Caption: @nigelfreeney’s Star 360 Sphere of Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym uploaded onto Google Maps on 2019-11-01 and showing star views of 48,911 as at 2025-09-28
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym, Taunton, United Kingdom
This is one of the first 360 images I uploaded onto Google Maps. I was simply experimenting. I was not very skilled at editing then, hence the big blurred patches to hide the camera and tripod - I have come a long way since then. The camera was an Insta360 One X.
In the following years I have had three new camera upgrades. The Ricoh Theta Z1 51GB. This was good but has limited video capability and as I also create blue lines for Google Street View was not a practical solution. I now use an Insta360 One RS 1 Inch 360 Edition. This gives me the best balance of workflow and adaptability. I have more recently bought an Insta360 X5. I am still experimenting with the workflow using this camera.
I have now started to regularly upload 360 degree images using my drone, a DJI Mini 4 Pro. Videos taken using the drone are very popular very quickly after uploading. Unfortunately, The 360-degree images taken with the drone are very slow to gain traction.
I am also developing my skills in editing to hide the camera and tripod, as well as efficiently and quickly blurring faces etc. Of course, it is much easier if you can compose the image so that it needs the least amount of editing afterwards! With the drone shots you can now take a complete image with missing the top or bottom of the image - the top of the drone above the gimble has a cut out so the flexible gimble is able to shoot directly up and directly down.
Star 360 Sphere Views History
The table below shows the recent views history of my Star 360 Sphere.
Views each month
| Month |
Place Name |
Total views |
Count Change |
| 2025-09-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
48,911 |
0 |
| 2025-08-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
48,911 |
493 |
| 2025-07-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
48,418 |
481 |
| 2025-06-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
47,937 |
0 |
| 2025-05-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
47,937 |
479 |
| 2025-04-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
47,458 |
0 |
| 2025-03-30 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
47,458 |
476 |
| 2025-02-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
46,982 |
472 |
| 2025-01-31 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
46,510 |
922 |
| 2024-12-30 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
45,588 |
0 |
| 2024-11-29 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
45,588 |
452 |
| 2024-10-31 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
45,136 |
452 |
| 2024-09-28 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
44,684 |
444 |
| 2024-08-30 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
44,240 |
440 |
| 2024-07-31 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
43,800 |
898 |
| June '24 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
42,932 |
437 |
| 2024-05-29 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
42,495 |
878 |
| April '24 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
41,617 |
437 |
| March '24 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
41,180 |
1,257 |
| February '24 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
39,923 |
377* |
| January '24 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
39,546 |
2,417 |
| December '23 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
37,129 |
1,184 |
| November '23 |
Nuffield Health Taunton Fitness & Wellbeing Gym |
35,945 |
… |
*Caption: A tabular summary of the recent star views of my Rising Non-Star Video (LG: @nigelfreeney)
*This shows the hit that was taken whilst Google is making changes to its count infrastructure.
Caption: @nigelfreeney's rising 360 Sphere of La Jaconde (Mona Lisa) uploaded onto Google Maps on 2023-09-26 and showing views of 24,681 as at 2025-09-28
I expected the picture above, of the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, to become my star 360*. It was taken with a broken Insta360 One RS 1 Inch 360 Edition and uploaded at the end of September 2023. I didn’t realise it at the time, but the lenses were misaligned. This required a great deal of post work to correct most of the obvious issues. There were also a lot of faces to blur. I think three factors for this doing well are:
- The basic image is good and the post work prevented the errors from being too noticeable
- The image was submitted to a smaller section of the Louvre dedicated to the Mona Lisa
- It’s a 360 sphere - the competition will remain relatively limited in tourist places in France
- For health and safety reasons selfie sticks and tripods are not allowed.
- I had my camera mounted on a baseball cap with an adaptor
- I have since realised that because I use a nadir image at the base of the photo I am better of simply holding the camera up at arms length. This latter point is also helpful where it is stipulated that only handheld cameras can be used.
- As you can see in the table below, the 360 sphere of the Mona Lisa received a single small recent increase in views. It is still publicly visible. This makes me think that this is part of the ongoing issue with Google Maps. In fact if you look at the views in Google Takeout, it has surpassed the performance of my park sphere by some margin - but that is an item for another post!
Views of Mona Lisa each month
| Month |
Total views |
Count Change |
| September '25 |
24,940 |
259 |
| August '25 |
24,681 |
249 |
| July '25 |
24,432 |
0 |
| June '25 |
24,432 |
242 |
| May '25 |
24,190 |
251 |
| April '25 |
23,939 |
0 |
| March '25 |
23,939 |
240 |
| February '25 |
23,699 |
0 |
| January '25 |
23,699 |
250 |
| December '24 |
23,449 |
0 |
| November '24 |
23,449 |
0 |
| October '24 |
23,449 |
0 |
| September '24 |
23,449 |
0 |
| August '24 |
23,449 |
236 |
| July '24 |
23,213 |
0 |
| June '24 |
23,213 |
0 |
| May '24 |
23,213 |
0 |
| April '24 |
23,213 |
0 |
| March '24 |
23,213 |
3,820 |
| February '24 |
19,393 |
|
