Software for stitching together scanner images

[Tony_G]

Hey All,

I have some very large schematic pages from old school HP manuals and every now and then I'd like to send a scan of them to someone.

The limited need precludes buying a wide format scanner so I'm wondering if there is a good program that I can use to make a bunch of scans on my general size flatbed scanner and have them automatically stitched together (aligned, rotated, etc) to create one large image.

Thanks,

TonyG

[Circlotron]

http://hugin.sourceforge.net/

[Tony_G]

Thanks, Circlotron - Have you tried this on schematics? How many control points have you usually created? I suspect that I'll need to have 6 to 9 images, do you have any experience in that?

Thanks again,

TonyG

[Circlotron]

No, not on schematics, only on normal pics. Mostly it worked surprisingly well though. Sooo many settings I didn't understand. Last used it about 7 or 8 years ago.

[Rerouter]

Another that is more press go and forget is microsoft image compisition editor.

[edpalmer42]

Believe it or not, the best/easiest tool I've found for stitching images together is Paint.  Yes, the freebee that comes with Windows.  I use Irfanview to rotate the images first so that they're square.  Then Paint to merge them and crop the resulting image.

http://www.isdntek.com/demo/paint_stitching.htm

[golden_labels]

With Hugin the trick is to tell the program that your lens are having extremely long focal length.

[edavid]

If you have Adobe Photoshop, the Photomerge feature works fine for this.

[CatalinaWOW]

Just habit, but I still use the grand-daddy of all these programs, autostitch.

Apparently there is a new version out (https://autostitch.en.softonic.com/download) but the one I use dates from about 2005.

[golden_labels]

While I can’t tell anything about the autostich software itself, be aware that in the past Softonic was involved in spreading malware. It is also much better idea to acquire software from the original sources than from shady websites like that. In this case the author provides the official autostich download⁽¹⁾.
____
⁽¹⁾ References: Google Scholar

[edavid]

While I can’t tell anything about the autostich software itself, be aware that in the past Softonic was involved in spreading malware. It is also much better idea to acquire software from the original sources than from shady websites like that. In this case the author provides the official autostich download⁽¹⁾.

That version is not suitable for schematics:

The demo version of AutoStitch uses spherical projection and is capable of stitching full view 360 x 180 degree panoramas (everything visible from a point). Cylindrical and planar projections are not supported in the demo version.

[Tom45]

Photography is a serious hobby of mine and especially making and printing panoramas.

I purchased a couple of different programs years ago and sometimes one of them would work better than the other. Both involved manually setting control points.

Then I discovered Microsoft's Image Composite Editor, a free program. It has no control points and is pretty much automatic. And it works as well as, and usually better than, the programs I was using before.

Now it is pretty much all that I use. Once in a great while it fails and I have to revert to one of the programs with manual control points. But it has been some years since I had to do that.

[golden_labels]

That version is not suitable for schematics:

This is exactly the same file as Softonic provides to lure people onto their website:

Code: [Select]

$ find autostitch-{softonic,original} -type f -exec sha256sum {} \+ | sort
3ad9c814c0f8efe7b8d50a1f94a9dfe10ca0f31ec75b1e49e73059e024dc37c5  autostitch-original/LICENSE.TXT
3ad9c814c0f8efe7b8d50a1f94a9dfe10ca0f31ec75b1e49e73059e024dc37c5  autostitch-softonic/LICENSE.TXT
5582ae12b48a88f0e2c2f6b198d63f2aaf4ce18f9228844d214c0007a5bdc0ea  autostitch-original/images/test/101-0104_img.jpg
5582ae12b48a88f0e2c2f6b198d63f2aaf4ce18f9228844d214c0007a5bdc0ea  autostitch-softonic/images/test/101-0104_img.jpg
784c46de1d655c804d2bc7bc3e5889d20639162e91196a92d89ceff292e53f62  autostitch-original/README.TXT
784c46de1d655c804d2bc7bc3e5889d20639162e91196a92d89ceff292e53f62  autostitch-softonic/README.TXT
a084ff15872caea7e299f8658675fe51cecd4f7155248668b9fe83a25b42ff0c  autostitch-original/autostitch.exe
a084ff15872caea7e299f8658675fe51cecd4f7155248668b9fe83a25b42ff0c  autostitch-softonic/autostitch.exe
d66fede9766587f6cb9ee0b035500777b1635031d6413b9d3da6ecf6f00f341d  autostitch-original/images/test/100-0040_img.jpg
d66fede9766587f6cb9ee0b035500777b1635031d6413b9d3da6ecf6f00f341d  autostitch-softonic/images/test/100-0040_img.jpg
de93836a1da696b828ee887affe1b55b594af22949e80e37d5f18babeb2f53f0  autostitch-original/images/test/100-0024_img.jpg
de93836a1da696b828ee887affe1b55b594af22949e80e37d5f18babeb2f53f0  autostitch-softonic/images/test/100-0024_img.jpg
e3f318f1da51d63dab4a7e652a97061875f20864c6037b5cc31c440929ea7943  autostitch-original/images/test/100-0025_img.jpg
e3f318f1da51d63dab4a7e652a97061875f20864c6037b5cc31c440929ea7943  autostitch-softonic/images/test/100-0025_img.jpg
ea6dd5dd419b7c01b7621862536dbbec3476cd73ed4628bb4b886078212e6d5b  autostitch-original/images/test/100-0023_img.jpg
ea6dd5dd419b7c01b7621862536dbbec3476cd73ed4628bb4b886078212e6d5b  autostitch-softonic/images/test/100-0023_img.jpg
f29a0b79036d6d6b4cdb8a43aca660fcdde9fb527b5acc6e42aabac222ed1b87  autostitch-original/images/test/100-0039_img.jpg
f29a0b79036d6d6b4cdb8a43aca660fcdde9fb527b5acc6e42aabac222ed1b87  autostitch-softonic/images/test/100-0039_img.jpg
f6353a94d98090e6268a3aa6f6dd3b73f357cec6b7c29bae914074a7da1634e3  autostitch-original/images/test/100-0038_img.jpg
f6353a94d98090e6268a3aa6f6dd3b73f357cec6b7c29bae914074a7da1634e3  autostitch-softonic/images/test/100-0038_img.jpg
And that file is lying there unchanged for a decade now: 2011 autostich page.

[David Hess]

I just do it manually in Photoshop, which gives me the opportunity to remove blemishes and do general clean up.  The photo merge programs I have tested all failed miserably on schematics.

[edavid]

I just do it manually in Photoshop, which gives me the opportunity to remove blemishes and do general clean up.  The photo merge programs I have tested all failed miserably on schematics.

As I said, try the Photomerge function.  I have used it many times and it has always done at least as good a job as I would have done myself.

[David Hess]

I just do it manually in Photoshop, which gives me the opportunity to remove blemishes and do general clean up.  The photo merge programs I have tested all failed miserably on schematics.

As I said, try the Photomerge function.  I have used it many times and it has always done just at least as good a job as I would have done myself.

The photomerge function in Photoshop?  If so, I tried that and it failed miserably but that was with Photoshop CS6 and I am not buying anything newer from Adobe.

[CatalinaWOW]

My experience is that all of these programs performance varies wildly with both type of image and even the specific image.  I have had great success and total failures with each of them (except Photoshop, haven't tried that).  Sometimes the reason is obvious, but in most cases I haven't been able to figure it out. 

Manual merging can be very tedious, but it is the only method that always works.  One reason is that all methods, including manual will have some discrepancies unless both the originals were absolutely geometrically perfect throughout there production cycle, from the original through how ever many generations of reproduction until you get the one you are working with.  The human operator can recognize/decide what is important to him or her in the output image and do whatever is necessary to achieve that.   For me that often includes such things as eliminating coffee stains, mis-spelled words and strange scintillation on lines which weren't perfectly straight and aligned with a digitization line.