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    ICE "composites" quickly, as in thirty seconds for my stuff,  but then takes about three or four minutes to "Export to Disk", i.e., save it to a jpg file.  I read somewhere on this forum that Matt referred to this first step as a preview.  For the sake of accuracy in software, I suggest Microsoft call it a "Preview".   Adobe Photoshop Photomerge, on the other, takes a while to stitch, but it saves to a jpg file in a couple of seconds. 

    BTW, Adobe Photoshop Photomerge is about twice as fast as ICE for the whole process to take place (I am stitching 60 images, in ICE I am using Structured Panorama, and Planar Motion 1, and the resulting files are about 8 Mb).   I prefer Adobe's speed when it gets it right, which is most of the time.   But ICE is correct all the time because I can control the location of every image before stitching.   I wonder why ICE only stitches about half as fast as Adobe Photoshop Photomerge.

    Friday, April 27, 2012 12:31 AM

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    Well that is strange... I own a license of CS4, but especially photomerge is waaaaay slower than ICE and it crashes at about 50 pictures. What version of Photoshop do you use?
    BTW ICE starts the "real" stitching when you start to export to disk and this takes just about 1 min and 40 secs for 60 pictures on my PC (depending on your hardware of course it might take longer, but I cannot say that Photoshop is coming close to the speed of ICE, though in my opinion it is doing better in correcting parallaxe).

    Intel i7-2600k and 32Gb of RAM

    • Edited by rj_design Friday, April 27, 2012 3:33 PM
    Friday, April 27, 2012 3:05 PM
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    rj,

    I use Photoshop 2, which is pretty old, but it may have a faster Photomerge than later bloated versions.  I am running Win 7 Pro.  Photomerge is always about twice as fast as ICE.  I am using stuctured panaorama, planar motion 1, with ICE and perhaps you are using something different.  Photomerge usually guesses right, but not always.  I wish ICE was faster than Photomerge, because ICE has many more user options.  I am running Intel i5 with 8 Gb of RAM.  Maybe your 32 Gb of RAM makes the difference, though it seems unlikely.

    In general, overall stitching speed for any program depends on how big the various  pictures are that you stitch together, obviously.

    I also think that ICE does not start stitching until you click "Export to Disk", which is why the preview should be called a Preview, and "Export to Disk" should be called "Stitch and Export to Disk".   Otherwise it makes ICE appear to be really slow to save a file..


    • Edited by thurd2 Friday, April 27, 2012 7:25 PM
    Friday, April 27, 2012 6:12 PM
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    Hi thurd2,

    ICE is stiching right when you start "New panorama" it generates Control Points while "Solving" and generates the preview while "Compositing", but unless it takes more than 10 min. for "Export to Disk" it should not be such a big problem hence all up-to-date software (which obviously Photoshop2 is not :) ) is using more sophisticated algorithms which are giving better results, but sometimes take a bit longer to calculate.
    The amount of time for "Export to Disk" is depending on your processors speed (i5 should be fast enough, though of course in this case my i7 is faster) and the amount of RAM. The RAM is used to store your images and calculation results and if it is exceeding the Memory consuption limit (can be found under tools and then options) ICE starts writing on your HDD which is very slow. It might help to set it to about 6.5 GB in your case.

    Saturday, April 28, 2012 1:05 PM
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    Hi rj,

    I have available memory set at around 7 GB.   Once my files are loaded into ICE, ICE gets to the Export to Disk (save as a jpg)  stage in about a minute.  But after I click the "Export to Disk" button (give it a jpg file to save to), it takes four or five minutes.  I think ICE does the bulk of its stitching in the Export to Disk stage, which is why I suggest the first stage be called "Preview", and the "Export to Disk" stage should be called "Stitch and Export to Disk".  Otherwise it seems like it takes forever to Export to Disk, which it should not.

    Photoshop 2 Photomerge is definitely twice as fast as ICE.  It could be the nature of my images, which are all flat (structured panorama, planar motion 1) so that Photomerge needs very little time to process them.  Unfortunately, Photomerge gets some wrong now and then (about 15 percent of the time).  I use ICE when Photomerge guesses wrong, but I wish ICE was faster, then I would use it all the time.

    Saturday, April 28, 2012 6:30 PM
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    Thanks rj_design.  I couldn't have said it any better.  I just noticed a comment on dpreview http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1047&message=41373237 on the relative speeds of ICE vs. Photoshop that you might find interesting.
    Monday, April 30, 2012 3:48 AM
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    Hi rj and Matt,

    Here is an example.  I am using Win 7 Pro, i5, with 7 GB memory allocated to ICE.  There are 60 images to be stitched, structured panorama, planar motion 1.

    Reading source:  12 seconds.    Solving:  1 second.   Compositing:  13 seconds.    Export to Disk (jpg 80 quality):  274 seconds.

    This is typical.  This is why I see the first three steps as a Preview (since you can stop and change it here if you want), and the Export to Disk as where the real stitching takes place.   It cannot take that long to make a jpg file.   The  resulting jpg image is about 8 Mb in size.   The whole process takes about five minutes with ICE.    Photoshop does it in about half the time.  I would be grateful if someone could show me how to speed up the Export to Disk stage in ICE, because the options with ICE allow me to get the resulting image correct all the time.  Photoshop gets it wrong now and then.  Thanks.

    Tuesday, May 1, 2012 12:11 AM
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    My workaround is to start another ICE window immediately after compositing.  Sometimes I will have six or seven ICE windows open at the same time.   After the compositing stage, I immediately export to disk (save the file) and minimize the window, then start up a new session of ICE in a new window.  It usually takes about five or ten minutes for all the programs to finish, during which time I do something else. 
    Friday, May 18, 2012 4:03 AM