Flaming Pear Flexify Manual

What it does

How to Install

Quick Start

Projections

Polyhedra

Other Controls

Globemaking

FAQ

Versions

How to Purchase

Questions

Flexify

What it does

Flexify is a plug-in filter for paint programs. It warps full-sphere photos -- those showing a full view of a scene in every direction -- into new shapes that are more attractive or useful. It can also transform maps.

How to install

To use this software, you need a paint program which accepts standard Photoshop 3.0 plugins.

Just put the plug-in filter into the folder where your paint program expects to find it. If you have Photoshop, the folder is Photoshop:Plugins:Filters or Photoshop:Plug-ins. You must restart Photoshop before it will notice the new plug-in. It will appear in the menus as Filters->Flaming Pear->Flexify.

Most other paint programs follow a similar scheme.

If you have Paint Shop Pro: you have to create a new folder, put the plug-in filter into it, and then tell PSP to look there. In PSP 5 or PSP 6: choose the menu File-> Preferences->General Program Preferences... and choose the Plug-in Filters tab. In PSP 7: choose the menu File-> Preferences->File Locations... and choose the Plug-in Filters tab.
Use one of the "Browse" buttons to choose the folder mentioned above.

From PSP's menus, choose the plugin. For example, choose Image->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->Flexify. If you have PSP 7, look in Effects->Plug-in Filters->Flaming Pear->Flexify.

Quick start

When you invoke Flexify, a dialog box will appear:

To get a quick idea of what Flexify does, load a full-sphere panoramic image into your paint program (there's a small example panorama here). If the image is circular, the edge of the selection should just graze the edge of the circle.

Invoke Flexify, and tell it what kind of input image you're using via the "Input" popup menu. Choose a different projection from the Output popup. Click the dice button a few times until you see a result you like; then click OK.

Flexify's capabilites and controls are explained below.

selection should graze edge of circle for mirror-ball, polar, and orthographic images

Projections |  |

A projection is a way of unwrapping and warping a spherical surface so that it will lie down flat. It's like making a flat map of the Earth; you have to make a choice about how to deform shapes.

Flexify can accept as input spherical panoramas in any of five projections and can output them in more than thirty. Some of the projections are practical, and some are weird and meant to emphasize the bizarre and vertiginous quality of ultra-wide-angle photography.

Flexify can output these projections:

name |  | remarks |  |  |
equirectangular a.k.a. cylindrical equidistant or plate carée |  | The panorama fits into a rectangle. Meridians are vertical, parallels are horizontal, and the north and poles are stretched out to lines at the top and bottom. Scanning panoramic cameras produce this kind of image. |  |  |
mirror ball |  | The reflection seen in a mirrored ball |  |  |
polar a.k.a. azimuthal equidistant |  | Angular distance from the center of projection increases uniformly toward the edge. |  |  |
orthographic |  | The image sphere as seen from the outside |  |  |
tetrahedron |  | An unfolded 4-faced shape |  |  |
cube |  | An unfolded 6-faced shape |  |  |
octohedron |  | An unfolded 8-faced shape |  |  |
dodecahedron |  | An unfolded 12-faced shape |  |  |
icosahedron |  | An unfolded 20-faced shape |  |  |
Hammer |  | A 2:1 wide ellipse |  |  |
Werner |  | A heart-shaped projection |  |  |
sinusoidal a.k.a. Sanson-Flamsteed |  | A pointy shape |  |  |
rectilinear a.k.a. gnomonic |  | Like a regular view from a normal lens. Straight lines stay straight. The FOV slider controls the zoom, which can go all the way to a 180° field of view. |  |  |
hyperbolic a.k.a. stereographic |  | Produces views balancing naturalness with vertigo. The FOV slider controls the zoom, which can go all the way to a 360° field of view. |  |  |
cylindrical |  | This is the format needed for some panorama viewers, including QuickTime VR. The view is infinitely stretched toward the top and bottom, so the vertical view is determined by the rectangle's proportions. |  |  |
Wetch |  | An unusual projection with a finite height and infinite width. The FOV slider controls the zoom, which can go all the way to a 360° field of view. |  |  |
pinwheel |  | Polar with a swirl. |  |  |
lozenge |  | A wide diamond shape with a crease at the equator. |  |  |
square |  | A square full of creases. Good for scenes containing lots of straight lines. |  |  |
curvy |  | Labrys-like shape with limited distortion. It's the central portion of a mirror ball projection. |  |  |
goggles |  | Goggle-shaped view which presents the whole sphere in a style like the hyperbolic projection, but with less extreme size changes. |  |  |
quasar |  | Weird projection with inside and outside regions bounded by a circular black-hole-like discontinuity. |  |  |
14 faces |  | An unfolded cuboctahedron. |  |  |
24 faces |  | An unfolded deltoidal icosatetrahedron. |  |  |
26 faces |  | An unfolded small rhombicuboctahedron. |  |  |
30 faces |  | An unfolded rhombic tricontahedron |  |  |
soccer ball |  | An unfolded truncated icosahedron. |  |  |
32 faces |  | An unfolded icosidodecahedron. |  |  |
38 faces |  | An unfolded snub cube. |  |  |
60 faces |  | An unfolded deltoidal hexecontahedron. |  |  |
62 faces |  | An unfolded small rhombicosidodecahedron. |  |  |
gores: 12 |  | A shape suitable for globemaking. |  |  |
gores: 24 |  | A shape suitable for globemaking. |  |  |
gores:36 |  | A shape suitable for globemaking. |  |  |

View |  |  |

You can change the center of projection -- the point in the input image that winds up at the center of the output.

Latitude moves the center of projection north and south.

Longitude moves the center of projection east and west.

Spin spins the view around the center of projection.

Flexify can also set the center of projection automatically in three ways:

an off-center
hyperbolic view

The reset button sets latitude, longitude, and spin to zero. This gets you back to the "normal" view.

The axis button sets latitude, longitude, and spin to multiples of 90°. This usually gives views that are symmetrical-looking.

The dice button generates totally random views. Click it as much as you want to see different effects.

reset

axis

dice

2. Polyhedra |  |  |

Flexify has fourteen projections that you can print, cut out, fold, and glue together to make a three-dimensional printout of your panorama.

If you use a map of Earth as your input image, you can make a crude globe.

Tabs sets the width of "glue tabs" that make the polyhedron easier to glue together.

The Tab color button sets the color of the tabs.

The Poly faces checkbox shows each face of the polyhedron in a single color, to make it clearer how the shape should be folded together.

color button

3. Other controls |  |  |

The Flip checkbox flips the input picture left-for right. If you are starting with a mirror-ball photo, this will correct backward text.

The Better preview checkbox improves the appearance of the preview at the expense of speed.

The Background color button lets you choose a background color.

Plus, % and minus buttons: If the selected image area is larger than the preview are, these buttons will let you zoom in and out. You can also reposition the preview by dragging it around; your cursor will turn into a hand.

Auto Preview When this box is checked, the preview automatically updates whenever you move any control. Turn it off if you want to save time.

Load preset Flexify comes with some presets, which are files containing settings. To load one, click this button and browse for a preset file.

Save preset When you make an effect you like, click this button to save the settings in a file.

Undo backs up one step.

Glue lets you combine the result image with the original, instead of replacing it.

Three more buttons:

OK Applies the effect to your image.

Cancel Dismisses the filter, and leaves the image unchanged.

Register Allows you to type in a registration code and remove the time limit from the demo.

load preset (top)
and save preset

undo

Globemaking

Flexify can warp maps into new shapes for making globes. You can use any of the polyhedron modes, explained above, to make faceted fold-together globes.

You can also make a conventional round globe. First, get a spherical object to use as a form. Traditionally, a plaster sphere is used, but a toy ball will do. It has to be exactly spherical: measure its girth in several places and verify that all measurements are the same.

Next, use Flexify to make "gores" -- the lens-shaped strips of map that form a globe's surface. Print these out so that the width of the gores, not counting the tabs, is equal to the diameter of the sphere. Glue the gores onto the sphere, carefully making them conform to the curved surface.

The Tabs slider adds solid-colored "glue tabs" that make the gores easier to glue together. It also fattens the mapped part of the gores slightly too, so that you need not align them perfectly on the sphere.

The Tab color button sets the color of the tabs.

If you don't want tabs, but do want the gores to be slightly fattened, set the tab color to the same as the background color.

Tabs appear on both the left and right sides of the gore. We recommend trimming the left-hand tabs off completely; they're only there to make the trimmed edges show less of the color of the paper. Leave the right-hand tabs in place, and overlap them with the gores as you work around the sphere.

You may also want to trim off the rightmost tab, so that the the difficulty of slipping it under the first gore doesn't cause a problem as you finish the globe.

12-gore shape

color button

Frequently Asked Questions

I want to make maps and globes with Flexify. Where can I find suitable input maps?

Here are some places to start looking:

Virtual Terrain project links to many map sources

NASA Jet Propulsion Lab maps of most Solar System bodies

Ars Technica earth map

Living Earth maps of Earth, Moon , and Mars

Björn Jónsson's planetary maps

LunarCell synthetic worlds

You can use Flexify's polyhedron and gore modes to make cut-and fold globes.

How do I make a spherical photo without expensive special equipment?

Get a plain silver spherical Christmas-tree ornament and photograph it.

How do I improve photos of ornaments?

Panoramas made with the mirrored-ball technique always have a flaw at the point opposite the camera. You can either paint this out, or you can photograph the ball twice from two locations about 90° apart around the ball's equator. Unwrap both reflections; their flaws will be in two different places. Use the good part of one image to replace the flaw in the other.

Since the reflection in the ball contains the whole scene, the sun or another light source will probably appear in it, and this can cause your camera's auto-exposure to darken the whole picture. To avoid this use a manual exposure setting appropriate for a typical part of the scene.

There are other, larger mirrors you can use besides ornaments that will produce better image quality:

Gazing balls. These are garden decorations originally popular in Victorian England, and they can be found at some garden-supply stores.

Safety/security mirrors. These are the dome-shaped mirrors sometimes seen at busy corridor intersections at airports and warehouses.

Hemispherical mirrors from "whole sky cameras." These are hard to find since meteorologists now use fisheye lenses for sky photography.

Large steel or copper mixing bowls don't give sharp reflections, but they are inexpensive and can produce soft, tinted views with streaky blurs around the highlights.

Using a mirrored ball you can make a wide horizontal view panorama with no flaw. Place the ball on the ground and photograph it from directly above; or hang it from something and shoot it from below.

Use a zoom or telephoto lens to get far from the mirror and minimize the size of the camera in the picture.

To enable a telephoto lens to focus closer, use it together with a close-up lens. That this will reduce depth of field, making focussing trickier.
For higher resolution, zoom in all the way and take four photos of the mirror -- one for each quadrant -- then stitch them together with your stitching software.

How do I make a cylindrical QuickTime VR panorama?

Make an cylindrical projection, then turn it sideways so that the bottom is on the right. Convert it with QTVR Make Panorama 2(Mac) or VRMakePano (Windows). You can find more detailed instructions here.

How do I make a cubic QuickTime VR panorama?

Make an equirectangular projection that's exactly twice as wide as it is tall, then drag-and-drop it on MakeCubic PPC.

What other panorama viewers are there?

Many; click here for a list.

How else can I (ab)use Flexify?

Straighten out the horizon in panos shot off-level.
Use it on non-panoramic photos to make them weird.
Distort the same image twice or more in a row to make it weird.
Photograph safety mirrors and security-camera bubbles in public places; de-warp the reflections to see what they see.
Extract a normal (rectilinear) view from the input.
Take a photo of a spherical object like an orange or the Earth and see what it would look like from a different point of view. Use orthographic input and orthographic output.
Make many-sided dice for role-playing games. Use only polyhedra whose sides are all the same shape; otherwise the die will be biased and will fall more frequently on some sides than on others.

What are some panoramic photo resources on the net?

Panoguide.com – info for beginner to semi-pro panoramic photographers

Panorama Tools – software to view, create, edit and remap panoramic Images

International Association of Panoramic Photographers
Panoramic Network – galleries & info

Panoscan – high-end scanning cameras

Apple's QuickTime VR developer tools

Version History

Version 1.3 August 2001

Adds the 12-, 24-, and 36-gore shapes for globemaking.

Version 1.2 June 2001

Adds the 30 faces polyhedron shape; adds two new input modes, cylindrical and orthographic; and fixes a bug where some polyhedra would not display correctly.

Version 1.1 June 2001

Adds eight new polyhedron shapes.

Version 1.0 May 2001

The first public release.

How to Purchase

You can place an order online here. A secure server for transactions is available.

Questions

Answers to common technical questions appear on the support page, and free upgrades appear periodically on the download page.

Trouble with your order? Orders are handled by Kagi; please contact them at admin@kagi.com .

For bug reports and technical questions about the software, please write to support@flamingpear.com .