Microsoft ICE - Image Composite Editor - FIXED!!

nilanjan118 · Mar 25, 2019

I am sure many are using this software to stitch their pano shots. So I need some help.
I have found that this software works for 360 degree panorama i.e. stitching 46 shots together.
However, I haven't been able to use it for a horizontal 9 shots panorama. The software simply fails to organise the images in correct order and align them.
Haven't tried with vertical pano or 180 degree pano yet but I would like to know if there is any particular setting for each kind of pano to get it to work.

pmshop · Mar 25, 2019

You can try the DJI Media Maker but the 3 selections are 180° pano, 360° and hyperlapse.
But the 360° is not recognized by FaceBook and the 180° failed to stitch properly.
But results may vary.

nilanjan118 · Mar 25, 2019

pmshop said:
You can try the DJI Media Maker but the 3 selections are 180° pano, 360° and hyperlapse.

Thank you for your suggestion. I was not looking for an alternate solution though. I tried Photoshop and it works for me. However I had seen so many people vouching for ICE that I felt that it was a complete solution for any kind of panorama taken with the Spark.

pmshop · Mar 25, 2019

nilanjan118 said:
Thank you for your suggestion. I was not looking for an alternate solution though. I tried Photoshop and it works for me. However I had seen so many people vouching for ICE that I felt that it was a complete solution for any kind of panorama taken with the Spark.

I see,

I have only heard them vouch for the 360° and 180°
Haven't heard anything on the 9 horizontal or the 3 vertical

nilanjan118 · Mar 25, 2019

pmshop said:
I have only heard them vouch for the 360° and 180°

Is it so? Time to uninstall ICE then.

pmshop · Mar 25, 2019

Only one way to find out, right?
Try a few more

nilanjan118 · Mar 25, 2019

pmshop said:
Only one way to find out, right?
Try a few more

You are right. I haven't tried a 180° or 360° pano with Photoshop. ICE itself takes quite a bit of time for a 360° and so I have never tried to use Photoshop on my non supercomputer for it. But I did manage to stitch 15 images taken in sequence with Photoshop and it was with me flying completely manually and not any preset Pano mode. So ya, I need to check how it works with the 46 pic Pano before taking the final call.

MySpark53 · Apr 24, 2019

nilanjan118 said:
haven't been able to use it for a horizontal 9 shots panorama

I've used ICE all the time for all of the DJI Go 4 panoramas ... No problems...Stitching errors can come from parallax or wind or moving clouds relative to the horizon . Check your CPU processing power (cpu-z)

CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID

CPU-Z for Windows® x86/x64 is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system : Processor name and number, codename, process, package, cache levels. Mainboard and chipset. Memory type, size, timings, and module specifications (SPD). Real time...

www.cpuid.com

Be sure your scene has distinguishing features that can be recognized by ICE
Example

nilanjan118 · Apr 24, 2019

MySpark53 said:
I've used ICE all the time for all of the DJI Go 4 panoramas ... No problems...Stitching errors can come from parallax or wind or moving clouds relative to the horizon . Check your CPU processing power (cpu-z)

CPU-Z | Softwares | CPUID

CPU-Z for Windows® x86/x64 is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system : Processor name and number, codename, process, package, cache levels. Mainboard and chipset. Memory type, size, timings, and module specifications (SPD). Real time...

www.cpuid.com

Be sure your scene has distinguishing features that can be recognized by ICE
Example

View attachment 9674
View attachment 9675
View attachment 9676

Thanks for the reply mate. I could make it work for me eventually. Think I should edit the title of the thread now.

Rwarrior · Apr 25, 2019

Hi Nilanjan,
I've also consistently used ICE for Horizontal, Vertical, and 180 deg Panos from the Spark, and have had no issues. The whole process is quite fast in my experience, and I can't complain, even tho my laptop is a 6 years old Asus.
I haven't tried Sphere in ICE so can't comment on that.

Cheers,
Ranjit

nilanjan118 · Apr 25, 2019

Rwarrior said:
Hi Nilanjan,
I've also consistently used ICE for Horizontal, Vertical, and 180 deg Panos from the Spark, and have had no issues. The whole process is quite fast in my experience, and I can't complain, even tho my laptop is a 6 years old Asus.
I haven't tried Sphere in ICE so can't comment on that.

Cheers,
Ranjit

Hi Ranjit, thanks for your reply. I have been able to make it work finally. In fact I have even tried ICE with manual panos (panning across a scene with yaw/roll and adjusting the gimbal degree manually) and that works perfectly too. The Sphere can be created too but you need an additional step of creating the 2:1 aspect ratio with a software like Photoshop so that you get the interactive 360 degree experience.

Northwood Mediaworks · Apr 25, 2019

I've never had any issues with ICE. I dont do spheres, cant vouch for that, but horizontal, vertical and 180s have been automatic and satisfying for me.

pmshop · Apr 25, 2019

I have confirmed several times that ICE cannot create "Facebook ready" spheres.
So why is it a Spark and a Mavic Air natively creates a sphere with meta editing only but ICE needs post photoshop?

webvan · Apr 25, 2019

The DJI app fills the sky for a 2:1 ratio, ICE doesn't. Having said that PTGui apparently creates FB spheres without filling the sky and without a 2:1 ratio...not sure how!

nilanjan118 · Apr 25, 2019

pmshop said:
I have confirmed several times that ICE cannot create "Facebook ready" spheres.
So why is it a Spark and a Mavic Air natively creates a sphere with meta editing only but ICE needs post photoshop?

It is not just metadata editing. As webvan mentions above, if you look at the flattened 360 deg image created by the DJI app, you will find that it has creates portion of the sky to get the 2:1 aspect ratio as well. And people don't mind taking the extra effort with ICE and Photoshop as they get a much higher image resolution by that process.

webvan · May 20, 2019

webvan said:
The DJI app fills the sky for a 2:1 ratio, ICE doesn't. Having said that PTGui apparently creates FB spheres without filling the sky and without a 2:1 ratio...not sure how!

Ok so using EXIF Pilot and the trial version of PTGui I figured it out. What PTGui does is use the "cropped" width/height fields in the "Photosphere" section of the EXIF and Facebook knows how to interpret them properly. It's too bad other viewers (like Ricoh Theta or the Oculus GO) don't do that. It would save having to fill the sky to get a 2:1 ratio.

Using EXIF Pilot you can easily modify the "Photosphere" section of ICE produced spheres to get the same result as PTGui.

MySpark53 · May 20, 2019

If your equirectangular (2x1 aspect ratio) image is from a correctly unwrapped sphere projection of the merged images you can use this site to add the metadata

NadirPatch.com make panorama photo for facebook

The free online service that allows you to roll images in 360 degree panorama. Service will help to prepare photos for publication on facebook. You can publish a panorama without using apps for mobiles (ios or Android)

nadirpatch.com