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Let's say you need to take a photo of a 200 feet wide wall, but can't move further away from it than 50 feet (won't get the entire wall in one photo).

Currently, I stand still, and take a bunch of photos from side to side in a rotating motion, and then stitch them together (like a panorama function would do). But that gives a heavily distorted image.

I wish there was a panorama function that let you walk sideways along the wall, instead of using a rotating motion. Does this exist? Does anyone have any tips?

JamesB
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    What keeps you from doing just that? Walk along the wall and take the pictures, and then stitch them together? – Guffa Aug 26 '15 at 10:55
  • Stitching software have problem making stiches. Sometimes it won't be able to stich them at all, and sometimes the stiching is not done very well (parts repeated). – JamesB Aug 26 '15 at 11:25

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What you are looking for is a software that can make some kind of stitching.

It's not really a classical projection as those tend to project a sphere into something else (you generally take pictures using a tripod and just rotate the camera, not moving it).

You really don't want cylindrical projections (which are projections from a sphere to a plan) or cubic projection (projection from sphere to a cube). Examples of what you don't want here : http://hugin.sourceforge.net/docs/manual/Projections.html#Cylindrical_projections

What you want is a feature sometimes called "mosaic mode" or "stitching mode" in software.

For example, the software Hugin can do it (http://hugin.sourceforge.net/tutorials/Mosaic-mode/en.shtml). Windows offers ICE, a free tool (http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/redmond/projects/ice/).

I think your question is very close to How can I stitch a panorama correctly if I moved the camera along the horizontal axis?, and similar to What would be the right approach to take pictures of a long counter? and Panorama with rectangular projection.

For your purpose, the "best" way (IMHO) to take pictures dedicated to be stitched would be to walk sideways along the wall, taking pictures directly facing the wall (eventually using a tripod).

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Olivier
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