[Pkg-phototools-devel] Hugin + Debian - touching base

[Yuval Levy]

Hi Sebastian,

Sebastian Harl wrote:
> I'm not into hugin package but I'm the maintainer of the Debian enblend
> package.

since 0.7.0 Hugin depends critically on Enblend.


>> A Ubuntu contributor recently made me aware of [1] - is this the  
>> repository on which you guys work?
> 
> Yep.
> 
>> I would like to get to know you; to know the status quo of Hugin and  
>> related tool in your distribution and your plans for the future.
> 
> Hrm, not sure what exactly you want to know (about enblend). As of now,
> the latest release (3.2) is available in testing and unstable (Lenny
> ships 3.0, while 3.2 is available through backports.org). The package
> seems to be used quite a bit, while the number of reported users seems
> to be rising fast (see [popcon]).

I did not know about popcon - When I type enblend and hugin I get very 
similar numbers. It seems that demand for enblend is coming from Hugin 
users?

What are your experiences with 3.2? have you used later CVS checkouts? 
are you aware of Enblend migrating to Hg?

I am not sure if I understand everything well inside [phototools]. We 
had some confusion on our side with Hugin-0.7.0 dependent on a 
CVS-snapshot of Enblend because we (Hugin) really wanted/needed Enfuse 
and Enblend-Enfuse was not released yet. Shipping Hugin-0.7.0 with 
Enblend-3.0 is not so good.

Add to it that I experienced plenty of errors / memory leaks with 3.2 
until I had enough and switched to the staging branch on launchpad. In 
the meantime that branch is history. A couple of weeks ago I pushed hard 
enough for the developers to come together and join forces.


> Currently, the only outstanding issue that has been reported is the
> embedded version of libvigraimpex. It would be nice to be able to use
> the packaged, unmodified version at some point in the future (see
> [bts542258] for details).

yes, this would be nice. I am not enough of a coder to take care of 
this. I've added it to the Enblend bug tracker, [artifact 2853074]


> Besides that, I don't really have any special plans for the future
> besides getting the latest versions into Debian when they are available
> ;-)

have you tried the latest Hg version? you probably don't need 
[instructions] - it's much faster on multi-core CPUs; it is much more 
robust (projects of mine that segfault 3.2 complete like a charm on 4.0 
pre release); and worth being pushed into unstable already now.

The next things I would like to know is how the packages trickle down 
from Debian to Ubuntu, and try to smooth the way for the next Hugin 
releases through both of the distributions.

Specifically, we have Hugin-0.8.0 out now that is a major improvement 
over 0.7.0 (have you tried the [fast preview]?)

and I introduced major change to our release cycle. we will be releasing 
2009.2.0 likely before the end of the month, and then in a sequence 
2009.4.0; 2009.6.0; and maybe 2009.8.0 (or 2010.0.0).

You can read about the [new release cycle]. The exact version number 
will depend by the year of the release (major) and the sequence of the 
release within the year (minor).

The features that are scheduled for release (and we'll do individual 
releases to avoid clogging the pipes as we did with the GSoC2008 
projects and 0.8.0) are:
- GPU stitching (now)
- lens calibration (next)
- deghosting for enfuse (soon - will likely also be enblend-4.1)
- new layout model (soon)
- vigra 1.6 (soon - I know that it would be better to use upstream 
library, hopefully this will be a step toward it)

That's five Hugin releases, plus Enblend.

So, these are the plans as far as I am concerned. Of course, being a 
code-monkey and at times also elephant in a crystal shop, I can not 
guarantee that they will happen. I depend on the goodwill and work of 
plenty of volunteers. I estimate the chances of getting there as quite high.

When I look at [backports] we're still 0.7.0. I have no clue what the 
policies are at Debian for inclusion in stable and unstable. I would 
like to help streamline/improve/accelerate the trickling down of newer 
versions of Hugin/Enblend/Libpano.

My personal interest is Ubuntu (easier for monkeys like me) and I 
started a [PPA] there, which is currently empty. I do not know the 
details of the relation between Debian versions and Ubuntu versions. Is 
there any overlap? Or do we have to do the Ubuntu packages separately, 
even if they use the same distribution system and they come from the 
same lineage of Linux?

You will forgive me that I "use" you as an in-between station to get to 
Ubuntu.

I have a last question about the difference between Debian and Ubuntu. I 
have found Autopano in Ubuntu [Jaunty] but not in Debian. Are you aware 
of this? Autopano, which is in the Hugin repo, has also undergone some 
major (speed) improvements. Memory leaks are being fixed and I hope 
we'll have a release next year.

Thank you for reading so far.
Yuv



[phototools] http://git.debian.org/?p=pkg-phototools/hugin.git
[artifact 2853074] 
https://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&aid=2853074&group_id=123407&atid=696409
[instructions] 
http://wiki.panotools.org/Hugin_Compiling_Ubuntu#Building_Enblend
[fast preview] http://panospace.wordpress.com/2008/08/17/sneak-preview/
[new release cycle] 
http://wiki.panotools.org/Development_of_Open_Source_tools#Processes
[backports] 
http://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=hugin&searchon=names&section=all&suite=lenny-backports
[PPA] https://launchpad.net/~hugin
[Jaunty] 
http://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=autopano&searchon=names&suite=jaunty&section=all