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What's new?
What's new in V5.3?
-
A new edition, the Mac
Leopard Edition is now available. The old Mac edition has been renamed the
Mac Legacy Edition. The Leopard delivers improved stitching speed on
multi-processor systems (including multi-core systems) by performing image
computations in parallel. The new Mac Leopard Edition requires Mac OS X
10.5 or newer. If you are running OS X 10.3 or 10.4 you must use The Mac
Legacy Edition.
-
Support for
Windows Imaging Component (WIC) has been added to the m32 and x64
Editions. WIC supports a variety of image file formats, notably many
camera RAW formats, through plug-ins that are available from camera
manufacturers and third parties. We do not provide WIC plug-ins, but will
take advantage of any WIC plug-ins that are installed on your computer.
Image files formats that are available through WIC are automatically
recognized by The Panorama Factory and are listed in the Files of type
drop down list on the
Import Images dialog box. For more information about WIC and for a
list of available plug-ins, refer to Windows
Imaging Component in the online help Chapter 9, Image
file formats.
-
76 new cameras were added to
the camera library in V5.3, 24 more in V5.3.2802 (May 17, 2009) and over
300 more in V5.3.2807 (Jan 16, 2011).
-
V5.3.2807 (Jan 16, 2011)
Completes the Turkish translation.
-
The following trouble reports
are corrected in V5.3:
TR 1158
Meta keys (SHIFT, CONTROL, ALT, COMMAND) sometimes do not work on a
secondary Mac keyboard
TR 1166
Abnormal termination using some non-Apple keyboards
TR 1486
Abnormal termination upon choosing the Crop command
-
V5.3.2800 (April 19, 2009) corrects a bug that caused
abnormal termination in the Leopard Edition on PowerPC when playing the
alert sound.
-
V5.3.2800 (April 19, 2009)
corrects a bug that sometimes
caused abnormal termination during fine tuning. This applies to all
editions.
-
V5.3.2802 (May 17, 2009)
corrects a bug that sometimes caused abnormal termination in the
Leopard Edition on Intel when using the mouse to move the Wizard panel.
-
V5.3.2802 (May 17, 2009) corrects a bug that sometimes caused abnormal termination when
exporting polygon hotspots. This applies to all editions.
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What's new in V5.2?
-
Stitching speed is improved
on Mac, bringing it closer to the (single-threaded) performance of the
Windows Editions.
-
Japanese, Norwegian and
Turkish translations were added in V5.2.2748 (June 5, 2008). The Catalan,
Chinese-Traditional, French, Hungarian, Japanese, Russian and Turkish translations were updated in
V5.2.2760 (January 12, 2009).
-
As of January 5, 2009, some
translations are still incomplete. Please refer to
Features and capabilities for percent completion numbers of the
various translations.
-
99 new cameras were added to
the camera library in V5.2.2748 (June 5, 2008) and 84 more in V5.2.2760
(January 12, 2009).
-
When exporting to QTVR
format, The Panorama Factory now automatically converts the projection to
cubic or cylindrical if it can determine that one projection will produce
a significantly smaller output file than the other. Otherwise, it
will convert spherical panoramas to cubic and leave cylindrical panoramas
unchanged. However, cubic projection is always used if you have
selected "Add top and
bottom caps to saved image" on the
QTVR settings dialog box.
-
V5.2 adds several new
customer support features. For more information about these, please refer
to
http://www.panoramafactory.com/support_extras.html.
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V5.2.2747 (June 5, 2008):
TR
822 Some QTVR files show a broken film strip icon
TR
982 Abnormal termination when exporting QTVR that contains polygon
hotspots
TR
985 Could not write abcd.mov. Is the disk full or write protected?
TR
986 It is not possible to enter the letter 'd' into the Hotspot properties
dialog box
TR 1105 "Cannot convert from the charset windows-utf8" when
selecting a language
TR 1112 Abnormal termination immediately after starting the
application
TR 1113 "Bookmark" type hotspots do not work
TR 1114 "http://url#bookmark" notation doesn't work for QTVR images
displayed by Internet Explorer
TR 1115 Double-clicking a PFP file from Explorer (Windows) or
Finder (Mac) sometimes causes abnormal termination
TR 1145 Does not work properly if installed into a folder with
extended characters in its name
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The following trouble reports
are corrected in V5.2.2760 (January 12, 2009):
TR 1170 Quitting the program sometimes shows a message saying PFactory
quit unexpectedly
TR 1206 Starting the program by double-clicking a PFP file from Finder
sometimes causes abnormal termination
TR 1346 Double-clicking a PFP file from Finder (Mac) when a dialog box is
open sometimes causes subsequent abnormal termination
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What's new in V5.1?
-
V5.1 adds the Check for
software updates dialog box which can be used to manually or
automatically check The Panorama Factorys web site for newer versions of
the software including patches, free updates and upgrades.
-
Several new cameras were
added to the camera library.
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V5.1.2702 (January 31, 2008):
TR 759 One or
more "Duplicate file name" messages displayed at startup
TR 761 QTVR
export fails with message "In VRPano_MakeCylinder, wImage==1234 is not a
multiple of 96"
TR 762 The
application appears to freeze when you choose Print preview
TR 776 The
Reverse selected images command doesn't work properly
TR 792 The
Help button opens two browser windows and shows an incorrect help page under
Vista
TR 794 PFBatch
adds watermarks even after entering a valid Registration Key
TR 797 The
default directory for the Save image command is not always set correctly
TR 802 QTVRs
have missing parts or incorrect colors when made from 16-bit-per-color images
TR 805 UNC
path names do not always work properly
TR 806 Cannot
export to QTVR format if image width is less than height
TR 811 Abnormal
termination exporting to 16-bit-per-channel Photoshop format
TR 819 OS X
10.5 Leopard reports that The Panorama Factory's setup and patch DMG files are
corrupted
TR 823 Abnormal
termination immediately after starting the application (on Mac)
TR 842 Overlap
region is speckled or completely blank
TR 854 Export
to Photoshop sometimes creates a bad file
TR 856 Thumbnail
indexes don't work properly in V5.0
TR 858 Text
values for Amount and Size of falloff correction do not update when you move
the sliders
TR 895 Fine
tuning rectangles display incorrectly when zoomed
TR 899 Black-and-white
TIFFs display incorrectly on Mac
TR 900 Next
image / Next seam commands do not work from popup menus
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The following trouble reports are
corrected in V5.1.2702 (February 15, 2008):
TR 905 "Out
of memory" error during printing
TR 912 Abnormal
termination with the Overlap region dialog box
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What's new in V5.0? V5.0 adds many
new features and improvements. The
most exciting new developments in V5.0 are:
- The Panorama Factory V5 now runs on Mac OS X.
- Color managed workflow is now supported.
- Cubic QTVR export and import are now supported.
- Project files are now stored in their own directories and archive
files can be stored in ZIP files.
- Support for blending with external blending software.
Here's a more complete list of new features:
-
The Panorama Factory V5
introduces the new Mac Edition which runs on Mac OS X 10.3.9 or newer. The
x64 Edition, the m32 Edition and the Legacy Edition, which run on Windows,
have been updated to V5. All editions include the same features and capabilities (but
please read note #9 in the V5.0 release notes). You may install any of these editions with the
same Registration Key. Please refer to The Panorama Factory Editions
for descriptions of the five editions.
-
The m32 Edition may now be
installed on Windows XP systems without Service Pack 2. V4 required
SP 2, but now it is possible to obtain the multi-core support in m32
without SP 2.
-
Color managed workflow is now supported. The Panorama Factory
reads and write embedded color profiles and uses ColorSync (on Mac) or ICM (on
Windows) to display and print images considering color management.
-
Cubic QTVR export and import are now supported. The speed of
exporting to Cylindrical QTVR has been improved.
-
A new command, Convert panorama (New image
menu) converts between Spherical, Cylindrical and Cubic projection without
restitching.
-
You can Restart the Wizard from a toolbar button.
-
You can control the size of the toolbar icons
(small, medium or large) and customize the contents of the toolbars through
the Toolbars tab of the Options dialog box (Tools menu).
-
Toolbar icons have been redrawn.
-
The rotation controls that were on
the Import image dialog box in V4 are replaced with a submenu of the
File menu and a dropdown list on the toolbar.
-
The toolbar rotation buttons can now be used to
rotate images in the upper thumbnail list as a shortcut for the Rotate
command (New image menu).
-
The Save project command (File
menu) now creates a folder for the project to help you organize your work.
On the Mac, the folder is marked as a Package so that it appears to be a
single file. You can examine the individual files with Finder's Show
Package Contents command. If you prefer the V4 project format, you
can disable this feature by selecting Store project files and images files
separately on the Compatibility tab of the Options dialog
box (Tools menu).
-
The Save project archive as command (File
menu) can compress the project file and image files into a ZIP file.
The Panorama Factory can open a project directly from the ZIP file. You
choose whether to save the archive in ZIP format or as uncompressed files by
choosing either .zip or .pfp on the Save as dialog box.
-
The Save image as dialog box no longer
combines the system Save dialog with additional controls that are specific to
The Panorama Factory. Instead, it contains just The Panorama Factory's
controls and provides a Save button to run the system Save dialog.
-
The Page setup dialog box no longer
combines the system Page setup dialog with additional controls that are
specific to The Panorama Factory. Instead, it contains just The Panorama Factory's controls and provides a
Select printer and paper size button to run the system Page setup dialog.
-
When a local language choice requires a character set that is different
from the system character set, it no longer displays garbled characters.
Instead, it displays the English text for messages that would not display
correctly with the system character set.
-
On Windows, all characters available in the system font can now display
correctly regardless of the system code page.
-
You can choose the sound file to play at
completion of long processing steps through the Toolbars tab of the Options dialog box (Tools
menu). The Windows-specific method described in the help file is no
longer used.
-
You can choose the sound file to play at
completion of long processing steps through the Toolbars tab of the Options dialog box (Tools
menu). The Windows-specific method described in the help file is no
longer used.
-
Popup tip messages and warnings that have been disabled by selecting In
the future, do not show this message can be restored through the Popup
tips tab of the Options dialog box (Tools
menu).
-
Fixed a long-standing bug in selection of thumbnail images. Refer to
Shift-click doesn't always work right in the thumbnail view.
-
Implemented new export format, Multiple TIFF,
to support external blending software like Enblend and Smartblend.
-
New options for PSD export
support blending with Photoshop CS3's auto blend command.
-
Can export to 48-bit PSD (16
bits per color channel).
-
Language translations were
added for Chinese-Simplified (incomplete translation),
Chinese-Traditional and Polish. Chinese language
translations require the x64, m32 or Mac Edition.
-
85 new digital
cameras were added to the camera library.
top
What's new in V4.5?
-
V4.5 introduces the
Clone the stitched image
for HDR command, whose function is to support workflow for creating
high dynamic range (HDR) panoramic images. Note that The Panorama Factory
provides the capability of creating identically stitched images for HDR,
but does not include commands for the HDR transform and tone mapping. You
must perform these steps with a separate software application designed for
that purpose.
This new command was added
late in the V4.5 development cycle. There was insufficient time to
translate the command and its associated messages into the languages
supplied with The Panorama Factory. The command and messages will be
displayed in English.
-
Two new sections, Making
your panoramas rotate automatically and Controlling
the initial viewpoint of your panorama were added to help Chapter 7,
Making a virtual tour. Although
these capabilities have been available since V4.0, they were not
adequately documented before.
-
Errors were corrected in the
online help for the Hotspot
properties dialog box.
-
A Catalan language
translation was added.
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V4.5:
TR 560 Duplicating
a stitched image fails with more than one thread
TR 634 Project
properties and Profile organizer dialog boxes fail on Linux (under Wine)
TR 659 PTViewer
panoramas do not preview properly with Internet Explorer
TR 663 Panoramic
properties dialog box should require non-blank value for HFOV
TR 681 QuickTime
export fails when the file or folder name contains extended characters
TR 682 White
speckles on images with 16 bits per color channel
TR 683 Saw
tooth edge on overlap region for stitched images that go more than 90 degrees
above or below the horizon
TR 685 Shimmering
(aliasing) when you rotate a QTVR image
TR 686 Hotspots
that are only used as bookmarks may interfere with hyperlink hotspots
TR 687 Help
for the Hotspot properties dialog box is incorrect
TR 688 QTVR
images sometimes appear grainy or posterized
TR 691 Sometimes
exported images are sharpened even if you have turned off sharpening
-
149 new digital
cameras were added to the camera library.
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What's new in V4.4?
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V4.4:
TR 608 Focal
length detection fails to update displayed value in the Wizard
TR 610 QuickTime
does not allow zoom out all the way for some images
TR 613 Existing
project files sometimes silently change from spherical to cylindrical
TR 615 The
Panorama Factory x64 Edition refuses to install on Windows Vista x64
TR 616 Default
crop is incorrect for stitched images that go more than 90 degrees above or
below the horizon
TR 617 Memory
management can be inefficient after restarting the Wizard
TR 618 System
event log messages from the Windows XP "SideBySide" component
TR 623 Will
not start or abnormal termination if a non-English language is chosen and the
application folder is write protected
TR 625 Choosing
a non-English language during install has no effect
TR 626 Internet
Explorer displays a security warning when The Panorama Factory previews a web
page
-
21 new digital
cameras were added to the camera library.
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What's new in V4.3?
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V4.3:
TR 556 "No QuickTime panoramas were found" when
importing an MOV file with QuickTime 7
TR 561 Abnormal termination if you import QTVR, PTViewer or
IVR while the Wizard is active
TR 562 Stitch with "Document/Manual" resets Wizard's
focal length to 1000mm or larger
TR 565 Abnormal termination when moving edge of overlap region
after Swing Lens stitch
TR 566 "Modo Zoom" accelerator key 'a' doesn't work
when Spanish language is selected
TR 582 "Can't import W1, W2, INSTALL.LOG, etc." when
starting The Panorama Factory
TR 583 Cropping a panorama from swing lens images hangs with
infinite alert panel
TR 588 Automatic rotation of a QTVR image fails when the image
opens in new browser window
TR 589 Automatic rotation of a QTVR image fails when the language
is not English
TR 597 The default crop is incorrect for Cylindrical projection
under certain conditions
TR 601 QuickTime does not recognize panoramas that are entirely
above or below the horizon
TR 602 PTViewer export fails silently if the image file for top
or bottom cap is missing
-
When you select
Swing lens or rotational camera option you must now either
enter the horizontal field of view of your swing lens camera or select a
checkbox indicating that you are using this option to stitch scanned
documents (as described in some of The Panorama Factory Forum and FAQ
articles). The field of view value is used by The Panorama Factory to
compute the field of view of the completed panorama so that it may be
exported to a VR format or converted to perspective projection.
-
More than 100 new digital
cameras were added to the camera library.
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What's new in V4.2?
-
V4.2 introduces two new
editions of The Panorama Factory V4: the x64 Edition and the m32 Edition.
The previous edition of The Panorama Factory has been renamed the Legacy
Edition. All editions include the same features and capabilities (but
please read note #5 in the V4.2 release notes). You may install any of these editions with the
same Registration Key. Please refer to The Panorama Factory Editions
for descriptions of the three editions.
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V4.2:
TR 542 Abnormal termination if you select the Crop command without a
current image
TR 547 Crop image dialog box sometimes shows 0 for cropped image width
(pixels)
TR 548 Extremely long printed images are sometimes truncated
TR 549 Print preview sometimes shows a black rectangle
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What's new in V4.1?
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V4.1:
TR 494 Installed application doesn't run, can't uninstall, "Could not
open INSTALL.LOG"
TR 499 Panning limits are set incorrectly for IVR format
TR 503 Automatic detection of brightness falloff does not always work
properly
TR 504 Cannot cancel Open project command when images are missing
TR 505 Black image after turning on color tool
TR 509 Abnormal termination if you attempt to crop multiple thumbnails
TR 510 Abnormal termination at 0x6962e6b0 during fine tuning
TR 511 Stitching points can be dragged off the edge of the image
TR 513 Atomatic detection of focal length sometimes produces strange
results
TR 515 Pacing the first pair of stitching points causes "Warping"
message
TR 516 Moving a stitching point causes "Warping" message
TR 519 Manual falloff adjustment does not use the preview rectangle
TR 520 Edges of overlap region display incorrectly when an overlap
region is open
TR 522 Abnormal termination at 0x0043967a when adjusting focal length
or barrel correction
TR 524 Double-click doesn't open overlap region
TR 526 Stitched image displays incorrectly after adjusting focal length
or barrel correction
TR 534 Images are placed side-by-side rather than properly overlapped
TR 535 Images appear to be fisheye images when starting a panorama
using semi-automatic or manual stitching
TR 536 PTViewer gives Java NumberFormatException or blank viewer window
for languages that use "," as decimal separator
TR 538 IVR shows a distorted image for languages that use "," as
decimal separator
TR 540 Changes made to an overlap region while the Wizard is active
have no effect or produce abnormal termination
TR 541 The Hotspots command is disabled while the Wizard is active
One of these changes (TR 499)
corrects the problem that was addressed in the pfactory_patch_4001. You
do not need to apply this patch after installing V4.1.
-
It is now possible to
complete a manual mode stitch when you are unable to get checkmarks on all
images. This can occur when an image overlap contains insufficient detail
to place 5 points (e.g. blank sky) or in some cases when camera movement
is too extreme for the Wizard to analyze. If you attempt to go to the next
Wizard step, you are offered the option of continuing with incomplete
stitching points. In this situation, the Wizard makes assumptions about
the images that may or may not be correct. This may product a less
satisfactory result, but in some cases this may be unavoidable.
top
What's new in V4.0? V4.0 adds many
new features and improvements. The
most exciting new developments in V4.0 are:
- Image quality has been improved significantly. Images are
sharper and fine tuning is more accurate.
- Semi-automatic and manual stitching methods make it possible to stitch
images with camera rotation or tilt. V4.0 produces excellent results
even with hand-held photographs where the camera rotation is different for
each photo.
- A perspective correction option makes it possible to create images
where straight lines are preserved.
- New controls are available for initial view and automatic rotation in
VR viewers.
- You can save your panorama to layered Photoshop PSD
format.
- The Wizard can be started on a set of selected thumbnails and/or
restarted on a previously stitched panorama.
- You can disable automatic blending when you edit the boundaries of
overlap regionsto save time when you are editing many overlap boundaries.
Here's a more complete list of new features:
-
Image quality
improvements:
-
Bicubic
interpolation is now used for warping, cropping, etc. This produces higher quality
images and is about the same speed as before. The Improve quality
(Q+) command is no longer needed in most situations. By reducing the need for
the Q+ command, this improvement can actually reduce overall stitching time if you
disable Q+.
-
Lanczos2
interpolation is now used for resizing images. This produces higher quality resized
images. And it is faster than the old resizing!
-
Improvements
to the fine
tuning computation (with no user interface changes) makes the effect of
the fine tuning regions more stable and more localized. This change
reduces the problem some people describe as "the fine tuning rectangles
are good, but when I approve fine tuning the image becomes blurry
again."
-
Image
sharpening is now done with Unsharp Masking (like Photoshop's tool).
It's higher quality and faster than the old method.
-
Fully
automatic stitching now automatically corrects for small camera rotations (roll axis).
-
Stitching with
"stitch points" is available as an alternative to fully automatic stitching.
-
It is now
possible to stitch images with camera rotation (roll axis, up to 30
degrees) and tilt (pitch axis, up to 60 degrees) when stitch points are
used, even if the rotation angles are different for each photo. This
makes it possible to do hand-held panoramas and panoramas with the camera
tilted up or down.
-
A perspective
correction option has been added to the crop command. This makes it
possible to produce images that have conventional perspective. In
other words, these images do not exhibit "panoramic distortion". On
the contrary, perspective correction preserves straight lines.
-
It is now
possible to control control initial view (pan, tilt, zoom) and automatic rotation for VR
viewers (QTVR, IVR, PTViewer).
-
"Correct
barrel distortion" and "Correct brightness falloff" commands
were added for correction of individual
images that are not part of a panorama.
-
A new Wizard stitching
mode was added for single-row
document stitching of large documents that were scanned in sections.
-
Export to Photoshop PSD
format was added. Each original image is in its own layer using layer
transparency for blending effects and adjustment layers for exposure
matching and exposure correction.
-
The Wizard is now a dockable
dialog box. You can dock it to the left, right, top or bottom of the
window so that it does not cover parts of the image.
-
You can now start the Wizard from a set
of selected thumbnails. This provides the ability to run the Wizard on
images processed with other commands such as trimming, resizing, rotating,
etc.
-
You can restart the Wizard on a
previously stitched panorama. This makes it possible to update a
panorama previously stitched with the Wizard or to switch between Wizard
and Classic (menu-base) stitching.
-
You can add and/or remove images from
previously stitched panoramas after restarting the Wizard.
-
Most commands in the New
image menu (Resize, Sharpen, etc.) can be applied to a group of images by
selecting multiple thumbnails before applying the command.
-
Horizontal and vertical
symmetry can be forced for the crop command.
-
V4 applies falloff correction
before barrel correction (instead of after barrel correction the way V3
did). This makes falloff correction stable when the barrel correction is
adjusted.
-
The program plays a sound upon completion
of long processing operations. You can disable the sound if you
wish.
-
Blending regions can be drawn as
irregular shapes with a freehand drawing tool (they were always
rectangular in V3).
-
You can disable automatic
blending when you edit the boundaries of overlap regions. You can
edit several overlap boundaries and then request the program to blend all
unblended regions. This saves time when you are editing many overlap
boundaries.
-
A new command
has been added under the Image menu and the
stitched image right-click menu to open the selected overlap region.
This makes it easier to open an overlap region without accidentally
editing its boundary.
-
Instead of recalculating
derived images automatically when they become out of date as the result of
changing their prerequisite images, display a grey thumbnail with a "?".
Double-clicking the thumbnail recomputes the image. This avoids wasting
time when you repeatedly change a prerequisite image.
-
The Wizard displays quick
tips in a popup message box the first time a Wizard step is entered.
You can disable the quick tips.
-
The Wizard resets to "Automatically
detect focal length" each time it start. Automatic detection is
strongly recommended.
-
Holding the CTRL+SHIFT keys
momentarily zooms to 500% for precise
positioning of stitching points.
-
The CTRL key can no longer be used for 10 pixel movement in conjunction
with the arrow keys. The SHIFT key can still be used. CTRL+SHIFT now
performs momentary zoom, so it no longer produces 100 pixel movement.
-
The 'z' key temporarily selects the zoom-in cursor while held down.
The 'a' key temporarily selects the zoom-out cursor while held down.
The 'd' key temporarily selects the drag cursor while held down.
-
The default folder for saving projects and for saving images is now
updated when you import images
top
What's new in V3.4?
-
New language translations
were added for Dutch, Slovak and Russian.
-
The following trouble reports
are corrected in V3.4:
TR 413 Abnormal termination at 0x696b1a1b creating thumbnail
TR 427 QTVR images are not properly interpolated
TR 428 Entering a number into falloff amount resets the falloff size to
100%
TR 439 Extended characters are exported incorrectly to QTVR
TR 443 Cannot return to default size in Trimming properties dialog box
TR 452 Wizard memory management is inefficient for "Automatically apply
Q+ command"
TR 462 Local Help pages display a security warning or blank window
under Windows XP Service Pack 2
TR 464 Extended characters are exported incorrectly to
PTViewer
-
More than 150 new cameras were added to the camera library.
top
What's new in V3.3?
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V3.3:
TR 348 Nikon View
cannot read JPEG files written by The Panorama Factory
TR 374 Abnormal
termination at 0x69676443 or 0x6967644E
TR 376 QTVR quality
scale is not comparable to the JPEG quality scale
TR 397 Error -8972
when saving a QTVR
TR 399 Horizontal
panning and hotspots are incorrect when "Automatic Resize" is used for a
partial panorama with PTViewer
TR 400 The "&"
character is not imported correctly from HTML files
TR 402 Image
resolution is not stored or loaded from BMP files
These changes correct the
problems that were addressed in the pfactory_patch_3201 and
pfactory_patch_3202 patches. You do not need to apply these patches after
installing V3.3.
-
The Quicktime image quality
scale on the QTVR settings dialog box is now comparable to the image
quality scale on the JPEG settings dialog box. You should use a setting
around 75 for a good compromise between image quality and file size.
-
The File Type choices on the
Import Images dialog box and Save Image As dialog box are now persistent.
The File Type choices now behave like the other controls on these dialog
boxes. In other words, the settings are saved when you exit the program
and restored the next time you run The Panorama Factory.
-
53 cameras were
added to the camera library.
top
What's new in V3.2?
-
Thanks to a great group of
volunteer translators, The Panorama Factory is now available in German, French,
Italian, Hungarian and Czech. Online help is
supplied in a "bilingual" format showing commands, buttons, etc. in the
local language with explanations in English. To run in one of these languages, you do not need to download a new copy
of the software. Instead, The Panorama Factory V3 provides language
localization through a "string table" file which you select on the Options
dialog box (Tools menu). As additional string tables become available they
will be added to the download page at The Panorama Factory web site.
String table files are provided to customers at no charge.
-
The following trouble reports are
corrected in V3.2:
TR 320 Incorrect
hyperlinks on the Camera properties and Wizard Step 2 help pages
TR 326 Inefficient
memory usage if you save the project before completing Wizard 5
TR 327 Incorrect
hyperlinks on License and Registration panel and final Wizard panel
TR 328 Image
properties requires 0.1 to 10000 for image size
TR 329 Trimming
properties doesn't accept size larger than 10000
TR 333 JPE
is not recognized as a valid file type for jpeg images
TR 350 PFBatch
receives "out of memory" errors when it should not
TR 361 Abnormal
termination in German V2.4
TR 370 Hotspots
are incorrect when "Automatic Resize" is used with IVR format
-
Nearly 100 cameras have been added to the camera library.
-
Several dialog boxes were enlarged
to make room for the text when The Panorama Factory is translated into other
languages.
-
Initial copies of The
Panorama Factory V3.2 release notes indicated that the following trouble report
was corrected:
TR 348 Nikon
View cannot read JPEG files written by The Panorama Factory
Unfortunately, the correction for this trouble report was not included in the final
build. A patch is available for V3.2 which corrects this problem. If
you encounter the problem, you may request a copy of the patch by writing to
support@panoramafactory.com.
Please refer to "Trouble report 348" in your message.
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What's new in V3.1?
- The following trouble reports are
corrected in V3.1:
TR 25 Setting HFOV or VFOV to 0 creates bad
VR files.
TR 254 Target= is generated incorrectly for QTVR.
TR 257 Abnormal termination importing a PTViewer
panorama.
TR 258 The help page for the Image properties dialog box
is incomplete
TR 260 The initial view in QuickTime should show the
center of the image
TR 266 Help topics (Help menu) goes to web help even
with local help installed
TR 268 Setup fails silently when minimum display
requirements are not met
TR 270 The stitched image turns black after changing the
45-bit option
TR 271 The setting for automatic brightness falloff
correction is not stored in the profile
TR 283 Partial panoramas do not work properly with IVR
format
TR 284 Importing an IVR image does not set HFOV and VFOV
TR 285 Exception at 0x696b7982 when duplicating imported
images
TR 287 Camera library values for Nikon D1 and D100 off
by about 1%
- Small improvements were made in the language localization mechanisms
to enable translation of The Panorama Factory into other languages.
- The numeric values for barrel correction and brightness falloff
correction were changed from decimal fractions to percentages to make
the numbers more intuitive. Only the scale of the displayed numbers
was changed, not their meaning.
To convert V3.0 values to V3.1, simply multiply by 100. The
values stored in project files created with V3.0 are automatically
converted when loaded into The Panorama Factory. This change
applies to the Camera properties
dialog box and the Overlap
region dialog box.
- A new option was added to the Rotate image dialog box to control
whether the size of the result image should be adjusted to fit the
entire rotated image without cropping or kept the same as the size
of the source image.
- New cameras that were released after V3.0 were added to the camera
library.
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What's new in V3.0? V3.0 adds many
new features and improvements. The
most exciting new developments in V3.0 are:
Here's a more complete list of new features:
Hotspots and other VR improvements
- You can add URL hotspots to an image using the
Hotspots command (Image
menu) and the Hotspot properties dialog. When you export the image, the hotspots are saved according
to the export format. You can use the hotspots to create virtual
tours by hyperlinking from one view to another.
- VR images can be exported (along with their hotspots) in
QTVR, IVR,
PTViewer and HTML image map formats. Additional export
filters are planned.
- You can now export partial panoramas (less than 360 degrees) to VR
formats like QTVR,
IVR, PTViewer
- The ActiveX and Java versions of the IVR (Zoom) viewer are now
supported through the IVR
settings dialog.
- The size of the viewer displayed on a web page can now be controlled
independently of the image file size on
Wizard Step 5 and on the
Save image as dialog box.
- The Import image command can now import VR images (along with their
hotspots, if any) in QTVR,
IVR, PTViewer and HTML
image map formats.
Additional import filters are planned.
- The Image properties
dialog (Image menu) now allows you to indicate that an image is a panoramic image and set
its projection and field of view in the Image properties dialog.
This gives you the capability to:
- Import panoramic images stored as ordinary image files (e.g.
JPEG).
- Add hotspots.
- Re-export in any VR format.
Saving images and creating web pages
- When you save an image with the
Save current image command
(File menu), the Save image as dialog box
offers the option of automatically creating a new web page containing
that image. (This was previously available only through the Wizard). A set of web page templates are provided with The
Panorama Factory and you can create your own templates.
- Automatic thumbnail creation is also available through the
Save image as dialog box. (It was previously available only through the Wizard).
The thumbnail image is added to a thumbnail index web page. A set of web page templates are provided with The
Panorama Factory and you can create your own templates.
- If you have already created a web page containing your image, you can
update the image in the web page. The Panorama Factory will update
the HTML code for the image without changing other content in the page.
You can use this to update the HTML for hotspots, the size of the image,
the format of the image and any other image-specific HTML code.
- Image previewing in a web browser is now available through the
Save image as dialog box. (It was previously available only through the Wizard).
- The Save image as dialog box gives you the ability to compute and
display the image file size and automatically reaize the image to enforce
a maximum file size when saving.
New image file formats and options
- PNG image file import and export is now supported.
- The image quality (compression ratio) of JPEG and QTVR images can be
controlled on the JPEG
setttings and QTVR
settings dialog boxes.
- The image compression format of QTVR images can now be controlled on
the QTVR settings dialog box.
- You can now export 48-bit images with color correction to PNG or TIFF
formats. (In
V2.4, 48-bit images could be exported only without color correction
applied.) You choose this option on the
PNG settings and
TIFF settings dialog
boxes.
Camera library improvements
- Support for digital SLRs has been added to
Wizard Step 2 and the
Camera properties dialog
box (Tools menu). Many digital SLRs are
in the camera library and three strategies are available to handle cameras
that are not in the library:
- Actual sensor dimensions.
- Focal length multiplier.
- 35mm equivalent focal length.
- Many digital cameras, including digital SLRs, have been added to the list available in the
Camera properties dialog
box (Tools menu)and Wizard
Step 2 - Describe your camera.
- Add-on focal length converters (wide angle and tele converters) are
supported.
Stitching improvements
- Automatic (and manual) correction for
barrel distortion is now
possible.
- Automatic (and manual) correction for
brightness falloff is now
possible.
- Focal length refinement should be faster for many data sets.
- The alignment step is now faster for many data sets.
Better manual controls
- A compare option showing image differences is now available during
manual adjustment in overlap regions. This highlights differences
between the overlapping images to make it easier to spot misalignment.
- Focal length, barrel correction and falloff correction can now be
interactively adjusted when an
overlap region is open.
- Image-to-image alignment can be adjusted manually by dragging one
image across the other with the mouse.
- You can adjust the offset within a
fine tuning rectangle using the
mouse or keyboard. (V2.4 provided only the keyboard method.)
- Image decorations (used for fine tuning rectangles, hotspots, overlap
regions, etc) can now be multiple-selected and deleted or moved in groups.
Miscellaneous
- Language localization is supported through local language string
tables.
- Images that are saved by unregistered copies of the application are
now marked with a watermark.
- Correctly display images on dialogs (especially the Wizard dialogs) so that
the background color of the images will match the background color of the
dialog even if the color scheme changes.
- Make the Show source command
(Image menu) work sensibly for stitched images.
It will select the source thumbnails.
- Imported images are now copied into the project without changing the
format to BMP or TIFF. This saves disk space for imported JPG
images.
- By default, The Panorama Factory now has a single document interface
(SDI). To conserve RAM, only one stitching project is open at a
time. You can use the Compatibility tab of the
Options dialog box (Tools menu)
to enable the multiple document interface (MDI) for V2 compatibility.
Bug fixes
- Correct Trouble report 222 -
Printing to alternate paper size does not work.
- Correct Trouble report 100 - Blank
pages when printing or previewing.
- Correct Trouble report 107 -
Toolbar buttons do not display properly after many stitching sessions.
- This version uses the Wise Installer rather than InstallShield.
This corrects Trouble report 63 - An
error occurred during the move process: -113.
- Correct Trouble report 198 -
Abnormal termination when saving a project after creating a QTVR.
- Improve performance for images that are not square. Images that
are very long and skinny would sometimes produce out-of-memory errors in
V2.4. These images can now be stitched. Corrects
Trouble report 212 - "Out of memory"
error when stitching long, thin images.
- Correct Trouble report 91 - Cannot
control the displayed size of a QTVR image.
- Fix a problem that caused fine tuning rectangles to grow larger each
time you touched them with the mouse.
- A bug has been corrected that sometimes produced a visible line at the
edge of the blend region.
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What's new in V2.4?
- Many digital cameras added to the list available in the Camera properties dialog and
Wizard Step 2 - Describe your camera.
- Corrects Trouble report 68 -- Incorrect scrolling of
images wider than 16384 pixels.
- Corrects Trouble report 85 -- Print preview is
incorrect when resolution matches exactly.
- Corrects Trouble report 86 -- Can't run page setup
again after printing.
- Corrects Trouble report 87 -- Some setup changes made
in the Print dialog don't work properly.
- Corrects Trouble report 88 -- Minimum margins are
incorrect after selecting a new printer.
- Corrects Trouble report 89 -- Projects including Array
images are saved correctly.
- Corrects Trouble report 90 -- Alignment and fine
tuning changes are not saved when an overlap region is open.
- Corrects Trouble report 92 -- Abnormal termination at
0x100071xx.
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What's new in V2.3?
- Many digital cameras added to the list available in the Camera properties dialog and
Wizard Step 2 - Describe your camera.
- Corrects Trouble report 30 -- Adobe PhotoDeluxe can't
read The Panorama Factory BMP files.
- Corrects Trouble report 58 -- New images sometimes
seem to overwrite old ones.
- Corrects Trouble report 64 -- Fine tune and Clear fine
tuning commands are unavailable.
- Corrects Trouble report 65 -- Save QTVR panorama as...
and Save IVR panorama as... commands are missing.
- Corrects Trouble report 69 -- Cylindrical projection
doesn't work correctly after saving the project.
- Corrects Trouble report 77 -- Blending discontinuity
from the Improve quality (Q+) command.
- Corrects Trouble report 78 -- Some values revert to
defaults when you reopen Page setup.
- Corrects Trouble report 79 -- Abnormal termination
when deleting stitched image if overlap region is open.
- Corrects Trouble report 80 -- Some message boxes can
be hidden by the main window
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What's new in V2.2?
- Corrects Trouble report 54 -- Printing can be very
slow.
- Corrects Trouble report 55 -- Running two copies of PF
causes problems.
- Corrects Trouble report 56 -- V2.x may silently
overwrite parts of projects created by V1.x.
- Resolves Trouble report 57 -- Inefficient memory usage
in V2.0 and V2.1.
- Corrects Trouble report 58 -- New images sometimes
seem to overwrite old ones.
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What's new in V2.1?
- Adds a "splash page" when the program starts up.
- Corrects Trouble report 46 -- Very small fine tuning
rectangles cause abnormal termination.
- Corrects Trouble report 48 -- Large tiled images do
not print correctly.
- Corrects Trouble report 49 -- Width and height are
reversed on Trimming properties dialog.
- Resolves Trouble report 50 -- QuickTime VR Manager
failed to create panorama.
- Corrects Trouble report 52 -- The object that
'....lnk' refers to has been moved or is unaccessible.
- Makes minor wording changes and clarifications to the help and the Users' Guide.
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What's new in V2.0?
V2.0 introduced many new features and improvements over to the freeware
version V1.6. The
most significant developments in V2.0 are:
- A New Project Wizard that helps you create new stitching projects with just a few mouse
clicks.
- The ability to create immersive VR panoramas.
- A library of digital camera models.
Here's a more complete list of new features:
- The installation package now includes a printable User's Guide in PDF (Adobe Acrobat)
format.
- The Panorama Factory will automatically recover project files if the program or computer
crashes.
- The project extension has changed from .PAN to .PFP to avoid interfering with the
SmoothMove viewer (Infinite Pictures, Inc.). You can still open and save .PAN
projects, but the default extension is now .PFP.
- You can create circular panoramas with the new
Stitch
360 command.
- The default cropping rectangle now encompasses the maximum usable area of a stitched
panoramic image and parallels the average rise or fall in the image. For more
information, see the Crop command.
- Trim, Crop and
Enhance now show Approve and Cancel buttons. You
can still use the context menu and the green checkmark on the toolbar to approve these
image processing functions. The new Approve and Cancel buttons better meet Windows
user's expectations.
- You are no longer permitted to delete images that are sources for other images.
This was the source of many potential problems.
- Image processing menu commands have been reorganized to better distinguish their
functions. Commands that create new images have been moved to the
New image menu menu. Commands that operate on
selected thumbnails have been moved to the Edit menu.
The Image menu now contains only commands that
operate on the current image.
- Some File menu commands have been renamed to better
describe their functions. For example, File--Save is now File--Save project and
File--Save view as is now File current image.
- A new Options dialog lets you control
- Default directories for the Open project,
Import images and
Save current image as commands.
- Colors used for the decorations drawn in the current image pane.
- The size of thumbnail images.
- Panorama Factory profiles have been added to provide a convenient way to store dialog
box values that you want to use later. To learn about profiles, see the Profile organizer dialog box and the Save profile dialog box.
- The Film dimensions and Focal length dialogs are superceded by a single Camera properties dialog. This dialog
knows about many popular digital camera models.
- Focal length refinement is more dependable. It is now available as an automatic
step when you stitch your panorma. See the Camera properties dialog.
- You can now select cylindrical or spherical
reprojection in the Camera properties dialog. Previously The
Panorama Factory only supported spherical reprojection.
- Fine tuning is now faster, making larger fine tuning rectangles more practical.
- A new automatic fine tuning method repeatedly subdivides the overlap region and applies
tighter constraints at each subdivision. In most cases, this method requires less
manual adjustment because it improves the overall consistency of the fine tuning.
- The geometric effect of fine tuning is no longer affected by editing the width of the
blending region. This avoids having the fine tuning change become abrupt when
you make the blending region narrower.
- A new Rotate command lets you rotate any image by an
arbitrary angle.
- A new Array command assembles multiple images into an
image array. This is useful for combining several copies of a panorama or different
panoramas to have a standard aspect ratio for printing.
- You can now save a circular panorama as a
QTVR or IVR file.
- The new Overlap region
dialog offers manual control over the exposure matching between adjacent images.
- The Alignment properties dialog now
offers an option to limit the amount of vertical offset when aligning adjacent images.
- The Blending properties dialog now
offers the option of automatically correcting exposure. This option corrects the
brightness of panoramas that become too dark or too bright through exposure matching.
- The Blending properties dialog option
previously labelled "Auto exposure" is now more correctly labelled "Enable
exposure matching".
- Temporary files ending with $ are cleaned up better.
- Disk full and write protected conditions are handled more gracefully.
- You can open an overlap region by double-clicking on its sides (when the double-headed
arrow cursor is showing).
- The stitched image can be reblended using the Reblend
command (Stitched image menu).
- Automatic alignment during stitching is more accurate.
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What's new in V1.6?
- You now can press ESC to cancel stitching, re-stitching, fine tuning and focal length
computation.
- V1.6 corrects an abnormal termination during fine tuning (see trouble report 19).
- This version also fixes a problem that caused scrolling to be very slow when an overlap
region is open and also caused the preview rectangle to be very slow during image
enhancement.
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What's new in V1.5?
- Reduces RAM requirements by approximately 1 MB times the number of images in the
thumbnail views plus 1.2 MB times the number of warped images. This may improve
performance if the working set for your project is too large to fit in RAM.
- Makes the Improve quality command available when working with 24-bit images.
Previously it was available only for 45-bit images.
- Corrects other problems with the Improve quality command (see trouble reports 26, 27 and 28).
- Corrects the Histogram display for 24-bit images (see trouble report 29).
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What's new in V1.4?
- Corrects Trouble report 23 -- Fine tuning the
alignment doesn't work in V1.3.
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What's new in V1.3?
- Corrects Trouble report 21 -- Improper stitch, no
overlap by limiting the minimum overlap percentage. If you typically overlap 25%
for example, setting this parameter to 20% will eliminate the possiblity of The Panorama
Factory choosing a solution with a very small overlap. See Alignment properties
dialog (Tools menu).
- Corrects Trouble report 22 -- Images "jump"
during manual alignment.
- Addresses the issue raised in the FAQ Why are images saved at
72 dpi files (*.tif) when they started at 300 dpi?. V1.3 preserves the image
resolution of the source images and gives you the opportunity to edit image size and
resolution in inches or cm through the Image
properties dialog and/or the Save Image As
dialog.
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