The RTI domes use open source software in common use for RTI imaging. See our quick video on our “workflow”. From 2025 relightlab will take over.
RTI software
Relight
The new software from CNR is currently the best for the full calibration and processing: https://vcg.isti.cnr.it/vcgtools/relight// – it has a better fitters (eg HSH, RBF) and has an easy web viewer. It certainly replaces RTIbuilder!
RTI Card Importer
This (Windows only) utility supports the copying of images from a memory card into the standard RTI file/directory hierarchy for processing using the rest of the software. Download (Windows) you may need to download microsoft .net Runtime if it fails to install. Documentation here. Eventually this will be deprecated.
RTI Processor
Eventually this will be deprecated too. This (Windows only and .net required as above) utility creates a ptm from an image tree. It manages the process of combining the configuration file for the dome and the images captured for a specify object. Documentation download here. Get it, unzip it somehwere convenient and run setup once. Download
Note! you can not have spaces in the folder names… so c:\my area\images fails.
PTM Fitter
John Cupitt has optimised the ptmfitter to use multiple cores and less memory – resulting in a good speed-up for creating PTMs. It can fit 76 D800 36Mpixel images in 50s. At the moment it is incompatible with RTIbuilder but we’re working on it Download Win10 version and put it into a new folder C:\Programs\ptmfit as that’s the default for RTI Processor.
RTI workflow (only useful for our fast PTM method)
This is our all-in-one import-process code written in Python. Not complete yet but usable. Main gains: saves settings and allows a crop. You have to download the zip file and unpack it somewhere – then run the app.exe application. See our workflow video. Thanks to Ben Thompson for this integrated code.
RTI Builder (now replaced by relightlab)
RTIBuilder was used to generate the lp configuration files used to locate the LEDs in 3D space. You need to use this if you move your lights/rebuild your dome. Don’t forget to install Java. We used this with the original HP ptmfitter.
Viewers
The RTIViewer (from CNR Pisa) (or from CHI site) is the most common way to view these images on Mac/Windows. It provides extra viewing features which are useful for enhancing the image. Relight provides a web viewer which is nicer in many ways. You can either open the html file from relightlab or copy the folder to your web server.
Web Viewers
relight can export different types of web versions of images – including a fast tiled format which is good for high resolution images. Check the most recent documentation.
Nikon software which is useful
As the camera is on USB you can change obvious settings like F and exposure time using Nikon’s NX tether. Don’t let it download while you are capturing though. Available here: https://downloadcenter.nikonimglib.com/en/download/sw/266.html