Artefacts

[Velociped]

Hi,

On almost every panorama I noticed some artefacts! Sharp horizontal or vertical lines with some missing pixels! The inputfiles are perfectly fine, but the interactive panoramas show this kind of gaps.
I have been playing around with all the controls but couldn't get rid of this artefacts! Especially for diagonal lines it just looks weird!



Any ideas how to solve this?

[360Texas]

The picture appears to contain possibly cube face edge joint?

OR is this slice in the middle of a cube face tile ?

OR Is the slice in the larger equirectangle image ?

OR only noticed after creating the flash .swf ?

[Velociped]

Today I made a new partial panorama, resized it by photoshop to 6000*3000 Pixel (just added a black background for zenith and nadir).
The equirectangle image looks perfectly fine. But in the final flash version, those slices appear!

I made the test and converted the equirectangle Input-File to a horizontal stripe:

The red marked joints are really bad, especially the one to the left!
The yellow joint is visible but acceptable
and the green one looks fine.

Here is a screenshot of the first joint. As if some pixels are missing...!

[360Texas]

What software/version and build did you use to stitch the panorama?
You mentioned that you resized your original image to 6000 x 3000. What was the original image dimensions?
What was the equirectangle image bit depth you created ? 8 bit or 16 bit?
What version and build of Pano2vr are you using ?

In Pano2vr "Settings".. did you change the cube face math functions:
Remapping [x default] Use width/Pi as conversion factor
Output [blank default] Use width/Pi as output factor

In the Settings
Are you converting an existing QTVR to Flash Immediately and then finding these Artifacts?
Under "Images" Which Interpolation Filter are you using?

Thank you for creating the test imaging. It is helpping me alot to try to figure out your issue.

[Velociped]

Hi Dave,

I just made a simple test-image. (3000*1500 px, jpg, 8bit)
After compiling to a flash panorama, watch the violet an red circle! There are even some faint horizontal slices visible!



I have tested it on mac and pc, and both show the issue!

Mac: Version 3.0 64bit
Revision 1685/4.7.1 (Mar 23 2011, 01:50:31)

PC: Version 3.0 64bit
Revision 1685/4.7.0 (Mar 23 2011, 01:54:39)

I ran some tests with different settings, but the slices are always there!

• Input-File: JPG, TIFF and PSD (8-bit) -> looks all the same
• Convert the equirect. picture to a horiz. stripe
• Change the cube math functions: width/pi -> no effect
• Interpolation filter Lanczoz3 or box -> still the same

Only if you choose Quicktime, it looks a bit better than Flash.

I hope you can reproduce it.

[Hopki]

Hi
Please see Issue #306
To overcome this for now use multiresolution, manually add one level and check the box that says Embed.
Regards
Hopki

[Velociped]

Thanks Hopki!

This works fine!

[Velociped]

Playing with the multiresolution-function I found something really strange! An interaction between allowed network access and certain multilevel settings!

1.) Take a Testfile (3000*1500px) and set a hotspot somewhere.
2.) Add a new flash output.
3.) In the Advanced Settings: Local Security: Enable "Allow network access"
4.) In the Multiresolution-Tab set 2 Levels: 750px and 375px
5.) Set 375px to "Embed" and 750px to "Load at startup"

Then compile the panorama.

In this combination the panorama starts to spin after loading even if autorotation is disabled! There's no hotspot and the image-quality is lousy!

If you change one of these settings, i.e. both multiresolution-levels to embed or disable the network access, everything works fine!


There's another interaction
1.) Allow network access
2.) Two multiresolution-levels 750px an 375px
3.) Set 375px to "Embed" and uncheck 750px

When you compile it and zoom into the panorama, it doesn't spin but only the coarse picture is loaded!
Then disable network access, compile it again and everything works!

[Hopki]

Hi
This is down to the network access, multiresolution needs local access to work, with network access selected the Flash player can not access the local files including the different multiresolution levels.
If you have Flash Security set on your computer you will not have this problem, please see here: http://gardengnomesoftware.com/wiki/Fla ... y_Settings
Regards
Hopki

[Velociped]

Um, ok...
But what does this mean to the "slice-issue? To overcome this I have to use multiresolution as you mentioned above.
But I also have a clickable logo on my panoramas. Do the links still work on the webserver without allowed network access?

Update: It seems to work online, but can someone confirm this?

Or is it better to embed all the levels and allow local access?

My Flash settings and supercookies are deleted frequently by the Firefox-Add-on "Better Privacy". But good to know how to set up the environment for testing.

[Hopki]

Hi Velociped
Its in the bug tracker to be look at and fixed as and when possible.

The flash security video states that the flash player will only let you access local OR network, but not both. When uploaded to a server it will access both, so it can access local files on the server as well as links to other files on the internet. So this is only an issue when testing on your computer.

However if you follow the tip and set up a trusted location on your computer you can test it like you have uploaded it.
This is a standard flash thing, personally I have set my hard drive as a trusted location and have my allow network access unchecked.

If the image is not large, a giga pano, I would only use the 1 level and embed it as this replicates what you would of had without multiresolution.
Regards
Hopki

[Velociped]

Ah ok, now it's clear! Thank you, Hopki, for all the details!