
sift and 20 control points for autopano default in Hugin.
Hopefully the latest development will make Hugin more userfriendly in
integrating all the advances in generating pano pictures so that more
people will take panoramic photos and share with people.
Panoramic photos are more informative than single photos. This is my
default photo taking but I shall take a few anchor photos or special
ones that I cannot take as many photos necessary to stitch a 360x180
panoramic picture.
For the latest pictures of the Powerboat F2000, please click to
http://sabahheaven.blogspot.com
