Hi SampsonF! You could connect the Theta S to your phone and control it with the Street View app (Android or iOS) on auto capture mode to get the 8s intervals, then upload directly to Street View from the app after you finish collecting.
@JackieSV Hello this helped me a lot. I have a question that is similar to this one.
I have started taking street view shots using my ricoh theta s in the street view app. I did them one by one and walked about 15 steps between photos. I had location on when taking the photos and faced the camera the same way on a tripod.
I then uploaded the photos 5 or so at a time to street view using the app on my ipad. I waited until they were all finally live. I then went through and linked each of the photos. I turned on autolinking but they did not link properly.
When I manually linked the photos, most worked fine. Some the direction for the next photo/previous photo end up on top of each other or pointing in weird directions. I took my time deleted the incorrect ones and tried fixing them multiple times.
Is there something I am doing wrong with the app? I have only posted 60 360 photos on the street view app so I am not trusted yet.
Am I doing something wrong in the app? Should I take less steps between pictures?
Do you know how many approved pictures I need to post before I am approved to use the desktop application?
I apologize if I am in the wrong area. I am just new to this and want to make sure I am doing everything correctly.
Hello, I found the solution to linking my photos in Street View!
I took a little more time with each photosphere to line them up a little differently. I found that if I put some of them a little to the left of what I thought they would end up linking correctly.
This allowed me to link 40 photos! If you are getting frustrated with linking photos. Take a second, close the app, reopen it. Then link them one by one. It gets a lot easier the more you do it.
It was a very foreign experience until I started using it more.
@JClarkness , Iâm glad you were able to find a flow that works for you!
Also, we are working on making automatic connections for photos more widely available, and if you make sure to keep your photos close together, that will help. Unfortunately, 15 steps might still be too far apart for automatic connections.
I havenât found a workaround for my arrow problems yet. Are you lining to the top image to the left of what it should be or the bottom @JClarkness ? Is Google trying to fix this issue? Iâm just wondering if my tour for a business should be deleted and reuploaded, reshot using street view paired with my gear360 or if I should wait for an update and manualy delete and reconnect the arrows? @JackieSV
@SamH I apologize for not getting back to you sooner with this topic. I hope that @JackieSV was able to solve your issue. If not let us know.
I found with my own photospheres it took a couple tries to get the arrows perfect. I also found that if I tested pointing the line to the left or right of what I thought was center it helped make them line up better for me.
these days i tried out to create some photosphereâs.
My first project is a tour through the climbing gym of our alpin-club in Hamburg/Germany.
It is great, to create 360° photosphere, just with an iPhone, the Street-View-APP and a tripod.
On the other hand, it is very trusting, because the geo-tagging of this setting does not work very well.
When i start my project, i uploaded all pictures, because, few weeks ago, i was able to use a web-tool, to fix the geo-tagging.
It seems, this web-tool does not exist any more, so i have to use the Street-View-App.
So i deleted all my uploaded photospheres (include all descriptions and so on) and then i corrected the geo-tags, uploaded the photospheres again and added the descriptions.
Doing this for 28 photospheres is a hard work.
Now, iâm waiting to automatic-linking of these images. How long i have to wait?
How this automatic-linking works?
Actually (2016-09-17) the best working workflow for me is:
prepare tripod with iPhone
open Street-View-App and turn off Wi-Fi and bluetooth, GPS on
take the pictures ( the first shot is in the most interesting direction, because you can see this in overviews and as the starting-view of the photosphere )
if auto-linking is not working, so use the Street-View-App for manually linking ( open first photosphere in âPROFILâ and make a long tap on the picture)
My workflow doesnât include guessing. First I make sure that the camera is pointing straight forwards while taking the pictures, thatâs very important !. (Theta S and LG 360, shooter button facing backwards). Publish, and then select batches of no more than 50 spheres to âmove and connectâ.
Disable 'Auto-connect 360 photos".
Connect all the spheres and do some slight position correction where needed.
Select image 1, at the bottom preview of the sphere, drag the âNorthâ N position to the exact center of the screen, Iâm not even looking at the image, just drag the whole picture so N is centered. Donât touch the compass yet !!!, youâll loose your real reference
Drag the compass so that the next image (2) is at the exact center of the screen. Now the sphere is pointing it the real geographic direction. This is a one shot process, once compass is rotated, your only reference is visual, which is not always easy to find out.
Save and use âAdd to map listingâ to get come Google Maps points for contributions. Save and done.
Note: This process is very tedious in a smartphone screen. I use âRemixOSâ which is an Android 6 stand alone virtual machine for PC. Itâs much easier to work with a mouse and full PC screen. I actually have a sticker at the frameâs bottom-center of my screen for reference.
Redundancy: Again, spheres have no direction metadata, so NORTH, which is 0, is your default reference before you rotate the compass, thatâs the direction where the camera was pointing when taking the picture and not related to magnetic north. In may cases itâs quite difficult to find out the direction with the preview of the sphere, thatâs why N is your reference, you know where your camera was pointing regardless of the preview. Once rotated, itâs gone.
Daniel - I feel like youâre really onto something here, but I canât understand what youâre saying. Since the video has no sound, itâs not helpful either. This thing with the rotating image and rotating compass is completely exasperating. I can get a straight line going, but canât turn a corner - so itâs worthless in a building. When I rotate the âbeamâ in any one image in a group, the âbeamâ in all other images rotates as well. I canât get the arrows to point in the direction of travel - I know youâre trying to tell us how to do that, but it just isnât clear enough to my ancient brain. Remix OS isnât available anymore, nor do I have a clue how it would help me. Google recently recommended some apps to work with SV on a desktop, but they are likewise mysterious and frustrating. You wouldnât think Google would make something like this so hard to figure out, but it has been an exercise in frustration.
If you have seen any tutorials that help with this single issue, or have any new wisdom to impart, I would greatly appreciate it.
Hi Brian â I just saw this thread as a newly minted Google Certified Trusted Photographer. As of 3-28-2019, I am having the same issues you express here from 6-27-2018! Additionally, I cannot even see my pano image in the preview window underneath the compass. So, I canât even begin to drag the image to align North! Have you found any resolution you can share? Iâm on an iPhone Xr. I really wish we can do this work on a desktop. Iâm a paid professional and am trying to connect images for a client job. Really frustrating when you cannot provide service to a paying client. Thanks.
There are a few new desktop apps since last year, but no trial versions to try before you buy, so I have stopped doing connected walk-thruâs of interiors. I am learning aerial panography now, and hope to sell those images as part of my VR package with real estate shoots. Street View is a great product for end users, but still too frustrating to be used as a pro tool. Good luck! bl
Thanks for the reply, CentralVAphoto! I agree. I, too, have a B2B VR business and am only currently using Street View for a client that also wanted their panos posted to their GoogleMyBusiness page. I do not actively sell GSV as a part of my business packages, only if they ask for it. What part of the country are you doing aerial panos? I am looking for aerial photographers to add to my roster for when a client wants to add aerials to their tour packages. Iâm in the Chicagoland area. Let me know if youâd like to connect outside of this forum.
Oh my god! Thank u so much, I couldnât figure it outâŚ. I have been trying since half a year and no luck! I read your comment and connected the photo spheres!!! Thank u so much !!!
