Original author(s) | Helmut Dersch |
---|---|
Developer(s) | Helmut Dersch |
Initial release | 1998 |
Stable release | 13-2.9.21 [1] / 30 December 2021 |
Written in | C |
Type | post-production |
License | GNU Lesser General Public License (relicensed from GNU GPL 2007) |
Website | panotools |
Panorama Tools(also known as PanoTools) are a suite of programs and libraries for image stitching, i.e., re-projecting and blending multiple source images into immersive panoramas of many types. It was originally written by German physics and mathematics professor Helmut Dersch. An updated version of the Panorama Tools library serves as the underlying core engine for many software panorama graphical user interface front ends.[ citation needed ]
Dersch started development on Panorama Tools in 1998, producing software available for creating panoramas and more, but had to stop development in 2001 due to legal harassment and claims of patent infringement by the company IPIX. [2] Dersch released the core library (pano12) and some of the programs of Panorama Tools under the terms of the GNU General Public License. The rest of the applications were made available as binary executables only and for free without a copyleft license.[ citation needed ]
The development of the source code of Panorama Tools was continued by some members of the original Panorama Tools mailing list. In December 2003 they initiated a free software project which is currently hosted by SourceForge. SourceForge requires that all hosted software is released under an open source license. For this reason Dersch's unlicensed binaries are not hosted there, although they can still be found on mirror websites.
On 5 August 2007, Dersch announced his intention to relicense the Panorama Tools source code. [3] On 9 August 2007, Dersch changed the license to a GNU Lesser General Public License. [4]
PanoTools consists of the following components: [5]
†Open source.
In 2006 the functionality of PTstitcher was reproduced by the developers of Panorama Tools. Its functionality was broken into several program, in an attempt to modularize it:
†Open source.
To make working with Panorama Tools easier and to add functionality, many interactive, graphical front-ends to Panorama Tools have been developed, both open source (e.g. Hugin) and commercial (e.g. PTgui and PTMac), along with a variety of other companion applications (e.g. smartblend and enblend), which in many cases make interacting directly with the programs in the original Panorama Tools toolset unnecessary.
The software Panorama Tools is mentioned and covered in several books, e.g.
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Hugin is a cross-platform open source panorama photo stitching and HDR merging program developed by Pablo d'Angelo and others. It is a GUI front-end for Helmut Dersch's Panorama Tools and Andrew Mihal's Enblend and Enfuse. Stitching is accomplished by using several overlapping photos taken from the same location, and using control points to align and transform the photos so that they can be blended together to form a larger image. Hugin allows for the easy creation of control points between two images, optimization of the image transforms along with a preview window so the user can see whether the panorama is acceptable. Once the preview is correct, the panorama can be fully stitched, transformed and saved in a standard image format.
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PTGui is a panorama photo stitching program for Windows and macOS developed by New House Internet Services BV. PTGui was created as a GUI frontend to Helmut Dersch's Panorama Tools. It features its own stitching and blending engine along with compatibility to Panorama Tools. PTGui supports telephoto, normal, wide angle and fisheye lenses to create partial cylindrical up to full spherical panoramas. PTGui can handle multiple rows of images.
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(help) Alt URL The license to the Panorama Tools library (pano12.dll, pano12.lib, pano12.so, etc) used by several image processing utilities is changed from this license to the GNU Lesser General Public License. This change is in effect from today (August 9, 2007).
Questions and answers about usage of the various tools and front-ends belong on the PanoToolsNG mailing-list, you might want to consult the PanoTools wiki before posting. There is a panotools-devel mailing list for questions regarding compiling the source and developing it further. The PanoTools wiki aims to be the definitive reference for Panorama Tools. It contains a lot of usage documentation for the tools hosted here on sourceforge.
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