Planar output from ns-process-data equirectangular mode has image artifacts, doesn't respect crop parameters

[darrendavid]

I logged this as an issue yesterday, but I'm not convinced it's an issue (it may just be me misunderstanding the system) so I'm posting it here as well.

When I pass 8k equirect imagery into ns-process-data using the specified parameters, the planar output images A) are riddled with white/off-color pixels in dark areas and B) include the bottom 20% region that I specified should be excluded via the --crop-bottom param.

My command line is:

ns-process-data images --camera-type equirectangular --images-per-equirect 14 --crop-bottom 0.2 --data <input_folder> --output-dir <output_folder>

I've also tried --crop factor 0 0.2 0 0 instead of --crop-bottom 0.2 and received the same result.

I have tried converting my source images to PNG, JPG, and TIF - all output still has the same artifacts.

Expected behavior

• Planar output images should be free of artifacts
• Planar output images should reflect the 20% bottom crop on the source equirect

Screenshots
Below is a source image (7680x3840 360 equirect) and the resulting 14 planar output images from ns-process-data that show the pixelated "noise" in the dark areas of the output, as well as the inclusion of the helmet-cam in the output which I specified should be cropped out from the bottom.

Source Image

Planar Output

Additional context
This may be expected/normal behavior for this system, but I'm new to this workflow and I'm not getting great alignment out of the output, so I'm checking to see if this is all part of the process or if there's something amiss here. I imagine colmap might need the full image (inclusive of the 20% crop on the bottom) to perform alignment? I don't want that in the reconstruction, though.