[ptx] autopano-sift 2.0: fast, easy to install and now with a native Windows GUI

[Sebastian Nowozin]

Hello panorama enthusiasts,


I am proud to announce the version 2.0 release of my automatic panorama tool
autopano-sift.  As usual it is available at:

     http://cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift/


  If you have hesitated to use it in the past, here are the ultimate reasons
to try it or switch to it, if you are a ...

  ... user,

      1. Its fast now. Really.

         It is eight times as fast as before (version 1.7), making panoramas
         fun.  (This is due to a patch from Eric Engle, thanks!)


      2. Native Windows GUI.

         It now has a native Windows GUI and an improved Gtk# GUI.  The native
         Windows GUI has no dependency except the .NET Framework and both
         GUI's are on-par in both functionality and usability.


      3. Features.

         There is no other program offering you completely automatic image
         pre-aligning together with 100% perfect control points.


      4. Convenient installer.

         An easy-to-use Windows installer is available.  Unix users can use a
         precompiled tarball.


      5. Bugs fixed.

         No known bugs left.


  ... developer,

      1. License changed. Now 100% GPL.

         The license for the entire source code is changed to the GNU General
         Public License (GPL), to encourage further improvements of the
         program.  Patches welcome.

         (The SIFT patent is of course still there and active, so use in the
         United States might be restricted.  Please consult legal advice if
         you are in the US.  Outside the US the use is legal, as far as I
         know.  No guarantee whatsoever.)


Still undecided?  Check the improved homepage
(http://cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/autopano-sift/) for more details and
convincing pictures.


Now that the marketing is done ;-), here is the detailed changelog:

autopano-sift 2.0, libsift 1.6
2004/10/19

  * Fix pathname bug which "disabled" align results if the image filenames had
    a pathname prepended.  This is almost everytime the case when running the
    GUI, so the alignment did not work at all from within the GUI.
  * Fix filename output in component display, now its properly reduced to just
    the filename.
  * Modify SortedLimitedList class insertion method (Add) with own
    implementation.  The previous version was a huge bottleneck, but I was
    unable to profile, having no profiler :)  Eric Engle (eengle at elvis dot
    mars dot asu dot edu) spotted it and provided a fast implementation,
    yielding an overall eight times speedup for the matching phase.  Thanks!

  + Change the license for the entire package to GPL.
  + Gtk# GUI changes:
      a) add preview image
      b) add absolute pathname saving for image filenames
      c) update image list while loading
      d) show the number of images in list title
      e) the "Compute" button is sensitive now and only works when enough
         images are there
      f) add all the available options to the value fields and check them
         immediately after user enters them (now the special downscale
         resolution options "keep image size" and "double image size" are
         available)


Enjoy,
Sebastian Nowozin
(http://cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/)

-- 
nowozin at cs.tu-berlin.de --- http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~nowozin/