Panorama Layers

From Autopano

Concept

This tool emerged from the following observation: many panoramas are made up from source images sharing one common characteristic: same shutter speed, same aperture, same focal length or same bracket. It then becomes interesting to group the source images sharing a common characteristic at the blending stage and process them as a sub group.

It is the purpose of this tool: to offer a simple method allowing us to process some images as groups (called layers), independently from the other source images.

Interface

The interface shows the image list with a thumbnail of each image.

A toolbar with several buttons helps you adjust the layers:

• Add images : to add images into the selected layer. Autopano Pro will then integrate the added image in the panorama preview.
• Delete images : select an image or a group of images and click on this button to remove them. Autopano Pro will then remove them from the panorama preview.
• New layer: to create a new image layer, in which you can then drop or add images.
• Reset layer: to reset all layer modifications
• Group by Focal length: to create layers depending on the focal length of each image.
• Group by Speed: to create layers depending on the speed of each image.
• Group by Aperture: to create layers depending on the aperture of each image.
• Group by bracket: to create layers depending on the bracket of each image.
• Image properties: to see and edit image properties

Layers List

This part of the window lets you manage the layers as well as the images within them.

• To create a new layer: Use the New Layer button. A new empty group will be created at the end of the already existing groups list.
• To add an image to a layer: you can either do a drag and drop from the thumbnails area to the group you are working on, drag and drop from an existing group to another group, or use the Add images button.
• To delete some images from a layer: select the images and press the "Delete" key of the keyboard, or use the Remove images or layer button.
• To rename a layer: double-click on the layer name to edit it.
• If you do not want to remove an image but only unselect it so that Autopano Pro does not take it into account in the panorama preview, uncheck the square located before image name. Warning: if you do not want the image to appear in the final rendering, unselecting it is not sufficient; you have to remove it from the list.

Columns

You can visualize all important information related to each image in the Image Name, Focal Length, Shutter Speed, Aperture and Iso columns. Each individual column can be sorted to quickly organize the list in a logical way.

Example: grouping by aperture

In the example, by pressing the Group by aperture button, we actually divided the source images list into 3 groups: F4.0, F3.2 and F3.5.

If you launch a rendering with these groups, you will end up with 3 panoramas, one per aperture used. Note that each of these panoramas will have the source images placed identically; that is, you can overlay them in a photo editor and everything will line up.