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Information / Online-Manual |
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The idea to PanoraGen.DV started in January 2003 when a first
version was freely downloadable as a plugin for the often-used video tool
VirtualDub. After some further improvements and a new version I decided to
create a single and full application which can provide some more
functionality. PanoraGen.DV was born. First of all the application screen is presented and then the different options are explained. |
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| Load /
Save buttons: This is the place where the video scene representing the pan movement is defined. All .avi video formats are supported, the concrete number is dependent from the installed codecs. After the processing steps a picture can be saved as a uncompressed .bmp file in order to preserve all the details. |
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| Linear
mode: Checking this button enables the linear mode which was already used in the VirtualDub plugin. When processing, the frames are considered in the given order. Not many further options are needed and so the unnecessary buttons will disappear |
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| Correct
brightness: When recording using the automatic exposure mode, the video camera tries to set a good mean brightness characteristics for every frame to give good results. For the panorama this could mean that the brightness differs in different parts of the image, which is an unwanted phenomena. The option tries to compensate the automatic exposure mode. |
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| Interlaced
source: Normally the digital video files taken from a camcorder are represented in interlace mode. This causes noise and artifacts in the panorama image, and checking the option can solve the problem. Only one field is used then, what means that the video image height is reduced by 1/2. Resizing may be necessary after the saving. |
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| Border
in video: Often the border areas of the video consist of black parts, noise or other unwanted signals. Define the border in pixels to remove this noise. A red rectangle shows the processed area. |
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| Nonlinear
mode: When the linear mode button is unchecked, the panorama picture is constructed in a different way. A rectangular area or a mosaic is taken and the video frames that are needed to calculate the image data are taken out of the video stream - if necessary in a nonlinear way. Some more options will appear in the dialog window. |
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| Processing
mode: One pixel in the panorama is calculated from several video frames. The way of combining the frames can be selected: remove motion: This option tries to remove motion objects in a scene, such as people passing by, cars or other fast moving objects. blending: This option can reduce the pixel noise effects in the resulting panorama to get a smoother image. get motion: Now only the motion parts are shown, what means that the static parts of the image remain black and pixels that show moving objects are set to a lighter color. |
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| Alternative analyzing: If the camera movement cannot be determined correctly, so that line artifacts appear in the resulting image, try to solve the problem using this option |
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| Frames
per pixel: Here the number of video frames that are used to calculate one single pixel in the resulting panorama is set. |
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| Rectangle: The size of the quadratic mosaic which is processed at one time is set. Larger size means faster process, smaller size means less memory usage |
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| Visualize
process: If set, the process when calculating the picture is visualized, but the calculation time increases. |
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| The
rotation button: When clicked, the final panorama is rotated by 90 degrees clockwise. |
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| History | ||
| January 2003: Initial version of the VirtualDub Panorama Generator plugin | ||
| July
2003: VirtualDub Panorama Generator V1.1 brightness correction mode added, blending functions to reduce noise |
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| May
2004: PanoraGen.DV V1.0 initial version of the standalone application |
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