Stitching and Uploading Panoramas

GigaPan Stitch Software automatically takes all your photos and combines them into one big panorama. Once that?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s done, you can upload it to GigaPan.com, our community site, for everyone to see. You?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll need an Intel based Mac or PC with at least 1 GB of RAM (more is better) to stitch photos. The more powerful your computer, the less time required to stitch panoramas. To upload to the GigaPan.com site, your panorama must be at least 50 megapixels (or an average of 35 or more pictures have been stitched together in a single panorama).

4.1 Using GigaPan Stitch Software

1. Start the GigaPan Stitch Software?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùyou?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll find it under Start > Programs > GigaPan Stitch Software in Windows, or under Applications on the Mac. To allow the GigaPan Stitch Software work faster, quit all other programs.
2. Click on Add Images. The pictures must be in JPG format.
3. Select the photographs you took for the panorama from the folder where you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve saved them on your computer. Hold down [Shift] to select many images at a time. It?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s all right if you don?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t remember the file names?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùjust select the ones you think apply. You can remove the duplicate or extraneous ones or add more photos later.
4. The photos will appear scrambled initially. Change the Number of Rows so they line up properly.
   
5. If you want to remove a photo, click on it and choose Remove Images. To select multiple photos, click and drag the mouse over them.
   Note: GigaPan Stitch Software won?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t work unless each column has an equal number of photos.
   
   
6. When you're ready, click Done.
7. Save your panorama.
   Huge panoramas can take up a lot of space on your drive?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùthey can each take up 100 MB or more?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùso be sure to have plenty of free space.
8. Take a break!
   
   GigPan Stitch software needs all your computer?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s power to align and blend your photographs. Allow time for this process.
9. Once your panorama is stitched, you can explore it by clicking on it and dragging it. To zoom in, use your mouse?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s scroll wheel. If your mouse doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t have a scroll wheel, hold down the right button and drag the mouse to zoom in and out.
10. To save this panorama as an image, select File > Export stitched image to > TIFF or Adobe RAW?¢‚Ǩ¬¶
11. If your panorama is larger than 50 megapixels, you can upload it to GigaPan.com where you can share, explore and take snapshots.

Additional GigaPan Stitch Options

To access these additional stitching options click on the ?¢‚ǨÀúOptions?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ button on the left side of the stitching software.

Image shooting order
Your options are columns - right, columns - left, rows - down, or rows - up.
The EPIC and stitching software default is columns - right; remember to change it in the stitching software if you change your shooting order in the EPIC.

Combine images in draft mode
Draft mode causes seams between images to be visible, but speeds up stitching some.
This option removes the blending step of the process, which speeds up stitching and could be useful for quickly checking what your image will look like. This option is typically not necessary.

Build panorama at 50% scale
Using 50% mode will cause a loss of detail, but speeds up stitching and results in a gigapan with 1/4 as many pixels as normal. This could be useful for larger images that you may be printing instead of zooming into, so the extra detail isn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t necessary; or when you know that your input images are a little blurry; or if you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢d like to save upload time. Keep the 50 megapixel minimum limit on uploads in mind, however. For example: if normal stitching would have yielded a 160 megapixel panorama, the ?¢‚ǨÀú50% scale?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ option would generate a 40 megapixel panorama, which would be too small to upload.

Use larger blending region
A larger blending region is useful if transitions between images appear too hard-edged and abrupt.

Mercator projection instead of spherical/equirectangular
The mercator projection doesn?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢t squash objects above or below the horizon, but cannot be used in Google Earth.

4.2 Share your panoramas online

To share your panoramas with the GigaPan community, please join www.GigaPan.com and then upload.

1. Join GigaPan.com

1. Visit www.gigapan.com in your browser.
   
2. Click on Create a free account.
3. Fill out the form, read the Terms of Service, and click on Create Profile to get registered.
   You can now upload your own panoramas and take snapshots, comment on other images, and share your experience on the forum!

2. Uploading to GigaPan.com

Once your panorama has been stitched and you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢re happy with it, you can upload it to GigaPan.com.

1. Give your panorama a name and a description. The more detail you provide, the more easily it will be found in searches.
2. Give it a few tags?¢‚Ǩ‚Äùwords that describe what you?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ve photographed. For example:
   
   Halloween, backyard, winter, and so on. You can use as many tags as you want; separate them with a comma.
3. If you want only a select few to see your panorama, check the box against Private. This way, only people you give the panorama?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s URL to can view it.
4. Enter your GigaPan.com user name and password, and click on Upload now.
5. Once you have uploaded your panorama, it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢ll give you a URL to view it online. People can now view your panorama, zoom in and out, take snapshots of parts that they like and things they find. They can also leave comments for you. If you checked Private before uploading, this is the URL you send to the people you want to share the panorama with.
   

3. Upload using third-party software