wanted: ($3 bounty) Automatic Stitching of Screenshots (freeware)

[tinjaw]

I am working on a project at work that has me taking multiple screenshots. These screenshots are of a map that is larger than the screen can display at one time. The program does not use conventional windows scrollbars to move the image, but instead is hardcoded to use the arrow keys. I plan on using AutoIT to manipulate the program and take a series of screenshots.

I then want to merge the screenshots into one big image by stitching them together. I am looking for a freeware program (MS Windows XP) that can automatically match the overlapping edges up and stitch them together. Does anybody know of such a program?

I have $3 of donation credits in my account that I will put up as a bounty. Find me a freeware program that runs on windows and does what I need and you get the $3 credits.

[mouser]

screenshot captor can try to send pgup,pgdn, etc to try to scroll image when doing an autoscroll autostich capture, you might want to try doing an autoscroll capture of the window with screenshot captor. it probably won't work right, but if it works a little, let me know and i might be able to add a special option for you to tell it to send left,right,up,down cursor keys.

[f0dder]

Is this something you'll be using a lot? Might be worth starting a little reversing session instead

[Darwin]

What about Autostitch?

I've no idea if this will work on a screenshot (but can see no reason why it wouldn't) but am "throwing it out there". If it does work, keep the three bucks (generous offer though!).

[tinjaw]

Darwin,

Autostitch is what I have been trying but it assumes lens distortion and doesn't work on perfectly linear images. If I use it the image is distorted.

[Darwin]

Dang! Ah well, we tried. Hope you do find something that works.

[laughinglizard]

You might try Hugin http://hugin.sourceforge.net/.
It has perspective correction.

Tutorials here: http://hugin.sourceforge.net/tutorials/index.shtml

[tinjaw]

screenshot captor can try to send pgup,pgdn, etc to try to scroll image when doing an autoscroll autostich capture, you might want to try doing an autoscroll capture of the window with screenshot captor. it probably won't work right, but if it works a little, let me know and i might be able to add a special option for you to tell it to send left,right,up,down cursor keys.

Mouser,

I tried using Screenshot Capturer and it almost works. It determines that it needs to scroll horizontally, and does so, but it doesn't scroll vertically. So, what I end up with is a band across the map instead of the whole map. That band is properly captured though. If you could get it working fully in this application, it would save me a great deal of work.

laughinglizard,

hugin looks good. I may be able to get that working if I can get it all scripted properly. I'm going to spend some time on it and scope out how much work that would be. thanx.

[mouser]

To confirm, you can use up and down arrow keys to scroll the window vertically?
Is their any key for page down and page up? or just up and down arrows for scrolling a little bit?

[tinjaw]

The map region can be manipulated two ways.

1) Up, Down, Left, and Right arrows. Alone is the largest move, Ctrl + arrow is smaller, and Shift + arrow is smallest.

2) Clicking on a mini-map centers on that spot in the main map.

Page Up and Page Down have no effect.

I am using AutoIt to script this. I will use my script to position the map region to show the upper-left corner and then send the correct keystrokes to invoke Screenshot Captor.

[tinjaw]

Thanks for your help searching. I have awarded $1 to Darwin and $2 to laughinglizard. 

[mouser]

i will add an option in sc to try to autoscroll-capture by using cursor keys.

[lanux128]

i will add an option in sc to try to autoscroll-capture by using cursor keys.

yes, mouser.. i think it'll be useful if SC had some basic stitching feature. there are some threads in the forums similar to this, which i've noticed:

• screen capture tool that appends captures to single image?
• Photo panorama creation

which shows that how much this is becoming prevalent..