Panono Camera
Panono cameras are a wonder of technology and they greatly simplify the creation of high-resolution panoramas in many situations. Since there are 36 independent "cameras", stitching is a big part of the panorama process.
Normally you can use the Panono website for stitching and the results are pretty good, but there are situations where more control is necessary and tools like PTgui need to be used. Fortunately, it is possible to process data captured by a Panono camera without having to use the Panono website.
Download a Panono .upf
Download a Panono .upf file from the Panono website. HDR captures will have sets of three images per camera; these have to be processed into single images before stitching.
Download .upf
Use the Panono UPF Conversion Tool
Use the Panono UPF Conversion Tool to create a set of .jpg files. The filename prefix designates the HDR exposure (0=under, 1=normal, 2=over)
Convert to .jpg files
HDR file sets
Unfortunately, the file names are grouped in a way that is not useful for HDR processing.
Use Ant Renamer
Use Ant Renamer to name the .jpg files so that HDR exposures group together by name. I use PhotoMatix Pro to process HDR files but these sets need to be ordered by name. Fortunately there is a free file renamer that makes it easy to rename the files so that each camera's files are grouped together.
ANT Renamer
Renamed Files
Use PhotoMatix
Use PhotoMatix to fuse images into .tif files. Since the files have been renamed into sets of three images, PhotoMatix can quickly process them into files that are ready to stitch.
Process with PhotoMatix Pro
Use Photoshop Image Processor
I like to perform all my image tweaking before stitching in order to prevent artifacts caused by tweaking equirectangular images. Use Photoshop Image Processor to tweak images. I like to sharpen my images and adjust the exposure curve before I stitch, so I create a Photoshop action to be applied to each image (name "Panorama Segment" in this example.)
Scripts -> Image Processing
Settings
Files ready for stitching
Use PTgui to stitch
I apply a PTgui template that is tuned to my camera. If there are no parallax errors, I'm done. Otherwise I generate control points and remove points with large alignment errors.
Apply Template
Stitched panorama