Kolor is defunct, can Affinity Panorama take up the slack?

[SMcQ]

There used to be an iOS app called Autostitch from Cloudburst Research (bought out by Google). It used the SIFT algorithm to automatically align images and render a 360 in equirectangular. Alas, that app was never upgraded to later versions of iOS. Current stitching apps for 360 are crap.

The closure of Kolor by GoPro is an opportunity for Serif. We have Affinity for desktop and iPad with the panorama persona, yes, but it needs a little more work. There isn't a way to designate the format of the taking lens, such as full frame fisheye, or to designate the output to equirectangular or cylindrical projection. And the panorama persona cannot properly stitch full frame fisheye images or images taken with vertical diagonals.

Of course, APG is (was) a desktop program. There never was a full function stitcher app for mobile operating systems, Autostitch, while a good stitcher, was limited. Affinity Photo for iPad comes close, and could even exceed in many ways the capability of desktop stitchers if it added a few features. There would be a lot of demand for an iPad stitcher that could make 360 equirectangular 2:1 images in the field, on assignment.

Attention Serif: you may find that the founder and the team that developed AutoPanoGiga and AutoPanoVideo might be interested in helping you bring the panorama persona to the next level. The world needs an iPad based 360 stitcher that can work with any input.