saving steps and repeatable

[gregdowning]

Hi,

I just started using the demo today. Once you have set your nearest point and farthest point is it possible to save these? How repeatable is this? I would like to stitch images together after stacking and need a repeatable sequence. I am taking lots of images and want to be sure that if there is a crash that I can continue the sequence with the exact same stack.

Thanks!

[Didix]

Hi,

I just started using the demo today. Once you have set your nearest point and farthest point is it possible to save these? How repeatable is this? I would like to stitch images together after stacking and need a repeatable sequence. I am taking lots of images and want to be sure that if there is a crash that I can continue the sequence with the exact same stack.

Thanks!

As much as I have seen, A and B are still set after shooting, so you just move your camera and shoot the next stack.
Another thinking: Why do you need a repeatable sequence? You just need sharp images (stacked) and then you stitch them? Or what do I miss?
I would guess, that the biggest problem you have, is to move the camera appropriately. Do you use a rail?

-Didix

[Stas Yatsenko]

Repeatability of A and B depends on the hardware. With StackShot the position is very stable, you can go back and forth many times and the position will be the same. From our experience all camera lens have some small drift when you go back and forth. This might be due to mechanical slack and we can't do much about it. I would recommend to test your lens the following way: set A and B points for your typical shooting scene and then take several stacks. Then compare focused areas in the first image of each stack.

[gregdowning]

Thanks Guys!

Didix, changing the focus adjusts the angle of view a bit. I want to make sure that the same stack is processed for each image so that all the images have the exact same angle of view. The stitching software works much better this way.

[Stas Yatsenko]

Theoretically, it is possible to make the lens go the very beginning and always count A position from there. This should give very high reproducibility even if lens has drift. The question is how to implement this in the interface of the program, because the workflow for setting the position is more complicated in this case...

[gregdowning]

Thanks for your thoughtful comments Stas. Yes I think this would be really useful.

For example, I was just stepping through a 600 image position and there was some sort of error that required me to restart the camera so I had to start over in finding the near and far points in my stack. This substantially disrupts the pattern since I then have to find the near and far points in the whole image and start the sequence over again.

I would be happy to offer suggestions on the interface but I don't think I am totally clear on the problem, how is it different from what we are doing now? I understand that the camera would have to return to it's closest or furthest focus point before returning to A or B but would this require something of the user?

[Stas Yatsenko]

This task is already in our to do list. We want to try to check focus position with the focusing distance data from the lens. It is not very precise but should be sufficient to eliminate focusing drift.