Recommended plug-ins/apps for panorama stitching in Aperture?

Question

Does anyone have any recommendations for photo stitching plug-ins/apps that "play well" with Aperture?
I end up taking a large number of panorama series (horizontal, vertical, and occasionally 2D grid), and I would love to be able to select a stack in Aperture and "edit with plug-in" to create a stitched image (like Photomatix does with HDR series). Failing that, any recommendations of a reliable external app and a recommended Aperture workflow?
(I had been using ArcSoft Panorama Maker, but it has proven highly unreliable -- lots of crashes and inability to process a number of seemingly-straightforward series --, and its somewhat nonstandard UI becomes pretty cumbersome if you have to use it a lot.)
Thanks!

Answer 1

Mike,
I will share my workflow, but I cannot really recommend it as "best" since I have not tried other software or workflows, but it works well for me.
I do not use any plugin (and I'm not aware of one right now). I use Hugin, freeware from SourceForge http://sourceforge.net/projects/hugin/.
After importing RAW photos into Aperture (I use a managed library for the most part, but that's neither here nor there), I stack each set of photos that belong in the same panorama. I export the photos from each stack as TIFFs to a predefined folder that contains my pano input and outputs. I run the photos through Hugin and output as JPG files. Then I import those pano outputs as referenced photos into Aperture. For each pano output, I add it to the corresponding stack and make it the stack pick. I crop and do color adjustment if necessary on that final version. Finally, I go back to my predefined folder and delete the TIFFs that I exported from Aperture.
A couple notes:
I use JPG as output since there are so many pixels in most panoramas that I could probably print it out large enough to cover my living room wall before seeing JPG artifacts.
I delete the TIFFs from my pano folder because they're just wasting space at that point. I can recreate them from my Aperture versions at any point, and I'm probably not going to use them outside Aperture.
It's really easy to add the pano to the stack of its "source" photos, since Hugin ensures the EXIF date matches the first photo in your pano. By sorting my date in Aperture, a newly imported pano shows up adjacent to the "source" stack.
I import the final JPG as referenced because I want to keep track of all the parameters saved in my Hugin project (I.e., what are the source photos; what were the control points; roll/pitch/yaw; pano algorithm, etc.). That project file is not a picture, so Aperture won't manage it. However, I store the final JPG in the same place as its corresponding project file. With a referenced master, I can use Aperture to show me the location in finder, an voila, I have found the Project file, too. If ever I need to recreate the pano for some reason, I can look at the project file and see what pictures I need to export from Aperture to start the process over again.
Hope this is helpful!
nathan