I did a test today.  You have to be airborne for Pano to function.  Sphere Pano in Single gave me one image file that was a rectangular 360 degree image.  Sphere Pano in Smart did the same.  THEN....I went back to Sphere Pano in Single and then selected Menu  (3 dots in upper right corner) and Camera.  I saw immediately the Photo Type was Off...other choices are Jpeg and Raw...this setting does appear to stay after power off and power back up again. It does not seem to stay with software updates.  I selected Jpeg, initiated the Sphere Pano with the right camera trigger button and now I have 26 images on my SD card...in the DCIM folder you will have 100Media (photos and videos) and Panorama folders!!!  Now I can go to Microsoft ICE (free program), drop the images into the program, select Stereographic, and slide my finger in the middle vertically to make a tiny planet. Sliding one way gives the planet; the other way gives a reverse planet.  There are some YouTube videos on ICE to show you how to select the different settings.  I like having the 26 images because they are the same file size as a normal photo...you can go into the 26 images and save any single photo you like.

If you zoom in to the top of the planet you can see the forest fire on the mountains.  It was 103F or 39.4C so I didn't stay up long!!!

Well done!

Hello Rustic17,

Would you be able to provide me a link to one of the YouTube videos you mentioned with a guide?  Is it specific to the DJI Mavic Air 2?  I noticed that my 360 Panos photos are not taken in a logical order that Microsoft ICE understands.  I have been trying to figure out how to rename/arrange them manually.  How many rows/columns are there in the Panos?  Are your panos taken in a logical order?  Mine do not seem to be taken in a logical order.  It is a top to bottom right to left zig zag, but there are some photos which it appears the MA2 takes out of order.

Mine seem to be in order (sort of)....but I didn't think ICE used the file number...I thought it used scene identification and tried to match like scenes (overlap) in different images.   I could very well be wrong.

Rustic17 Posted at 6-29 11:27
Mine seem to be in order (sort of)....but I didn't think ICE used the file number...I thought it used scene identification and tried to match like scenes (overlap) in different images.   I could very well be wrong.

When you take the photos you should select Photos, Sphere.  After tapping the shutter button you will see the gimbal moving up and down and rotating counterclockwise as it takes 26 photos.  When you download the data from the sd card you will have a DCIM folder with a 100Media folder that has other photos and videos you've taken and a Panorama folder with a folder in it labeled 100_XXXX where XXXX is the file number of the photo/video in the sequence of all photos/videos you have taken.  You open the Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) program.  This program can be used for any group of photos you have taken with any camera just so as there is some overlap.  The program will give you three options.  For a tiny planet, select New Panorama from Images.  It will ask you to Select Overlapping Images.  This is where you select all 26 photos in the 100_XXXX folder.  The 26 photos will appear in ICE.  Select Stitch and you will see two progress bars working.  At the end, a 360 degree photo will appear in rectangular format with a lined rectangle overlay.  For a tiny planet, select Stereographic in the right menu.  Click and hold the center vertical line of the overlay and drag up to make a tiny planet (dragging down makes a reverse planet).  You might need to + or - in the upper right of screen to use the overlay lines and make the sphere symmetric or as desired.  You can click and hold and move left and right or up and down to skew the sphere.  You can move to a corner of the overlay and a rotate icon will generate so you can rotate the sphere as desired.  Select Crop and projecting image will begin.  Once completed, you can crop as desired by moving the corner points.  Sometimes with little cropping desired, the square corners of the crop will be missing image...if you select Auto Complete the program will fill in those corners.  Once you have the sphere cropped as desired, select Export.  A sphere from 26 photos can have a large file size so under Image Size I change it to about 40% if I want to post in the forum (2MB max).  You may have to play with this a little.  Click on Export to Disk, change the file name as desired, and the sphere will be added to the 100_XXXX folder.  I always shoot in Jpeg so I don't know if ICE will handle a RAW file.

Thank you for that guide!  I was able to get a sphere in ICE.   It was able to automatically determine the overlap as you suggested it would.  I did not have to rename or attempt to arrange the photos manually in the app.

BigJay517 Posted at 6-29 17:02
Thank you for that guide!  I was able to get a sphere in ICE.   It was able to automatically determine the overlap as you suggested it would.  I did not have to rename or attempt to arrange the photos manually in the app.

Happy it worked for you!!!  I sometimes take my DLSR and shoot a burst of vertical photos panning across a landscape.  ICE handles them nicely.

Hello there Rustic17. Thank you for reaching out and for sharing this informative information on how you have created this wonderful Sphere using your DJI Mavic Air. Great work and fly safe always.

Microsoft ICE is really a great piece of software! Thanks to this thread I stumbled across it

I've been experimenting with various approaches to get the best quality panos. The built-in mashing together that the drone does is great, no complaints. But, there are ways to get even better results and I especially appreciate the freedom to choose type of projection in Ice.

My approach at the moment is the following.

Set up to save as RAW in the drone app. Pull the dngs into my backup RAW converter, Photoshop/Adobe Camera RAW (I don't use Lightroom but Capture One for my system cameras and its tied to a specific brand) do the base adjustments to all the images, export from ACR and pull those files into Microsoft Ice. If you pull the .dngs straight into Ice it will only use the small embedded preview .jpgs in the .dngs. From Ice I export either to a finished file, format/size, or max resolution for final tweaks and adjustments in Photoshop. Its less complicated than it sounds like.

A quick and dirty example. A 180 degree pano from 21 images of my hometown.

First the scene run through the afforementioned process resulting in a file just shy of 14 000 pixels wide before resizing, then the drone .jpg. Needless to say, the resolution and quality up close on the Ice version is quite impressive and difficult to convey in a web browser. The quick and dirty processing I choose might not however be to everyone's taste. Its a sample.

Very nice work!!!

Just out of curiosity, how does the Air 2 get the sphere with 26 photos, when the Spark had to do 46? The FOV of the Air 2 is 84° which is just slightly wider than the Spark (81.9°). Does this mean less overlap?

akosh Posted at 10-17 05:43
Just out of curiosity, how does the Air 2 get the sphere with 26 photos, when the Spark had to do 46? The FOV of the Air 2 is 84° which is just slightly wider than the Spark (81.9°). Does this mean less overlap?

Sorry...I have no idea.

Very interesting, thank you!

M4cr0s Posted at 6-30 02:07
Microsoft ICE is really a great piece of software! Thanks to this thread I stumbled across it  

I've been experimenting with various approaches to get the best quality panos. The built-in mashing together that the drone does is great, no complaints. But, there are ways to get even better results and I especially appreciate the freedom to choose type of projection in Ice.

However, Mavic Air 2 does not have the option to record only in ROW and to have 20-30 Row photos at the end.
In panorama, everything is done in the drone, which is a big misunderstanding given that the Mavic Air 1 has this option.
I hope they fix this omission soon
Otherwise, it is always better to assemble the panorama yourself with a program for a better result.
But at the moment I don't see how this can be done with Mavic Air 2

Rustic17 Posted at 10-17 07:41
Sorry...I have no idea.

I've did some experiment, basically the Spark seems to have a much bigger overlap: https://forum.dji.com/forum.php?mod=viewthread&tid=227178

This is totally nuts! Nowhere in the DJI info sheets or manual I have does it stipulate all this procedure of having to stitch pano photos together oneself ! I have a Mavic Air 2, have taken a couple of Pano Sphere shots along with other types, and the Pano Sphere ones are simply not recorded on my micro-SD card even though I was able to view them on my smartphone while flying the drone. DJI, you really need to be clearer and more professional about how this photo mode works exactly. I have 50+ photos on my card, how the heck am I supposed to know which of these are the 26 jpgs which make up the Pano Sphere final image??? I took a variety of other shots such as AEB, 48MP, Smart, etc. When I viewed the library it showed the 2 Pano Sphere shots completed ie stitched together, so why aren't these final images exported to my SD card? Nuts ! DJI you have let yourselves down, you make the most brilliant of drone, the product design equals that of Apple (no other computer manufacturer or OS creator comes anywhere near to the excellent design of Apple) yet you offer no clarity on this Pano business...
Duh!

Rustic17 Posted at 2020-6-29 14:40
When you take the photos you should select Photos, Sphere.  After tapping the shutter button you will see the gimbal moving up and down and rotating counterclockwise as it takes 26 photos.  When you download the data from the sd card you will have a DCIM folder with a 100Media folder that has other photos and videos you've taken and a Panorama folder with a folder in it labeled 100_XXXX where XXXX is the file number of the photo/video in the sequence of all photos/videos you have taken.  You open the Microsoft ICE (Image Composite Editor) program.  This program can be used for any group of photos you have taken with any camera just so as there is some overlap.  The program will give you three options.  For a tiny planet, select New Panorama from Images.  It will ask you to Select Overlapping Images.  This is where you select all 26 photos in the 100_XXXX folder.  The 26 photos will appear in ICE.  Select Stitch and you will see two progress bars working.  At the end, a 360 degree photo will appear in rectangular format with a lined rectangle overlay.  For a tiny planet, select Stereographic in the right menu.  Click and hold the center vertical line of the overlay and drag up to make a tiny planet (dragging down makes a reverse planet).  You might need to + or - in the upper right of screen to use the overlay lines and make the sphere symmetric or as desired.  You can click and hold and move left and right or up and down to skew the sphere.  You can move to a corner of the overlay and a rotate icon will generate so you can rotate the sphere as desired.  Select Crop and projecting image will begin.  Once completed, you can crop as desired by moving the corner points.  Sometimes with little cropping desired, the square corners of the crop will be missing image...if you select Auto Complete the program will fill in those corners.  Once you have the sphere cropped as desired, select Export.  A sphere from 26 photos can have a large file size so under Image Size I change it to about 40% if I want to post in the forum (2MB max).  You may have to play with this a little.  Click on Export to Disk, change the file name as desired, and the sphere will be added to the 100_XXXX folder.  I always shoot in Jpeg so I don't know if ICE will handle a RAW file.

Excellent post, save my day.
Just a question, what you use on PC to view pictures for panoramic effect?

valyl Posted at 1-5 14:42
Excellent post, save my day.
Just a question, what you use on PC to view pictures for panoramic effect?

For 360 Panos, I upload to Google Photos to view on my PC, smartphone, or to share with others. In all situations the pano is presented by Photos as a sphere where you can use your mosue (PC), finger or compass (smartphone) to rotate the sphere. Facebook will treat the 360 pano as a sphere as well if you create a post, including the pano in a reply will be shown as a flat image.

valyl Posted at 1-5 14:42
Excellent post, save my day.
Just a question, what you use on PC to view pictures for panoramic effect?

Facebook, Flickr, SkyPixl, Roundme all provide for 360 viewing.  Theta on IOS.

The EXIF data has to be 'correct'.  This program extremely helpful.  https://www.thexifer.net/index.php

Thanks for the tip.  I get the state of the photo selection returning to default when powering on.  The usability consistency is understandable.  It is nice that the images can be broken out.

how about a Mac user as ICE is for only Windows ?

When I download my piano photos from the drones sd card this what they look like on my Windows PC what am I doing wrong?

You need to look for a folder named Panoramas…in it you will find the 26 pictures.  Read the original post and subsequent reply by me.

Rustic17 Posted at 3-14 08:31
You need to look for a folder named Panoramas…in it you will find the 26 pictures.  Read the original post and subsequent reply by me.

Thank you will do