Hugin (software)

Infobox Software
name = hugin



caption =
collapsible =
author =
developer = Pablo d'Angelo
released = 0.3 beta (October 12, 2003)
latest release version = 0.7.0
latest release date = October 4, 2008
latest preview version = 0.7 RC6
latest preview date = September 14, 2008
frequently_updated =
programming language = C++ [http://hugin.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/hugin/hugin/trunk/src/]
operating system = Linux, OS X, Windows, FreeBSD
language = Brazilian Portuguese, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukranian
genre =
license = GNU General Public License
website = http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

hugin is a cross-platform open source panorama photo stitching program developed by Pablo d'Angelo and others. It is a GUI front-end for Helmut Dersch's Panorama Tools and Andrew Mihal's "Enblend". Stitching is accomplished by using several overlapping photos taken from the same location, and using control points to align and transform the photos so that they can be blended together to form a larger image. hugin allows for the easy (optionally automatic) creation of control points between two images, optimization of the image transforms along with a preview window so the user can see whether the panorama is acceptable. Once the preview is correct, the panorama can be fully stitched, transformed and saved in a standard image format. A long list of language versions helps to get familiar with the complex possibilities since tweaking of a broad set of parameters can be used to achieve outstanding results.

Features

hugin and the associated tools can be used to
* combine overlapping images for panoramic photography
* correct complete panorama images that are e.g. "wavy" due to a badly levelled panoramic camera
* stitch large mosaics of images and photos, e.g. of long walls or large microscopy samples
* find control points and optimize parameters with the help of software assistants/wizards
* output several projection types like equirectangular (used by many full spherical viewers), mercator, cylindrical, stereographic and sinusoidal
* advanced photometric corrections and HDR stitching

Development

Five projects for the development of hugin / panotools were accepted for the 2007 Google Summer of Code. Additionally a sixth, community sponsored project has been set up. The projects are:
* [http://code.google.com/soc/pano/appinfo.html?csaid=7C5ED822CD597EB1 Automatic feature detection] by Pedro Alonso (Spain), mentored by Herbert Bay (Switzerland)
* [http://code.google.com/soc/pano/appinfo.html?csaid=E3AF6F5D4085A144 New modular GUI] by Ippei UKAI (Japan), mentored by Yuval Levy (Canada) who is also the lead administrator on the Summer of Code effort
* [http://code.google.com/soc/pano/appinfo.html?csaid=D94EFD474FA52C37 HDR de-ghosting] by Jing Jin (USA), mentored by Pablo d'Angelo (Germany) who is also the lead developer on hugin
* [http://code.google.com/soc/pano/appinfo.html?csaid=96B84CC76EDE0DBB Large image processing with VIPS] by Mohammad Shahiduzzaman (Bangladesh), mentored by John Cupitt (United Kingdom)
* [http://code.google.com/soc/pano/appinfo.html?csaid=A56B2DB4C8B876F0 Interactive Panorama Viewer] by Leon Moctezuma (Mexico), mentored by Aldo Hoeben (The Netherlands)
* Community project: PTbutcher by Zoran Mesec (Slovenija), mentored by Daniel M. German (Canada)

See also

PTgui a popular panorama photo stitching program for Windows and Mac OS X

External links

* [http://hugin.sourceforge.net/ hugin page at sourceforge]
* [http://wiki.panotools.org/ Panotools Next Generation wiki]
* [http://code.google.com/soc/pano/about.html Google Summer of Code] project description