GUI complexity

[Pablo d'Angelo]

Hi Bruno,

On Thu, 24 Apr 2003, Bruno Postle wrote:

Thanks for many insights about the panorama tools. I haven't used the
panorama tools that much, so I'm pretty sure that I would overlook
some important use cases.

> On Thu 24-Apr-2003 at 03:18:57PM +0200, Pablo d'Angelo wrote:
>
> > but in the end, a global optimization step might change them back
> > to something that make them fit together, after you have optimized
> > each one of them to get straight skyscrapers, or?
>
> Yep, us architects like to keep all our verticals parallel; in this
> picture, only the yaw was fixed for one anchor image:
>
>    http://bugbear.blackfish.org.uk/~bruno/photos/istanbul/blue-mosque-courtyard.jpg

Nice pic, but to me it looks a bit strange because the vertical lines
are not parallel at all anymore. (expecially noticeable at the
balconies on the minarettes).

> This is not a very good example either, but it's a "panorama" that
> consists of one source image where _everything_ has been optimised
> (roll, pitch & yaw):
>
>     http://bugbear.blackfish.org.uk/~bruno/photos/dendera/

quite nice. gives a good idea how flexible the PT suite really is.

> > > Bear in mind that PTOptimizer optimises images _into_ the output
> > > format, so you have to select output parameters before you can
> > > optimize.
> >
> > Hmm, so the optimization strategy is different for each output
> > format?
>
> It can be different, the horizontal and vertical control points
> will produce different results with different output formats.

Yep, makes sense, so I'll move the output format selection before the
optimize step.

> Spherical and cylindrical panoramas have no horizontal straight
> lines (other than the actual horizon if the photos were taken at
> sea), but may have lots of vertical straight lines.

acutally you can also have a horizon within the picture, although it
might not be the hilly one on the picture. setting that horizon line
might be very good for the optimizer, I guess. So the following
warning should say that only the horizon line should be specified with
horizontal control points.

> A clever GUI might say:
>
>    "Warning, you have selected horizontal control points; however
>    your output panorama is spherical.  Are you sure?"

> It's easy for me to say (since I'm not offerring to write any C++),
> but it might be cool to have two GUI tools ;-)

Hmm, well I differ a bit. I guess we all can agree on what the gui
should or shouldn't contain. I'm not a fan of a lot of artifical
competition between the gui's. Especially since I have only a limited
amount of time for my opensource work, which will be a lot less from
June onwards, when i'll need more time for my diploma thesis.

So it'll be mainly the GUI toolkit issues that decide this.

ciao
  Pablo
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