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 How to set up Automatic Control-point Detection software for Hugin on Mac
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Hugin project
http://hugin.sourceforge.net/



Introduction

There are multiple software available for Automatic Control-point Detection (aka Autopano) task. Hugin itself does not implement this useful feature yet, but it can use external programs for the task. This document explains how you can set them up on Mac.

If you have set up autopano-complete.sh or other software for previous versions in a custom location, then you may continue using them with 0.7.

There are two ways of setting up those AutoCP programs. One is to install the pre-configured plugins into a certain location on your hard drive, and the other is to specify which program should be used how in the Hugin preferences.



Patent

One of the main reasons this feature is not fully integrated into Hugin.app yet is that the technologies used in the implementations available for us at this moment are all patented. Although implementations are freely provided, you are responsible for judging whether each technology can be legally used in your country. Please use them at your own risk.



Using AutoCP Plug-in 

AutoCP plugins are self-contained with necessary executables and configuration. A program called "Install AutoCP Plugin" can install those plugins for you, so just open this application and choose the plugin you want to install.

Make sure to untick the "Use alternative Autopano-SIFT program" option in Hugin preferences. Please note the "Arguments" option will be ignored when plugins are used.

Technically speaking, plugins can be installed in two locations: "~/Library/Application Support/Hugin/Autopano" and "/Library/Application Support/Hugin/Autopano". "Install AutoCP Plugin.app" application will install plugins into "~/Library/Application Support/Hugin/Autopano". You can uninstall plugins by removing from those folders.



Specifying external programs

If you choose to set up control point detection programs manually, open Preferences in Hugin, tick the "Use alternative Autopano-SIFT program" option, and "Choose..." the command line program you want to use. The "Arguments" will be passed to that command line program with variable appropriately replaced.



This document was originally written by Ippei UKAI (Copyleft 2008)
Last Modified: $Id: HOWTO-autopanosift.txt 1703 2006-08-13 10:41:25Z ippei $