Google Maps' "See Inside" and sphere photos

Russinating

Russinating

Russinating

Soldato
Joined
27 Dec 2005
Posts
17,315
Location
Bristol
Does anyone know how sphere photos are taken professionally, as used in Google Maps' "See Inside" tours? I mean my Nexus 4 can do photo spheres that are compatible with Google+ but they're obviously not as accurate, especially when dealing with short distances. Are they taken with any old camera and then stitched manually or automatically with proprietary software? Or taken with an automated camera/ball head?

Also how does Google Maps know which sphere is located where when browsing around a shop?

If you don't know what I'm talking about then as an example go here - https://www.google.co.uk/maps/preview#!data=!1m4!1m3!1d800!2d-2.620977!3d51.45527 - grab the orange stick man and drop him on any of the orange dots.

Any help appreciated, including how to get approved by Google!
 
Oh and I forgot, I found one that's looking into a mirror so the setup for this particular shoot was as below. Would be interested to know exactly what that is!

hHvFbHu.png
 
From what I recall, you find the nodal point of the lens, mount that directly over your axis of rotation on your tripod and then take photographs all the way round (ie full 360 degrees) and then do the same in the vertical plane.

As the nodal point of the lens is directly over the axis of rotation there is no parallax effect. The pictures are then stitched together using software to make a 'sphere'.

Looks like the tripod in the shot is a Manfrotto tripod, which has been fitted with a specialised Panoramic head. Manfrotto do a number of panoramic heads - as do other manfacturers. They range in price from cheap and cheerful to expensive :)
 
I dunno how many are done like this, but I restaurant I work with had Google come over and do their "look inside" camera work. They charge for it, but it was reasonably cheap.

But then they added it to their listing of the old restaurant that was there before... To with a link to a site that no longer existed (was a redirect to the new site) and that they had been asked to remove from their index. :D
 
Ta. I've just submitted an interest form with Google about it - they say you need a "custom fisheye lens and pano-head" but that's it.

Judging by their requirements I'm guessing they absolutely grind you to the ground for not a lot of money but we'll see.
 
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Google contacted us to take on this in our local area we just didn't have the time. Should still have the emails from them I will try to dig it out now.
 
Ahh I only have correspondence from them thats just chit chat, most of it was done via telephone. They did send me a link to their secure training page at the time but as I declined the offer in the end they removed my access. This included the cameras and equipment that they recommended.

Just a note they only work with independent photographers and not businesses so make sure they know you are a one man band as such when you apply.
 
Well, just to tail this thread, we're almost a Google Trusted Photographer!

Through all the selection process anyway, got a Q&A conference call with my Google contact on Tuesday and then we've just got to submit one test pano (just of our office or something) to be quality checked by Google.

Not sure if the criteria has changed since you were contacted tommo but we're very much a business and they seems to be what they're looking for; more contacts, more scalability, dedicated sales team etc.

Anyway, it's quite exciting! Will see how it sells but with existing kit the outlay has only been about £900.
 
That's great mate well done!

I found it strange too regarding the one person rule. They contacted the studio which is actually my dad's full name. He passed them onto me and from that point onwards it would have needed to all be done by myself. We have 5 full time photographers but it couldn't have been run as a service offered by theccurrent studio.

My memories a little blurred with it all to be honest but as I didn't have my own site or offer myoown services and it couldn't be run through the studio and my lack of spare time declined.

Think it could be a very nice earner, will they send you referrals for the enquiries for your area I take it?
 
Yeah it must have changed. Most of the initial assessment questions were regarding scalability so.

No they, though after doing 10 business they list you here: https://www.google.com/maps/about/partners/businessview/get-started/. Otherwise it's down to you, but having the Google name behind you obviously adds a significant amount of weight.

I think the only think that makes it worthwhile is being able to do upwards of 6 businesses per day if you just book them in blocks as each shoot only takes 1-2 hours.
 
Andy90 said:
From what I recall, you find the nodal point of the lens, mount that directly over your axis of rotation on your tripod and then take photographs all the way round (ie full 360 degrees) and then do the same in the vertical plane.

As the nodal point of the lens is directly over the axis of rotation there is no parallax effect. The pictures are then stitched together using software to make a 'sphere'.

Looks like the tripod in the shot is a Manfrotto tripod, which has been fitted with a specialised Panoramic head. Manfrotto do a number of panoramic heads - as do other manfacturers. They range in price from cheap and cheerful to expensive :)
Click to expand...

This, panoramic heads.

The google maps street view has quite a lot of additional processing and uses the lidar data to create sudo 3D models.

These days though 3D models can be generated from a collection of 2D images using feature registration.
http://m.youtube.com/user/senseFly

I've seen a great project that searches flickr for particular tags like colleseum and then generates 3D textured models from the collection of random 2D that have no labeling.
 
I was sitting in a sandwich shop last week, a girl walked in and asked the staff if they could take photos for Google maps and then she took photos of the store with a Google branded phone.
 
^^ Whatever that was, it wasn't for Google Business. You can't even use any old camera for that, they have a list of about 15 that are approved for use.

But yeah I can do 360 panos on my phone (and most other new phones) so it's interesting, just lower quality and less consistent across multiple stores (the manual settings are very strict too).
 
I used to make these for hotels and restaurants before the Google explosion of street view, and back then I used a Nodal Ninja 5 to mount the camera on. One of the important things it to get the nodal point as close to centered as possible to avoid parallax issues. Then it's just a case of stitching with a powerful PC and you're done!

One of the vatican shot with a NN5.

https://www.360cities.net/image/vatican-rome-italy#183.30,-28.00,70.0

I joined the Google thing but never followed it though, it would be interesting to know if it's worth doing or not. I'm guessing that photospheres will be replaced at some point with Project Tango, so probably has about 2-3 years left in it.
 
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Had another look for Panoramic heads on Google search since this thread was resurrected.

Possibility that the red coloured Panoramic head shown in the photograph Russinating posted back on 8th January could be a 360 Precision Atome panoramic head as per this webpage

http://www.peterstephens.co.uk/atome-and-sigma-8mm-fisheye.php

Further Googling on 360 Precision Atome Panoramic head found this website

http://www.360precision.com/360/index.cfm?precision=home.home

and sure enough the right hand kit mentions Google Trusted Photographers - quite cheap as heads go £264. Looks a nice well built piece of kit.
 
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