186RED, an Australian publishing company, let us know about Melbourne Symmetry, a book of panoramic images that has just been published.

Melbourne Symmetry is a high quality, hardcover, 112 page, full colour photography book of the city of Melbourne, Australia.

Con Hionis is the photographer of all 70 cylindrical panoramas included in this book. All the images were created using Autopano Pro software. Hardware included a Nodal Ninja 3 panoramic head, a Canon 40D and various Canon lenses. Braketing and HDR imaging were used.

All images have been rendered at 52 megapixels in 16bit colours after initial cropping. Panoramas have been comfortably printed as large as 4.5 meters long.

The publisher wrote to us to tell us that “after sampling many other stitching programs, Autopano was chosen due to its controls, flexible interface and ease of use, and its web site and instructions are also helpful when required.”

Con Hionis used Autopano Pro on Windows Vista 64 bits operating system powered by an Intel Quad Core processor.

Below are some images from the book. Con Hionis also contributed to the Panobook 2009, in which 4 of his Melbourne panoramas are included.

To find out more about Melbourne Symmetry and order copies of the book; visit http://www.186red.com/books/melbourne-symmetry/

The Panobook 2009 will be available very shortly on our website! The printing is now over, the result is just great! You will be able to order the book in a few days.

As a reminder, Panobook 2009 is a collaborative book of the most beautiful panoramic images from Autopano Pro software users. To find our more about the project, you can read the previous posts:
Panobook 2009 final draft
Panorama Book 2009: a first preview
1600 images received for the Panorama Book!

• Details about Panobook 2009

* 221 contributors
* 248 pages, including folding pages
* 365 stitched images from 58 countries
* 30cm (11.8 inches) long, 20cm (7.9 inches) wide, 2cm (0.79 inch) high, 1.2kg (2.65 pounds).

• Price

• 1. Public price

Public price of the Panobook 2009 is 30 euros ($38*). This is the price recommended for sale in bookstores. Our company is located in France. If you live outside the European Union, or if you have a European VAT number, you don’t have to pay the VAT, so your public price will be 28.44 euros ($36.33*).

• 2. Contributor special price

As previously announced, all contributors will be able to buy the book at cost price. Cost price is 13.46 euros ($17.18*). Our company is located in France. If you live outside the European Union, or if you have a European VAT number, you don’t have to pay the VAT, so your cost price will be 12.76 euros ($16.29*). The detailed budget of the book can be sent to any contributor wishing to review it.
Good news: we decided not to put any limit on the number of books a contributor can order at cost price

• Collective projet, collective goals

This project aims to enable all Autopano users to have their best panoramas published into a quality book. The goal is also to show the general public that the panoramic photography is at anyone’s reach.

With this goal in mind, all benefits that might be generated by Kolor through the sale of the book at public price on its website or elsewhere will be allocated to projects promoting the panoramic photography, like a panorama contest or grants to projects dealing with panoramic photography.

See you in a few days for the release of Panobook 2009!

* Prices in dollars are indicative. Exchange rate as of Nov. 24th, 2008: EUR 1.00 = USD 1.28.

We have just received from the printer the final draft of the Panobook. The book will be printed in the coming days and will be available in the beginning of December.

As a reminder, the Panobook is a collaborative book proposed by Kolor to all users of Autopano Pro software and that enable them to publish their most beautiful panoramic images into a quality book.

We first expected the book to be around 165 to 180 pages, but it will finally include 248 pages! We prefered to add some pages to give a larger space to some panoramas. Final stats are 221 contributors and 365 images.

A panorama of Peter Gutsche (one of the contributors) has been chosen as the cover image.

Here are some photos of the draft and the book cover.