Is anyone else seeing issues with files that you have renamed before editing in Lightroom not working when exported to the Theta Stitcher app? From what I am seeing, the stitcher will only work with files using the file naming structure the camera uses (e.g. R0010003.DNG).
I shot some images yesterday and renamed the files to something like this: 2019-06-01-Plane-000001.dng. After editing the image in Lightroom and trying to edit it in the Stitcher, I get an error saying that a DNG must be in the same directory. Simply renaming the file to “R0010003.DNG” an exporting it again works fine.
I tried some other file names (e.g. “plane.DNG”), but the ONLY file format that seems to work is a capital R followed by a series of numbers.
Yes, this is a restriction also documented in the help file for the stitcher. The reason for this is obscure to me.
BTW: I also don’t understand why the suggested workflow (as described above and in the help file) is using the export function of Lightroom. For me, it’s more natural to call the stitcher via ‘Edit In’ as illustrated in this screen shot:
Using the export function would make sense for batch processing a set of images. But unfortunately, the stitcher currently only accepts a single image.
A UI-less batch mode stitching with default parameters or even specifying parameters on the command line should be on the list of possible improvements!
Have you tried to contact the official RICOH customer support? They likely have a bigger database with support queries. I think you have a good set of information to report. It seems like your configuration and versions are up to date.
This THETA Stitcher is new and a bit tricky to use.
Have you tried using the trial version of PTGui as a test? I realize that PTGui is a bit pricey, but it may help you to experiment with the DNG images while you sort out the stitching. Information on PTGui is here.
This is likely unrelated, but the Windows machine I used for testing does have an external NVIDIA graphics card and I’m using the NVIDIA drivers. The machine used in the test only has 16GB of memory, same as your machine.
While it’s surely always a good idea to check the specified prerequisites, I doubt that non-conformance is causing the problem in this case. Especially, as 16 GB is plenty of memory. I run Lightroom and the stitcher with 8 GB without any problems.
Perhaps the error message is misleading due to lazy programming. Typically, processing may fail during one of three stages:
reading the input file
processing the image (stitching) in memory
writing the output file
As the image is previewed in the stitcher’s GUI, stage 1 and 2 seem to be OK. But what may fail at stage 3? Some guesses:
Disk full
Disk/folder/file write protected or write permission missing
Special characters in the path that the OS or application can’t handle
Path too long to be handled by the OS or application (Windows is prone to this)
Light room is able to create the .Tiff on the side of the original dng. Something I have this error just on moving some cursor on the Ricoh stitcher, so maybe an issue to create an temp file or read the memory.
A remark on my configuration shown above: Using Adobe RGB for the color space as input to the stitcher results in unnatural flat colors. Seems that the stitcher is not correctly doing color management. So use sRGB instead. This restriction should also be documented in the manual. Or even better, it should be fixed! Working in a Lightroom/Photoshop environment without supporting color management is a no-go!
BTW: The THETA desktop app also handles colors poorly so don’t depend on it for color proofing. For quick previews after exporting the equirectangular image from Lightroom, I use mostly use FSPViewer which handles ICC profiles correctly.
Did you get a response and hopefully a solution from the support?
I’ve just installed my setup on a new hardware and get the same error!
Same Windows, Lightroom, stitcher versions and configuration as before.
In the stitcher’s preview window, everything is fine, but after exiting it by selecting ‘OK’ to start the actual stitching, the error message is given.
Hi, the only response I get it’s I need to contact the French support, and I don’t want because it’s not provide by Ricoh or Pentax company but by a third company… And I’m pretty sure they don’t care…
Unfortunately, my experience with Ricoh’s support has been very bad as well. Reported a problem with the THETA S via international and national (German) support channels without getting any response, except of the ticket being closed after some time. With the THETA Z1 now targeting the professional market, I hope an adequate professional support will be established.
Regarding this stitcher issue: I’m willing to help tracking it down, e.g. by providing log or trace files. Unfortunately, the Windows event logs contain no entries, and in the filesystem I can’t find any logs as well.
Does anyone know how to turn on debug-level logging or tracing?
I am a beta tester for a new version of the RICOH Stitcher. I just sent a link to the updated beta version to @Yoann_Tronique. I don’t know if it will solve the problem as I can’t replicate it. If other people have a similar problem, I can help them to find the beta version (Windows only).
