Hugin-2011.0.0 Release Notes

Hugin is more than just a panorama stitcher.

Changes Since 2010.4.0

Despite some known issues (see section KNOWN ISSUES below) this release brings many major new features. Hugin's own control point generator CPFind has been significantly improved; the last project from the 2010 Google Summer of Code has been integrated; many general improvements have been made.

Improved Built-in Control Points Generator

CPFind's detection ability has been significantly improved, especially for wide angle (> FOV 65°) images, fisheye images, and rotated images. Anecdotal evidence shows it to be more accurate than any other CP detector ever used with Hugin. A thorough, scientific comparison against other CP detectors is welcome. If you have well formed comparison results, please publish a link on the Hugin mailing list.

Improved Fast Preview

An Overview pane has been added to the Fast Preview window. Users can now interact with the panosphere like in a virtual reality viewer in real time and visualize all areas of the panorama with little distortion, including the zenith and nadir that are typically excessively distorted in the flat preview.

It is now possible to drag individual images or arbitrary groups of images on the panosphere in the fast preview.

A new gray point picker has been added for visual white balance correction.

Registration of Stereo Images

align_image_stack is commonly used for the alignment of slightly misaligned images, e.g. for creating a High Dynamic Range image from multiple exposures when the camera was hand held.

It has been extended with additional functionality for the registration of stereo images.

Other Improvements

Libraries and Build Improvements

Languages

Many translations have been updated for this release.

Control point generators

Since 2010.4 Hugin ships with its own 'Patent Free' control point generator. Third-party generators are still supported through the plug-in architecture. CPFind is the recommended control point generator and the only one endorsed by the Hugin project team.

Upgrading

Upgrading from previous versions of Hugin should be seamless. If you do have problems with old settings, these can be reset in the Preferences window by clicking 'Load defaults'.

It is strongly recommended to set the default control point detector to Hugin's CPFind.

Compiling

Users compiling from source refer to the list of dependencies and the platform-specific build processes described in the wiki. More information in the README and INSTALL_cmake files in the tarball.

Download

Hugin can be found at SourceForge and Launchpad.

Users communities produce executables for their respective platforms. Executables are likely to be announced within a few days of this tarball release on the mailing list and added to the download section on SourceForge.

Known Issues and Workarounds

On some versions of Mac OS X, Hugin can't stitch the project even if the preview looks fine. Details. Workaround:

  1. Save the project file in Hugin
  2. Open the project file in PTBatcherGUI (File / Add Project / select .pto file)
  3. Click the play symbol in the toolbar to start the queue processing.

Plane overview is wrong if opening fast preview window the first time. Details.

Panosphere Overview window seperated from the content. Details.

An updated list of issues deemed to be critical, including discussions and workarounds, is in the Issues Tracker.

Splash Screen

The Hugin project is proud to promote artwork created with Hugin in the splash screen of this release.

Artist Jeff Boyd took the pictures for the Seattle Sunset Panorama on December 26, 2009, an exceptionally rare cloudless winter day, close to sunset, from Queen Anne Hill, using a Canon Rebel XT with the kit 18-55mm lens at 55mm. The resulting panorama is 9690x3300 pixels.

The view of downtown Seattle, Washington, USA, features the Space Needle and Mt. Rainier in the background.

About the Artist

Jeff grew up moving around the United States and Europe due to his father's service in the US Army, but calls Tacoma, Washington home base. He is currently living in Arizona as he pursues a Ph.D. degree in Computer Science from Arizona State University. He holds a Bachelors of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Brigham Young University. He has a love for his family (which consists of a lovely wife, two beautiful daughters, and a new son), his religion, German chocolate, traveling, hiking, skiing, computers and photography. His interest in photography (and panorama photography especially) grew when he received his first digital camera as a high school graduation gift. He now enjoys remembering his travels and hikes (and documenting his children's lives!) through beautiful photos he has shot and frequently stitched together as panoramas.

Jeff is a Hugin user and has contributed a code patch as well.

Thanks

Thanks to all the contributors to this release and members of the hugin-ptx mailing list, too many to mention here.