Image composite editor
Microsoft Image Composite Editor ( ICE ) is a program from Microsoft Research for creating panoramic images ( English "stitching" ) from several overlapping individual images or from a film. The program can be downloaded free of charge and the current version 2.0.3 is available for all Microsoft Windows versions since Vista . The previous version 1.4.4 also supports Windows XP .
Functions
- Automatic merging of the individual images with recommendation of a projection method.
- Various projection methods can be selected, such as perspective, spherical, cylindrical, etc.
- Takes into account different camera movements such as displacement and rotation.
- Also imports photos with 16 bits per color component (instead of the usual 8), e.g. B. as a TIFF or PNG file or in some raw data formats ("raw"). That avoids u. U. Posterization ("banding"), when adjusting the brightness of individual images during the composition process.
- Create panoramas from a video (since ICE version 2).
- Automatic cross-fading between differently exposed individual images. A special algorithm from Microsoft Research is used for this.
- Automatic correction of vignetting .
- Automatic or manual cropping of the finished panorama.
- Optional automatic completion of missing parts of the image (especially in the case of sky, clouds, grass, road, etc.)
- Any size panorama.
- Benefit from a 64-bit operating system and multiple processor cores.
- Output in various formats:
- Upload to Microsoft Photosynth
Unlike other panorama Erstellprogrammen how the open source Hugin and various commercial programs, ICE dominated currently no removal of ghost images ( " de-ghosting ") incurred when moving objects appear in different positions on multiple frames and during assembly can then be seen several times or semi-transparent in the finished panorama. There is also no possibility of intervention, e.g. B. by choosing appropriate support points or by manual positioning, in case the automatic composition should fail. The automatic cross-fading between the individual images cannot be switched off either, but this would rarely be necessary in practice.
support
The program is offered free of charge and without official support, but there is a corresponding developer and user forum for information and questions.
Trivia
As an example of the automatic panorama completion, Microsoft Research shows a photo of the Montserrat monastery in the Spanish province of Catalonia on its website for ICE .