I have been using my Spark in horizontal pano mode to take suset photos.  In some cases, when I use DJI Media Maker to stich the shots, the output is a 11138 x 3598 jpeg, but in other cases the resultant image is 11217 x 2864--essentially missing the top row of shots.  In all cases there is the same number of component shots in the folder.  Is there anything I can do to prevent this?  The top row is pretty important in these.

i haven't noticed this behaviour before; then again, i've only shot a few PANO's.  I'll have to test it the next time i'm out.  Have you tried using Lightroom instead of DJI MM?

Sir, can you provide the original photos for further check? Please tell me the firmware of your drone and the version of your app. Thanks for your support.

Sunset pictures, assumingly the 'top row' is only sky here, right?
It might be media maker cant see enough overlaps to realize another row is there.

You are using the 21 pic pano mode, right?
Are you on PC? Try microsoft ICE for a test.

"The top row is pretty important in these. "
But b/c in the 21 pic mode it is easy to identify (not like in the 46 Spheres ), try to set in one 'middle/top' pair , preferable at the left or right side, a 'overlap' by hand
Paint a short line in, on both. And see what is happening after that in media maker.

I believe the final pano resolution is variable due to the amount of overlap needed to stitch the images together.  For example, if wind is moving the Spark slightly, the images won't be perfectly aligned and more overlap might be needed to render a pano with few/little/no stitching errors.

I might be wrong about this, but I wrote software for doing VR/panoramic images around 25 years ago and misalignment was something I had to account for and ultimately crop the final pano image after alignment.

Perhaps DJI Elektra can verify this with the developers or pass along the correct answer.
Just giving some quick thoughts on what's going on.

DJI Elektra Posted at 2018-1-25 20:25
Sir, can you provide the original photos for further check? Please tell me the firmware of your drone and the version of your app. Thanks for your support.

I tried to zip and attach the shots, but it seems this board is not able to accommodate uploads > 1M.  All the pics are bigger than that.  Is there some other way to get the files to you?  
I can't seem to find the actual firmware and app versions.  But I just got the Spark a few weeks ago.  So the app is the latest available in the Play store, it says I'm running the latest firmware, and Media Maker the latest available for download.

S-e-ven Posted at 2018-1-25 20:54
Sunset pictures, assumingly the 'top row' is only sky here, right?
It might be media maker cant see enough overlaps to realize another row is there.

Was not aware of ICE.  Will give that a try.

cormanaz Posted at 2018-1-27 07:38
I tried to zip and attach the shots, but it seems this board is not able to accommodate uploads > 1M.  All the pics are bigger than that.  Is there some other way to get the files to you?  
I can't seem to find the actual firmware and app versions.  But I just got the Spark a few weeks ago.  So t8he app is the latest available in the Play store, it says I'm running the latest firmware, and Media Maker the latest available for download.

Upload to dropbox and send/post  the link

And yes, try ICE and post that result here too, please

cormanaz Posted at 2018-1-27 07:38
I tried to zip and attach the shots, but it seems this board is not able to accommodate uploads > 1M.  All the pics are bigger than that.  Is there some other way to get the files to you?  
I can't seem to find the actual firmware and app versions.  But I just got the Spark a few weeks ago.  So the app is the latest available in the Play store, it says I'm running the latest firmware, and Media Maker the latest available for download.

Upload to google and send/post  the link

And yes, try ICE and post that result here too, please

S-e-ven Posted at 2018-1-27 20:20
Upload to google and send/post  the link

And yes, try ICE and post that result here too, please

OK here is a Drive link https://drive.google.com/open?id ... -7p9-JzzMVKZkJM3-sQ.  It has a zip with the original shots, the result when stitching with Media Maker, and the result stitching with ICE.  The ICE one worked, but man it sure took some time to figure out how to order the shots and set the settings.  Is there a tutorial anywhere on how to use it with Spark panos?

https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=117483

(on the right side of the main forum page ;-)

Why don't you insert both pictures in here?

(I do it for you, ok?)

Totally different. Glad ICE did the trick! Great sunsets, btw!
Oh, I couldn't resist, so I created in ICE a kind of a little planet out of your 180° Pano!
(wanted to try that anyway. This looked promising ;-)

S-e-ven Posted at 2018-1-28 08:32
Totally different. Glad ICE did the trick! Great sunsets, btw!
Oh, I couldn't resist, so I created in ICE a kind of a little planet out of your 180° Pano!
(wanted to try that anyway. This looked promising ;-)

Good work!   

Cool!  So I guess the moral of the story is, use ICE rather than Media Maker.  Still don't know why Media Maker cuts off the top row, only for some panos.  Maybe DJI doesn't have as much software engineering horsepower as Microsoft?    Thanks for all the input everyone.

cormanaz Posted at 2018-1-28 08:14
OK here is a Drive link https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Xj2p9Zws4YBw--7p9-JzzMVKZkJM3-sQ.  It has a zip with the original shots, the result when stitching with Media Maker, and the result stitching with ICE.  The ICE one worked, but man it sure took some time to figure out how to order the shots and set the settings.  Is there a tutorial anywhere on how to use it with Spark panos?

Thanks for your update. I would help you forward this situation for further analysis.