Hi,
I have some ideas which I would like to present and get feedback of you
for a project. It basically includes the "Zooming for Fast Preview" and
other improvements to "Fast Preview"
My ideas are mostly concerned for users that are just beginning with
hugin, and users with not much knowledge of map projections and panorama
creation.
* one goal is to attract more users by giving a fancy and more
user-friendly interface to the preview.
* another is to give some features, that might be useful to most of
you as well
Basically currently the fast preview is a openGL version of the old
preview with some features and some drawbacks (the texture quality), and
I believe that OpenGL can provide much more user-friendliness to the
preview.
Here are the problems to the preview that I thing currently are the
biggest problem for beginners:
- it's completely unintuitive that in the move/drag section, users
actually rotate the panorama. The problem of this is that the 3D
rotation space commands are represented in a 2D plane, with the vertical
axis for two dimensions.
- when there are several groups of images, users can handle these
independently, however this is also unintuitive, since for a user to
handle a specific group he must click/drag the group, and this combined
with the previous problem is a pain.
- currently with this preview to get a larger overview of the
panorama, you must change the field of view or the projection mode.
- people with no knowledge of the types of projections, are only
left to experiment with the projections and look at the result without
actually having a good visualization of the distortions that are occurring
Also something I didn't like is that in many cases I couldn't spot areas
where there was no image data, because the background was black and
blended with parts of the image.
What I propose is the following:
First the current mode of preview will remain as it is (with some
improvements) and will be called a '2D Projection' mode where the user
would just use to modify the final result.
Apart from this mode I also propose two additional modes (3D panosphere,
and combination of 3D panosphere and 2D projection):
First, some features that would be included in both 'Projection' and
'Panosphere' mode:
- the user could zoom in/out and image resolutions would be
dynamically increased for more detail. (the idea on the wiki)
- better manipulation of image groups where user could select a
group or the whole panorama and adjust accordingly
- adjustable and very distinctive background for both modes, to spot
the areas without image data
- a interleaving colorful grid will be displayed to examine distortion
1. A '3D Panosphere' mode.
- I read the 'Next GUI' discussion, and I noticed there were some
thoughts on this already.
In this mode the user would basically look into a 3D sphere mapped
with the images, with option to look at the sphere either from inside or
outside.
The purpose of the sphere mode is that it is the basic representation of
what the panorama actually is, and I believe it is the most intuitive
representation.
The benefits of this mode:
- primarily to distinguish between looking at the output and looking
at an overview of the panorama.
- the most intuitive and most exact preview of the panorama (in
terms of distortions)
- in here the 3D rotation adjustments would actually make sense and
would be intuitive.
- the layout submode in this mode would also make a lot more sense
- a very intuitive and eye-candy preview for new users
Some of the features that would be included in panosphere mode:
- a look at the panosphere either from outside or inside (all
features available in both modes)
* from the inside, the viewpoint would be fixed to the center
of the sphere and adjustable would be rotation of the camera and field
of view (zoom in/out)
* from the outside, the viewpoint would move around a larger
virtual sphere, and would be faced always to the center of the sphere
(also adjustable FOV)
- the camera adjustment would be done with the mouse or
keyboard (for mouse drag to rotate, mouse wheel to zoom in/out)
- a layout mode (same as it is currently) with small images and
their connections
- a set of 3 interactive circles drawn around the sphere, which
could be dragged with the mouse to rotate the whole panorama or a group
of images (as it is done in 3dsmax) (also shown in [1])
- a possibility to choose a central point of projection on the sphere
2. Combination of 3D panosphere and 2D projection:
This mode is mostly for people to test the projections and understand
them easily, or to work with the panosphere and see the results directly
on the projection
- it will contain both the panosphere and the projection, which can
be either:
* the panosphere and the projection in separate windows
* the panosphere and the projection in one window (one opengl
scene)
- both the panosphere and the projection will have an interleaving
colorful grid which will correspond to each other (basically the grid of
the sphere would be projected as well)
* the purpose of this would be to have an overview of the
distortions on the projections and to easily understand all projections
- ofcourse by rotating the panosphere the projection changes as well.
about the two submodes:
1. panosphere and projection in separate windows (or in same window
but in different canvases)
* this is more useful, and I believe will be useful to
everybody, even experienced people.
2. panosphere and projection in same window
* this might be used to animate the projections, which would be
awesome and very attractive, however not very useful
* I have done a simple scene with a basic projection in opengl [1]
* just a note: in that scene, the sphere's grid doesn't
have interpolated color as the projection
So that's pretty much my idea. It might be too much or not enough for a
gsoc project. Next, I would have to look more into the code of the
previewer, and make a decent estimation of the time needed. In any case
I would really like to see all of that included in the previewer.
I am really eager to see the responses for this, and whether you would
like to see this in Hugin.
Best regards,
Darko
[1] http://i.imgur.com/tHMbm.png
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