# [Wet Thumb Forum]-A different angle



## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

My 150 is in a wide hallway and a camera can't be set more than about 4 feet away from the centerline of the tank. I can use a W I D E setting on my camera lense to pick up most of the tank in one photo, but the result is distorted.

I tried taking several photos of the tank and stitching them together into a single picture. The parallax difference between adjacent photos was so large that the photos couldn't be put together in a way that looked right.

So I decided to try this.









I took 5 photos spaced at equal distances along the front of the 5-foot long tank and cropped the photos so that the edges of adjacent photos matched approximately along the centerline of the tank. Then I lined up five panels with a gap between them and flattened the whole thing (almost 4800 pixels across) into a single image. That results in some features at the back of the tank appearing in two panels and some features at the front of the tank being omitted.

The panelled image is the only way I've found so far to get a picture that comes close to matching what I see in my "mind's eye."

Roger Miller

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_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

My 150 is in a wide hallway and a camera can't be set more than about 4 feet away from the centerline of the tank. I can use a W I D E setting on my camera lense to pick up most of the tank in one photo, but the result is distorted.

I tried taking several photos of the tank and stitching them together into a single picture. The parallax difference between adjacent photos was so large that the photos couldn't be put together in a way that looked right.

So I decided to try this.









I took 5 photos spaced at equal distances along the front of the 5-foot long tank and cropped the photos so that the edges of adjacent photos matched approximately along the centerline of the tank. Then I lined up five panels with a gap between them and flattened the whole thing (almost 4800 pixels across) into a single image. That results in some features at the back of the tank appearing in two panels and some features at the front of the tank being omitted.

The panelled image is the only way I've found so far to get a picture that comes close to matching what I see in my "mind's eye."

Roger Miller

------------
_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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## imported_Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 31, 2003)

Looking good! What's the plant in the
foreground on the left side?

-
Ghazanfar Ghori


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## Phil Edwards (Jan 22, 2004)

Looking good Roger! Where'd you get that Sarurus?


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## imported_Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 31, 2003)

BTW - Sarurus is pretty common up here growing
emersed near small streams.

-
Ghazanfar Ghori


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Ghanzanfar,

The plant on the front left is Samolus valerandi (aka S. parviflorus). It's a versatile and interesting plant that should be in more common use. I got it from George and Karla Booth last spring when I visited with them, and I will be taking some to Dallas. I had some S. valerandi years ago but failed to get it growing; the plants were emersed-grown and/or the light was too dim. Add to that, Rataj and Horeman said that it couldn't be grown submersed, so I wasn't trying very hard.

Phil,

I put out a request on APD. Tom Barr sent me some when he was unloading his tanks for the move to Florida and Bob Olesen (I think it was) sent me some from Florida.

I like S. cernuus. I find it fairly easy to grow, but fairly difficult to keep looking good.

The right side of this tank still needs a lot of work. I'm undecided about what to put there. Maybe something will come to me in Dallas









Roger Miller

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_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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## imported_Ghazanfar Ghori (Jan 31, 2003)

Samolus valerandi you say? AGA you say? ITS MINE!
I haven't tried it yet - which means, now I must.
I'll see you guys later today!

-
Ghazanfar Ghori


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## gpodio (Feb 4, 2004)

Roger, there is one way of doing this but it requires a little work. You have to take the photos from the same point, just panning the camera as you did in your first attempt. The parallax difference has to then be corrected which is where the hard part comes in. It can be done in Photoshop however it's a very tedious job of selecting matching pixels between two or more frames, much like morphing. There is also software to do this a little faster but it doesn't always "automatically" find points of reference so you often still need to manually indicate reference pixels. We use this to stitch together widefield images but I don't know if it's worth the work, might be easier to just punch a hole in the back wall so you can get further back









Tank looks awesome BTW, I like those two rocks you have there. I think I see a fish in there....









Giancarlo Podio


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## mm12463 (Mar 5, 2004)

Super tank. I'm jealous that is for sure. But with time I hope to have some tanks 1/2 as nice. Keep up the good work. You are an inspiration to all us noobies.

As Giancarlo said you can do that pan and line pictures up. I did this one of Wrigley Field.

I won't put the big one on here because it is huge. (6172 x 1020) If you want to see the full image go here.Big file so I don't think a dialup would be wise.










My Canon has a pan option along with some stitching software. It works okay.

Mike
http://fish.silver-fox.us


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## Lukara (Feb 14, 2003)

Very nice tank Roger.

50 gal planted tank, pressurized CO2, 3.2 wpg, gravel/Terralit 60/40 substrate, Hagen 304 Fluval filter, Tetratec UV 5watts, GH=3,KH=6,PH=6.9


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## Justin Fournier (Jan 27, 2004)

Roger,

What kind of camera were you using for the pics? My Canon A70 has a stitching function that works pretty good, and I have had decent results using it. I have nevver tried it on a long tank though.

Somewhat off topic, but pertaining to the S. valerandi, I recieved some from Tropica and it grows extremely well submerged. 

I am not sure what it's minimum requirements are, but on an interesting note, the submerged growth is not much different from the emerged growth. Assuming Tropica grows it emerged. 

It is quite beautiful, stays algae free, and I prefer it's growth pattern to that of monoselenium. Monoselenium is a weed when it gets established, growing more like an afro then a plant, spreads all over the tank almost uncontrolable. But I digress.


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## Roger Miller (Jun 19, 2004)

Justin and all,

It's an Olympus C3000. It has a built-in panorama function that I've never used, but I've stitched together plenty of panoramas without it. I tried several times with this tank. Patching together a picture is only a problem because of the large parallax error.

I back the camera up as far as I can get it and zoom in as close as I can and still get the whole height of the tank in the frame. With those conditions, the width of the photo measured along the back of the tank is about 50% greater then the width of the photo measured in the front of the tank. It is impossible to stitch the photos together without -- as Giancarlo mentioned -- essentially morphing the pictures to force a fit. That works. I've done it before manually.

When you distort the photos to get a fit between adjacent frames there is always a loss in picture quality. The panelled version above doesn't suffer a loss in picture quality and it gives a view similar to what you would have walking by the tank.

All-in-all I'm pleased with the effect. The drawback is that the optical center of the tank is actually on one of the panel boundaries. That would be more of a problem if there were much there to look at. The panels could be framed to get a different arrangement, but then I would cut through some other feature of the tank that I would rather leave whole. You give a little, you get a little.

Have fun guys. I'm off to Dallas for a while.

Roger Miller

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_"The indispensible first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want" -- Ben Stein_


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