Frequently Asked Questions

Please report issues not found in the FAQ to

• Q. I am using iOS 5 and have Photo Stream turned on. Sometimes, when I select photos to stitch, they appear as blank images or I get a "can't align" error even though they should have been easy to match. What is going wrong?
  
  A. There is a known problem with access to photos in the album being intermittent while the new Photo Stream feature in iOS5 is syncing your photos. We have developed a fix, which will be out soon in a new update. In the meantime, if you wait until Photo Stream syncing is finished, everything will work fine again.
  
  
  
• Q. Why must I enable location services to access the photo albums, even if I don't care whether my photos have geolocation information attached?
  
  A. Cloudburst Research is committed to maintaining user privacy. Within AutoStitch, there is an option to keep "Geotagging" off. When this is off, AutoStitch does not use or even access any location information from your device. If it is on, then location is used only to perform geotagging of photos.

  Unfortunately, even when "Geotagging" is off, it is necessary to have location services on to access the photo albums. This is a requirement of the latest Apple software for accessing the photo albums, and we have no choice in the matter. Apple's reasoning seems to be that the photos on the camera roll may have location data attached, so an app would be able to access the user's previous locations. As the SDK is designed to provide full access to the camera roll data, it cannot prevent an app from accessing any location data that is present. Even if no photos have location data attached, it would be too slow to examine the full contents of every photo and video to verify this, so Apple has chosen to require location services to access the photos. Apple's own apps, such as the Photos app, do not have this restriction, but it is mandatory for apps from other developers.
  
  

• Q. I am concerned that I will have to have a data connection, pay data charges, or leave roaming on because I have location services enabled.
  
  A. Location services do NOT require any data connection. They use GPS data, which passively senses location and does not require any data connection. You can verify this by turning on airplane mode, and you will see that AutoStitch continues to work without any problems.
  
  
  
• Q. My panorama looked great when I stitched it, but now it has lower resolution when I look at it on the camera roll. Why?
  
  A. Your panorama is always saved to the camera roll at its full stitched resolution, but the iPhone's Photos app uses only a limited resolution for display. You can view the panorama within AutoStitch to see the full resolution (just select one image and touch "View"). Also, you will get full resolution when you sync images to your computer or email the image.
  
  
  
• Q. What is the highest resolution that I can get?
  
  A. Depending on the resolution you choose in the AutoStitch Options menu, you can produce images of up to 18 megapixels on the iPhone 4S, 4, and 3GS, the iPad, and on 3rd and 4th generation iPod Touch models, and up to 5 megapixels on the iPhone 3G and earlier iPods. You can stitch at up to 100% of image size on the newer models and up to 50% of image size on the 3G and earlier iPods. We are unable to provide higher resolutions on the early models due to internal memory limitations.
  
  
  
• Q. Sometimes when I upload a panorama via Twitter, and then try to view it using the Twitter app, the image doesn't appear and I get the message "Invalid Image Data".
  
  A. This appears to be a problem with the Twitter app itself. There are alternative apps such as Twitteriffic that do not appear to have this problem. As a work-around inside of the Twitter app, if you simply back out of the image view screen and click again, the image will be successfully loaded.
  
  
  
• Q. I am getting a "Request Error" when trying to upload to Twitter.
  
  A. This may indicate that the clock on your device (iPhone, iPod touch, iPad) does not have the correct time, and therefore the connection to the Twitter servers is disallowed. Check your time and try again!
  
  
  
• Q. I stitched together a set of photos and the final output resolution was much less than I expected. Why?
  
  A. The first thing to note is that the default settings for Output Resolution use lower resolutions than the original input image resolutions to generate the final panorama. This makes the stitching process much faster, and is sufficient for most viewing purposes. If you want the maximum output resolution, you can select "Advanced" Output Resolution, with the 100% Resolution and 18MP Maximum Size sub-options.

  If that turns out not to be the issue, it could be that the resolution of your input photos was less than you thought. You could have lower resolution versions of photos on your iPhone/iPod/iPad if you downloaded the originals to your computer and then uploaded them back onto your device. (See next FAQ entry.)

  You may also get lower resolution in some cases if there is much more than the usual degree of overlap between your photos, such as many photos of the same location. This may lead to excessive blur and a lower final resolution.

  Some users make the mistake of equating file size with image size. Due to JPEG compression, a photo with a 2MB file size may have many more than 2 million pixels, depending on the contents of the image. You can check the resolution of any photo in AutoStitch. Tap Select Photos, select the single photo you wish to inspect, then press "View". The resolution will appear in the bar below the photo.
  
  

• Q. I imported my photos to iPhoto and deleted them from my iPhone. How can I get the full-resolution photos onto my iPhone/iPod/iPad for stitching?
  
  A. If you use iTunes to sync with your iPhoto library, the photos that are uploaded to your iPhone/iPod will be at a reduced resolution. One way to get full resolution photos onto your device is to email them to yourself at full resolution, and then save the images to the camera roll by holding your finger on the image in the email until a menu appears that allows for saving.
  
  
  
• Q. I deleted AutoStitch from my iPhone/iPod, but now I would like to get it again. Can you send me a new copy?
  
  A. You can only download AutoStitch from the iTunes App Store. However, if you previously purchased AutoStitch, iTunes will have a record and will let you download it again for free. Just make sure you are using the same iTunes account as for your previous purchase. Your purchase will proceed as usual for paid download, but you will be told at the last moment that the purchase is free.
  
  
  
• Q. What does "Auto-Exposure" mean?
  
  A. The iPhone camera automatically adjusts its exposure setting to obtain a reasonable average brightness in each image you take. By default, AutoStitch automatically adjusts the brightness within each image to compensate for this variation. In most cases this will lead to a much better result. However, in case you wish to leave the brightnesses as they were in the original images, you can set Auto-Exposure to OFF. This locks the exposures to their original values. Note: There is currently no way to turn off auto-exposure on your iPhone camera.
  
  
  
• Q. I uploaded my panorama to Facebook, but it appears to be much smaller than the original panorama I stitched?
  
  A. Facebook implements a maximum height and width for any uploaded image. AutoStitch uploads the maximum allowable image size that adheres to Facebook's limitations.
  
  
  
• Q. During stitching, I noticed a status message that said "Rendering (5 of 7 images used)". What does that mean?
  
  A. In order to be able to automatically align your overlapping photos, AutoStitch requires there to be some interesting features in the overlap regions. If these regions do not have sufficient features, for example they consist of bare walls or blank sky, then the alignment will not succeed. In that case, AutoStitch will let you know how many out of your original set of selected images were used to create the final panorama.
  
  
  
• Q. When I try to Post an image to Facebook, I keep getting an error message saying "Facebook login was unsuccessful". I've re-entered my username and password several times, but it still doesn't work!
  
  A. If you have recently purchased your device, for example, you may not have set up the date and time yet for your location. In this case, Facebook is unable to create a secure connection to their servers, and the login will fail. You can check your date and time by opening the Settings app and touching "General" and then "Date & Time".
  
  
  
• Q. Where can I suggest additional questions that could be answered on this page?
  
  A. We welcome additional questions or reports of any problems at: