Support seam editing

[Paul]

In "difficult" panoramas, automatic blending tools (enblend, smartblend, multiblend) do not always give the desired result. In such cases manual editing of seam before final blending can give satisfactory results.

In previous versions of Hugin, a workflow to aid in seam editing was to:
1. export as a multilayer TIFF file
2. invoke some commandline tools for conversions
3. import in Gimp (or any other editor), where each remapped image resides in its own layer
4. edit alpha masks to create visually pleasing blends
5. export image(s) (could involve custom scripts, such as for Gimp that does not natively support the "correct" output format)
6. run command tools to blend into final panorama

Support for this workflow is limited at best.

As an alternative to editing multiple alpha masks, a program like PTStitcherNG allows one to edit all seams/masks in one layer, using different colors to represent different "image masks".

Hugin has added support for editing "crop areas" to remove unwanted parts of the image. Is it possible to use a similar technique to add support for seam editing?

Hence the request: add support for seam editing into Hugin.

[Bruno Postle (brunopostle)]

Have you tried using the Hugin Mask tab? This allows a large amount of control over the seam placement by masking areas of the photos.

[Paul (irenaeus)]

Can you explain how you can use masks to control the placements of seams?

[Bruno Postle (brunopostle)]

enblend tries to drive the seam through the middle of the overlap and as far away from the edges of the photos as possible.

So, amongst other things, by adding masks you are effectively telling enblend to put the seam as far away from the masked area as possible - With a complex masked project the seam will follow a winding path, avoiding each mask in turn.

For me this is a much more flexible system, you tell the tool what you do and don't want to see in the output and the tool takes care of the rest.