PanoMachine Panorama Calculator Operators Manual
Copyright by Josef Ehrler
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When a MultiRow Panorama is photographed with the camera in portrait orienta-
tion, the overlap between rows is referenced to the long side of the image format,
between columns to the short side.
The relevant parameters for a MultiRow Panorama which should be known or cal-
culated before taking the first image are:
- Chosen horizontal and vertical Angle of View (AoV) for the whole panorama
in degrees [°]. These parameters are normally estimated at the place the
panorama has to be taken or from a map.
- The number of columns and rows for the whole panorama. These two pa-
rameters depend on the focal length of the lens used, the sensor size of the
camera, the chosen overlap and as a result the step size between columns
and rows and finally on the requested resolution for the printed panorama.
Note: Big values for focal length will result in higher panorama resolution and a
higher number of images for the whole panorama.
Reading all this stuff probably you expect a lot of technical work before shooting
the first image. Actually this is wrong. After estimating the necessary horizon-
tal/vertical angle of view for the whole panorama, the focal length for the lens and
the minimum horizontal/vertical overlap, the panorama calculator will do the rest
automatically with a few mouse-clicks.
1.3 Spherical-Panorama
Compared to the MultiRow Panorama, the Spherical Panorama is not a plane surface.
It is as if the viewer is inside a globe and viewing the panorama horizontally 360° and
vertically ±90° (+90° up to Zenith and -90° down to Nadir). The Spherical Panorama is
viewed with a special viewfinder e.g. “Quick Time Viewer” from Apple. It is also possi-
ble to create just a part of a spherical panorama. In this case the panorama is cropped
in the horizontal and/or vertical dimension to see just a part of the panorama.
The dispositions of the single images are like a MultiRow Panorama, a structure of a
number of columns and rows. The panorama calculator defines a specific number of
columns for each row. When the camera is levelled horizontally the maximum of col-
umns are calculated. For rows lined up between the horizon and Nadir/Zenith, the The
number of columns or images are reduced. To cover the areas (holes) in Zenith and
Nadir two additional single images has to be taken. Depending on the stitch software,
the whole sequence of images can be bonded manually or automatically to a seam-
less panorama.
1.4 Calibrating the Pivot Point
Especially for Spherical panoramas some objects are very close to the lens. To over-
come perspective/parallax distortion, the point of rotation to take all the pictures has to
be adjusted exactly to the Pivot Point which is inside the optical path of the lens sys-
tem. Special panorama heads provide mechanical arrangements to adjust the Pivot
Point on its horizontal and vertical axis.
