[ptx] New experimental windows build available

[Ian Sydenham]

I'm (re-)posting this as I forgot to include the mailing list in the 
reply. I've also included the text of Pablo's reply to me, and one 
later comment from me.

> Pablo d'Angelo wrote:
>  >I've uploaded a new windows snapshot.
>  >http://hugin.sourceforge.net/snapshots/windows/hugin_2004_06_25-10_39_win32_EXPERIMENTAL.zip 
> 
> 
> Pablo,
> 
> thanks for the continuing work with Hugin. I've taken it for a test 
> drive on a full 360 deg panorama consisting of 22 images - each one 
> 1280x960 pixels. It works pretty much as you explained. My findings are 
> as follows:
> 
> Summary:
> I will keep the snapshot on my PC only for the nona layered_tiff 
> stitching. The slow speed and particularly the control point cursor 
> problem makes most of the rest of the app not very useful. I will do 
> most of my Hugin work with the previous snapshot, save the project file, 
> and open it with the latest snapshot just for the final stitch.
Pablo d'Angelo's comment:
Thanks for a good report. I know most the issues, but I haven't had 
the time to fix all that stuff.. not enought time.
Btw. you can uses the standalone stitchers, nona.exe, or nona_gui.exe,
which are not so slow, I hope.

Ian Sydenham's additional comment:
I had not used nona as a stand alone, so did not not think of that. I 
tried it out and nona.exe works fine, but nona_gui.exe does not even 
start for me. No error messages or anything.

> 
> The good:
> 1. Stitching using Nona and layered Tiff generates a file that the no 
> longer contains an extra pixel column and it works well with the latest 
> patched enblend.
> 
> 2. Lens Management "Load exif" works for me and reads the focal length 
>  data OK. Its just a pity that my camera does not have a sensor size in 
> the exif data so I still have to manually enter the 35mm equivalent 
> focal length anyway.
Pablo d'Angelo's comment:
I have to add a lens database, where you can store your cameras sensor 
size, or the crop factor.

> 
> The Bad:
> 1. Slow load of images
> Adding images on "fresh" project (or loading an existing project) shoots 
> my CPU up to 100% and takes a long time before Hugin can do the next 
> thing. The Hugin status bar shows: Stitching, remapping, blending, blend 
> mask creating blend line
Pablo d'Angelo's comment:
Yep, I'm calling the stitcher all the time (and too often..) to do the 
previews. I'm changing that right now.
Btw. if you deactivate the "automatic preview update" (3rd button in 
the preview window) this should happen less often.

> 
> 2. Feature matching does not work:
> On the Images Tab selecting two images and clicking on "Create Ctrl 
> Points" button -> pop-up error box
> "ERROR: (ImagesPanel.cpp:233 SIFTMatching(): Could not open autopano 
> output: pano0/pano0.pto"
> (but I have not had this work on any version of Hugin I've used)
Pablo d'Angelo's comment:
Hmm, I have to work on this, so that it will call the right autopanos.
Currently its hardcoded to using Alexanders autopano on linux...

> 
> 3. The control point cursor is a black square with a few clear lines and 
> makes control point selection practicaly impossible.
> 
> 4. After creating a new control point pair CPU activity goes to 100% for 
> a long time and the taskbar description show a lot of stitching blending 
> activity. Why does there need to be any stitching and blending after 
> adding a control point?
> The same thing (100% CPU) happens when changing focal length.
> 
> 5. When I select a control point with auto fine tune, auto add and auto 
> estimate, then if the matching auto control point has a low correlation 
> coefficient and I select NO when asked "select anyway?", then I get a 
> Hugin crash after selecting the point manually:
> 
> ASSERTATION: (CPImageCtrl.cpp:830) getNewPoint():(): editState ==
> NEW_POINT_SELECTED
> 
> after clicking OK to that I get:
> 
> Microsoft Visual C++ Runtime Library error popup window
> Runtime Error!
> Program C:\Program Files\hugin-0.4-exp\hugin.exe
> abnormal program termination
> 
> (A similar thing happens with the previous Hugin snapshot)
> 
> 6. Custom Optimisation gives 0 distances
> Clicking on "Optimise Now!" with custom parameters shows all distances = 
> 0, unless it is done AFTER a "Positions" optimisation.
> (Same as previous snapshot)
> 
> 7. Preview problems:
> The Preview window image number buttons are too large - only shows 12 
> buttons even if ther are more images so it is impossible to turn off any 
> image > 12 (This is with screen resolution at 1280x1024)
> Also moving the slider bar on preview pane is soooo slooooow.
> 
> 8. Any change to stitcher field of view -> high CPU loading. Hugin 
> appears to be recalculating the preview window, even if I do not want to 
> see it.
> 
> Questions:
> 1.What are the Lens Management features Load and Save?
> (I understand LoadExif)
Pablo d'Angelo's comment:
They load/save hfov, and the distortion variables to an ini file, for
easy usage in the next project.
> 
> 
> regards,
> 
> Ian Sydenham