Does the mini 3 pro stitch panoramas while it is flying like the Mavic Air 2 & 2S? (mini 2 requires downloading of images to the controller where they are stitched.)

2nd question, if panoramas are stitched while flying, does the image include the metadata to make it a panorama in google photos?

Got a mini 3 Pro earlier this week.  Answers to the above questions are.
1. M3P will stitch Panos while flying.
2. Yes metadata is included in the stitched file.
Sadly the sky is NOT filled in even though the M3P can capture it.

Hummingbird.UAV Posted at 7-28 19:04
Got a mini 3 Pro earlier this week.  Answers to the above questions are.
1. M3P will stitch Panos while flying.
2. Yes metadata is included in the stitched file.

There have been many requests for DJI to change the Pano Sphere Mode to allow Vertical mode and automatically take all required images for a true 360 x 180.

For the time being if using something like PTGUI to stitch your 360 x 180 Panos it will allow you to combine manual vertical shots to cover your Zenith portion with the auto sphere shots to create a perfect 360 x 180 pano. It's just not all automatic :-(

I have also found it's better to let PTGUI stitch the auto sphere first then add the manual vertical shots later and re-stitch. Does a great job!

Bussty Posted at 7-28 21:21
There have been many requests for DJI to change the Pano Sphere Mode to allow Vertical mode and automatically take all required images for a true 360 x 180.

For the time being if using something like PTGUI to stitch your 360 x 180 Panos it will allow you to combine manual vertical shots to cover your Zenith portion with the auto sphere shots to create a perfect 360 x 180 pano. It's just not all automatic :-(

There may be a good reason why it's not forthcoming, I say "may".

The more images added to the pano the larger the file becomes (obvious I know) and more resources are needed. Perhaps there's just not enough steam left? I really hope not but it is possible.

I wish there was some way DJI could let us know what features are being worked on or have been declined. That way we wouldn't be left wondering and guessing for months on end.

DreamWorks Posted at 7-28 22:18
There may be a good reason why it's not forthcoming, I say "may".

The more images added to the pano the larger the file becomes (obvious I know) and more resources are needed. Perhaps there's just not enough steam left? I really hope not but it is possible.

Could be, I think if the processing was an issue for DJI they should just let the drone take the images and we stitch later. DJI make great drones but they aren't experts in Panorama stitching. There are some really good softwares out there that will do a great job if given the source files.

Would be great to see what is on the DJI Roadmap for improvement but they just seem to say they are looking at everything then one day pop up with an enhancement, just seems to be their way...

Apart from a full 360x180 sphere, I would love the option to save a stitched DNG as well.

Bussty Posted at 7-28 21:21
There have been many requests for DJI to change the Pano Sphere Mode to allow Vertical mode and automatically take all required images for a true 360 x 180.

For the time being if using something like PTGUI to stitch your 360 x 180 Panos it will allow you to combine manual vertical shots to cover your Zenith portion with the auto sphere shots to create a perfect 360 x 180 pano. It's just not all automatic :-(

Hi Bussty,

I think the method with a complete sphere will only work if the entire shooting regime is changed to vertical mode – with all the problems that entails. The previous method of shooting three rows in landscape mode and turning the camera on 'vertical' for the fourth shot at each pan to 60 degrees will not work. I guess the problem for DJI is that four rows in landscape mode still leaves a small hole at zenith. That's messy and not DJI-perfect.

However, your method of shooting the fourth row manually in vertical mode leaves the horizontal overlap difficult because of the narrow width of the shots. Add to that the jumpiness of the compass, and creating a gapless fourth row is very difficult.

But why don't you shoot the fourth row in landscape mode as well? Because the images are much wider, a much greater tolerance in the compass jumps is possible. The following shot I took as a first try on an unattractive field. After completing the 'normal' sphere, the fourth row was done manually, horizontally and with estimated compass distances. Then I imported the original DNGs quick and dirty with the original names (7 pieces DJI_0001.DNG - DJI_0007.DNG + 26 pieces PANO0001.DNG - PANO0026.DNG) into PanoramaStudio 3 Pro. After 'aligning', you can clearly see that even large jumps between shots in the top row are sufficient for complete coverage.



The unfilled narrow border at the top can then be easily filled in PS CC 2018 or in Affinity Photo:



This way seems much easier to me manually than using the vertical camera perspective to fill the zenith.

SPLflyer Posted at 7-31 07:37
Hi Bussty,

I think the method with a complete sphere will only work if the entire shooting regime is changed to vertical mode – with all the problems that entails. The previous method of shooting three rows in landscape mode and turning the camera on 'vertical' for the fourth shot at each pan to 60 degrees will not work. I guess the problem for DJI is that four rows in landscape mode still leaves a small hole at zenith. That's messy and not DJI-perfect.

Hey SPLflyer

Cheers for this info, I think I have only used the vertical mode as it was just one additional row (8 images and done) I guess I thought it would be faster rather than shooting a landscape sequence for that forth row and one or two more if I wanted to capture that very top hole.

Your email is quite timely as I stitched the below pano last night and it was standard sphere then 8 verticals and I must have not lined up the shots close enough as I did have a small hole at the very top so I had to manually fill but it was tiny.

I like what you are thinking  though and I will have to try it out, I might have to just add one or two vertical shots to grab that top small hole.

I'm sure DJI can program this as one stitch the drone is made for it. Interestingly I just started using the compass and not maps to judge the rotation of the drone and is showing a lot smoother, I might look to reduce sensitivity on the sticks to.

Thanks for posting...



Cheers

Bussty
P.S Love how you can now get lens flare right to the top! :-)

Bussty Posted at 7-31 21:55
Hey SPLflyer

Cheers for this info, I think I have only used the vertical mode as it was just one additional row (8 images and done) I guess I thought it would be faster rather than shooting a landscape sequence for that forth row and one or two more if I wanted to capture that very top hole.

I'll try that with one or two additional vertical shots - it's a good idea! Even if then my special lens flare must believe in it ;o)

Cheers
SPLflyer

SPLflyer Posted at 8-1 00:27
I'll try that with one or two additional vertical shots - it's a good idea! Even if then my special lens flare must believe in it ;o)

Cheers

Lol we will have to compare notes :-)

Bussty Posted at 8-1 02:42
Lol we will have to compare notes :-)

Just read a May posting from you in the "Colour artefacts"-thread: "Was quiet impressed with Panorama Studio 3 seems to be able to do stitches PTGUI can't and quite a bit cheaper."

My words... ;-)

SPLflyer Posted at 8-1 03:38
Just read a May posting from you in the "Colour artefacts"-thread: "Was quiet impressed with Panorama Studio 3 seems to be able to do stitches PTGUI can't and quite a bit cheaper."

My words... ;-)

Now I have nailed the stitches in PTGUI no point in owning anything else, but was still quite impressed with Panorama Studio. Was also very happy to learn from the author of PTGUI that it can place images based on GPS and pitch etc and this has definitely been the case when stitching those 8 vertical blank sky shots. I do get better results stitching the DJI so called sphere first in PTGUI then adding the manuals.

Cheers

Bussty

Bussty Posted at 8-1 17:15
Now I have nailed the stitches in PTGUI no point in owning anything else, but was still quite impressed with Panorama Studio. Was also very happy to learn from the author of PTGUI that it can place images based on GPS and pitch etc and this has definitely been the case when stitching those 8 vertical blank sky shots. I do get better results stitching the DJI so called sphere first in PTGUI then adding the manuals.

Cheers

Good morning (on my side of the world ;-)), Bussty

I'm more convinced than ever from PS3P. Earlier versions had problems with the direct import of DJI DNGs – there were strong color distortions. That's why I always had to develop the image series with Adobe Camera Raw before. This also eliminated the vignetting and distortions using the camera profile.



I was therefore very surprised when, just for a quick stitching attempt, I inserted the original DNGs (+ the manual 4th row) into PS3P and, without any manual intervention before rendering, got the almost perfect result shown 6 posts above already after aligning. The distortions and vignetting were completely taken out and corrected, even though there is no matching Mini 3 profile in PS3P yet. I've never gotten a usable result so quickly in stitching as I did in this attempt.

I guess the qualitative differences between PTGui and PS3P are only marginal and everyone works optimally with the program he knows best.

Cheers

SPLflyer

SPLflyer Posted at 8-1 22:42
Good morning (on my side of the world ;-)), Bussty

I'm more convinced than ever from PS3P. Earlier versions had problems with the direct import of DJI DNGs – there were strong color distortions. That's why I always had to develop the image series with Adobe Camera Raw before. This also eliminated the vignetting and distortions using the camera profile.

Greetings SPLflyer!

That's great news and great you can get perfect results from the DNG's, saves a lot of time!  Do you think PS3P may have included the Mini 3 Pro in it's profile list or is just actually reading the baked in changes made by DJI or any other DNG maker?

I did a little test the other day to try and find best RAW converter for the Mini 3 Pro files. Was a little bit of a waste of time as many Image Conversion softwares don't support yet. Best results so far are Adobe Camera RAW in Photoshop and if I could afford it Capture One.  What have you found in this area?  

Many thanks

Bussty  

Bussty Posted at 8-1 23:06
Greetings SPLflyer!

That's great news and great you can get perfect results from the DNG's, saves a lot of time!  Do you think PS3P may have included the Mini 3 Pro in it's profile list or is just actually reading the baked in changes made by DJI or any other DNG maker?

The Mini 3 profile is definitely not yet implemented in PS3P (see screenshot: Parameters/Unknown camera!). But the program recognizes the correct focal length of 6.72 mm in the metadata for rectification (is this the correct word?). I don't think PS3P reads the embedded DJI profile. Removing vignetting is done by the program according to its own brightness correction parameters.

I don't know Capture One, but Photoshop's (+ Lightroom's) Camera Raw definitely uses the embedded DJI profiles. After importing the DNGs into PS, ACR is automatically opened first and here the removal of vignetting and correction of distortion is already done without any manual parameter changes.

I don't know any other programs with a RAW correction adapted to DJI – but I didn't search for them because I have ACR :-). I tried DxO Pureraw as a test. But here the Mini 3 profile is also still missing and with the existing Mini 2 profile (I changed the camera model data to FC 2103 in the images EXIF-Data) it gives terrible results.

Greetings
SPLflyer

SPLflyer Posted at 8-2 00:03
The Mini 3 profile is definitely not yet implemented in PS3P (see screenshot: Parameters/Unknown camera!). But the program recognizes the correct focal length of 6.72 mm in the metadata for rectification (is this the correct word?). I don't think PS3P reads the embedded DJI profile. Removing vignetting is done by the program according to its own brightness correction parameters.

I don't know Capture One, but Photoshop's (+ Lightroom's) Camera Raw definitely uses the embedded DJI profiles. After importing the DNGs into PS, ACR is automatically opened first and here the removal of vignetting and correction of distortion is already done without any manual parameter changes.

Smart work by PS3P!  So ACR it is for now. I tried that trick with DXO Camera Raw2 and same terrible results. I guess the others will get sorted one day for time being ACR works fine.

Cheers

Bussty

after FW update was hoping things got fixed. but still having a difficult time stitching.   back to PTGui...