A few months ago, François Mercat and
Vincent Audouard asked
me if I knew a method to transform a panorama for printing on
a conical lampshade like the one shown above. I fiddled some
time with Panorama Tools and came up with the method below.
It is based on equirectangular projection to fisheye image conversion
available in Panorama
Tools plugin for Photoshop.
For another example of panoramic lampshades, see bottom of
this page
created by Andrew Davidhazy (and don't miss somany other interesting
things on his site
!).
Parameters definition
and preliminary calculations:
Here is
an Excel sheet to perform these calculations
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Lampshade parameters:
- R1 = upper
radius
- R2 = lower
radius
- l = width of paper band
- h = height of lampshade. h is not needed,
l is generally easier to measure than
h, but l could be obtained from
l = Sqrt((R2-R1)2+h2)
To get a better radius precision, measure diameter
in two orthogonal distances, add them and divide
by 4. This prevents problems with slightly flattened
lampshade frames. |
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Pattern parameters
- R = radius
- A = pattern top angle
- B = hfov of generated fisheye image
Generated image parameters
- L = image dimension
- H = "useful" height
- S = shift value
- dpi = resolution (dots
per inch for dimensions measured in inches,
dots per cm for dimensions measured in cm)
R2
R = l ---------
(R2-R1)
360.(R2-R1)
A = ----------
l
L = 2.R.dpi
R2
B = 360 -------
(R2+R1)
H = L/2 * (1 - R1/R2 * cos(A/2))
(valid only if A<180°)
S = -(L-H)/2 |
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X
Y |
Original image parameters
- X = image horizontal size (pixels)
- Y = image vertical size (pixels)
- Vx = image horizontal field of vision =
360°
- Vy = image vertical field of vision
You must crop vertically your image to:
l
Y = X --------
p(R2+R1)
Vfov of your image must be at least:
l
Vy = 360 --------
p (R2+R1)
This implies, for standard shape lampshades,
rather high vfov and wide angle lens when shooting
panorama (28 mm lens portrait mode is barely enough.)
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Image
remapping
You will need:
- Panorama Tools plugin for Photoshop, properly
installed
- Any Photoshop plug-in compatible image editor.
I used Photoshop 5, and will continue the explanations
with it
Proceeding:
- Open your panoramic image with Photoshop
- If needed, crop it vertically to Y value calculated
above (Image / Canvas size, set vertical size to Y)
- Scale it vertically by a factor p
/ 2 (157%): Image / Image size, check Resample and
uncheck Proportional scaling, Vertical scale = 157%
- Launch Panorama Tools : Filters / Panorama Tools / Adjust
- Check "Extract" and "Use options"
- Click "prefs" button and choose option b.
Type in a file name and press OK
- Click "Set" button and enter values you calculated
in previous step and set options as shown below:
- Click OK, wait for completion and open generated image
- All you have to do now is to print your lampshade and
assemble it...
If your lampshade has
a small conicity (R1 almost equal to R2)
Size of generated image can be very huge...
Though memory price is fairly low nowadays, any trick that can
reduce this size can be useful ! In this case, in "Panorama
options" dialog box,
- Set "Image Height" to H value instead of L
- Click on "Correct" button
- Check "Vertical shift", then click "Options"
button
- Enter (negative) shift value S in all three boxes.
CAUTION: Values
entered in Correct dialog box are remembered between Panorama
Tools sessions, and nothing reminds you in "Panorama options"
dialog box that a correction is active. Thus it is wise after
generation of your lamp shade to re-open "Correct options"
screen and uncheck "Vertical shift". You will avoid
painful surprise next time...
Printing your lampshade
If you can afford it the best solution is to have it printed
in one piece on a wide printer, you will have only one seam.
For the example shown above, I simply split the image in
three parts that I printed on thin coated paper, A4 size. After
assembly, I lay this as a cover on a white lampshade. I can
then change panorama with minimal job and cost !