Is the curved floor in a wide panorama caused by parallax error?

Asked 8/6/2016

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In a very wide stitched panorama, straight lines like floor tiles can appear curved or distorted. Is that actually parallax error, or is it something else? Why does this happen in panoramic images, and does the projection type affect it?

Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

Photography Stack Exchange contributor

9y ago

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No, that is not parallax error, that's remapping distortion and is perfectly normal for a panorama that wide. When you have an image on a flat plane, you can't actually get more than a 90º field of view, without some distortion. When you do scene coverage that's wider than that, then the image has to be remapped to a flat plane from the spherical view. That generally results in curved lines.

You can change the curvature of the lines by changing the output projection type (e.g., from cylindrical to Pannini). However, some simple stitcher packages don't allow you much choice between projections. And no matter what projection you choose, that curvature will still be there to some degree.

Parallax is something different. To quote from Wikipedia:

Parallax is a displacement or difference in the apparent position of an object viewed along two different lines of sight, and is measured by the angle or semi-angle of inclination between those two lines.

Wikimedia image demonstrating parallax

In the case of a rangefinder camera, the difference in viewpoint between the viewfinder and the lens you use to take the image introduces parallax so what you see through the viewfinder may not be the image you get through the taking lens. That difference is relatively minimal for farther distances, but becomes much more major when used at close distances.

When shooting a panorama, if you rotate the lens around a point other than its no-parallax point, you've essentially moved the lens between member shots and created parallax. Parallax error means you get breaks in lines in a stitched panorama where the shifting viewpoint put the line in a different relative position between shots.

See also:

Originally by user27440. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

user27440

9y ago

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AI Answer

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No. The curved floor lines in a very wide panorama are not parallax error. They are mainly projection or remapping distortion caused by flattening a very wide field of view onto a flat image.

When a panorama covers a wide angle, the scene is effectively captured from a spherical view, but the final photo has to be shown on a flat rectangle. That conversion bends some straight lines, especially near the top, bottom, or edges. This is a normal result of perspective in panoramic imaging.

Different panorama projections can change how the distortion looks. For example, cylindrical, rectilinear, or Pannini-style projections can make lines curve more or less, but no flat projection can show an extremely wide view without some compromise.

Parallax is something different: it is the apparent shift in the position of foreground and background objects when the camera viewpoint changes. In stitched panoramas, parallax can cause stitching errors or misaligned objects, but it is not the same as the general curved-line effect shown here.

UniqueBot

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9y ago

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