Prepare 360˚ Panoramas for Google +

[Tony]

I've been playing around uploading Panoramas to the new Google Maps View. Originally Google+ only accepted Photospheres generated on Android devices but now you can add the relevant metadata to your equirectangular images and Google+ will display them in Google Maps View like the ones on my page http://bit.ly/16DIJjS

I've written a "howto" for those of us on Macs showing the process and software to add the metadata to the files, you can find it here http://bit.ly/12k7osb. It's a companion piece to a blog from Milo Timbol on "How to upload non-android 360 panoramas to Google Maps" at http://exsight360.com/blog/how-to-uploa ... ogle-maps/

Tony

[hum@no.id]

"how-to-upload-non-android-360-panoramas-to-google-maps" - this method has been a long and tedious

You can not even imagine that there is a very simple and effective way to get data especially towards the NORTH. For this I use our favorite program Pano2VR namely its tab Panorama Viewing Parameters.

Upload a panorama in Pano2VR, open Panorama Viewer Parameters / Check "Show north" / set with target visually our north / Press "Set" / The values add to Set Values - Copmpass Heading (via http://photo-sphere.appspot.com/ )

Enjoy...

*this primarily useful when there is not any recorded values into panorama
https://www.google.com/maps/views/view/ ... 41f2?gl=us
https://www.google.com/maps/views/view/ ... 82b2?gl=us

[Tony]

Good tip on the compass settings. The only issue with using the Photosphere builder page at http://photo-sphere.appspot.com is that you have to upload and then download your equirectangular before you can then upload it to Google+. If you are uploading high resolution files then this becomes quite onerous. Once you've installed the tools in my tutorial it's a much easier faster solution.

[hum@no.id]

I believe that mr. Thomas could easily write a small desktop utility like 'photo-sphere.appspot.com', as add-on for Pano2VR

[gateway]

This seems outdated, any updates to this.. the links are also not working..

[BParker]

In general, if you have Pano2VR, producing a photosphere for Google Maps is much easier than it used to be.

The old “Google Views” is gone now but most places listed on Google Maps have an “Add a photo” option that can be used to upload either a flat photo or a 360 degree panorama (aka photosphere). As an added bonus, Google Maps often gives preferential treatment to photospheres, in that they will usually choose one to display on a location’s main page. Here’s an example of a Pano2VR-produced photosphere I posted of a local park:

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Ford+ ... 17.1606657

They do switch things around periodically, though, and you may have to go to the thumbnails to find the photosphere if it’s not shown on the main entry.

The two big requirements for producing a photosphere for Google Maps are to use an equirectangular jpeg of no more than 14,000 by 7,000 pixels and to include the proper metadata.

I use the following steps in Pano2VR Pro to do that:

1. Input the panorama (in my case an equirectangular tiff produced in ptGUI)
2. Set the default view
3. Set the location and orientation using the map option in the tour browser
4. Set the Title, Description, Author, and Copyright in the “User Data” fields
5. Do a nadir patch
6. Create a “Transformation” output with the following settings:
*** Type = “Equirectangular”
*** Image size no more than 14000x7000
*** Make sure tilt and roll are set to zero. You may have to uncheck “Use default view” to do that.
*** Output format = jpeg

In my experience, running the transformation produces a jpeg file with the needed metadata that can be directly input to Google Maps using the “Add a photo” option. I haven’t tried this with the non-Pro version of Pano2VR but I suspect that it adds the proper metadata also.

Ben