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Level 10

Size of a 360 degree photo

When I read the rules about Google Street View photo (https://www.google.com/streetview/earn) two of the conditions I still confuse.

It said: IMAGE QUALITY
+ 14 mp or larger (5,300 x 2,650 px)
+ 2:1 image aspect ratio.

1) With the first condition, when I check my 360-degree photos, I see two kind of size of the photos, that makes me confuse because I do not know Google talk about what kind of size (1) or (2) in the picture below. Any one know please help me to figure out.My infor of 360-degree photo, Google wants to size in (1) or (2)?My infor of 360-degree photo, Google wants to size in (1) or (2)?The conditions about Image Quality of 360-degree photo of GoogleThe conditions about Image Quality of 360-degree photo of Google

2)  With the second condition, what is the 2:1 image aspect ratio? I can not find down this information from my 360-degree photos. How to find down or adjust that factor with Google Street View app?

 

 

Thank you for your helps.

Best Regards,

LG Summit Attendee in 2016 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Regional Lead before 2017
Vietnam
20 comments

Accepted Solutions
Level 8
Solution

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Ahh, 14 mp or larger (5,300 x 2,650 px)
The 2:1 image aspect ratio means that if you look at the raw file as if it were a flat photo would be twice as long, as it is high.

If you notice the minimum "14 mp or larger (5,300 x 2,650 px)" line, you will notice that

  1.   2,650 times 2 = 5,300
  2.   2,650 time 5,300  = 14,045,000 (or a smidgen larger then 14 meg)

So you could have an image that is much larger, but the aspect ration would need to remain the same. As an EXAMPLE, if you had an image that was 3,000 pixels high, it would

  1.   Need to be 6,000 long (3000 times 2 = 6,000)
  2.   And it would be 18,000,000 pixels (18 Meg) - - 3,000 time 6000 = 18 Meg

I'm not sure if I did a great job of explaining this, msg back if this dose not answer your question.

View solution in original post

Level 8
Solution

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Ahh, 14 mp or larger (5,300 x 2,650 px)
The 2:1 image aspect ratio means that if you look at the raw file as if it were a flat photo would be twice as long, as it is high.

If you notice the minimum "14 mp or larger (5,300 x 2,650 px)" line, you will notice that

  1.   2,650 times 2 = 5,300
  2.   2,650 time 5,300  = 14,045,000 (or a smidgen larger then 14 meg)

So you could have an image that is much larger, but the aspect ration would need to remain the same. As an EXAMPLE, if you had an image that was 3,000 pixels high, it would

  1.   Need to be 6,000 long (3000 times 2 = 6,000)
  2.   And it would be 18,000,000 pixels (18 Meg) - - 3,000 time 6000 = 18 Meg

I'm not sure if I did a great job of explaining this, msg back if this dose not answer your question.

Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Thank you so much @JoeCullity, I understood your detail explain well.

I think it is correct answer I am looking for.

LG Summit Attendee in 2016 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Regional Lead before 2017
Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

@ThanhLan Awesome question! @JoeCullity already answered everything...but here's my two cents worth.

 

Since your on an iPhone, then all of your pictures will meet the limit. They just restrict super grainy photospheres.

 

Here's what the photosphere looks like as a regular picture. Notice that it's 2x as long as it is high? All photospheres get encoded like this.Screenshot_20180516-120443.png

 

 

 

Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Just adding a bit: some confusion come from the guidelines that are different for minimum size, in megapixels (14), and maximum size, in mbytes (72)

Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Hi @ThanhLan, I can confirm what @JoeCullity said is correct. Maybe if I rephrase it a little bit,it may be more clear to you. 

 

Let's start with the aspect ratio. An image always has a width and a height. Many cameras shoot ("flat" images) say at a 4:3 aspect ratio. A video also has an aspect ratio. Standard "wide screen" videos nowadays usually have 16:9 aspect ratios. 

 

For a 360 photo to perfectly cover everything from top to bottom, it needs to have a 2:1 aspect ratio - i.e. twice as wide as high. Just like your example image (as Joe explained). A pixel means a small, color dot of the image (images are made up of dots called pixels on screen).

 

The Mp (or Megapixel) count is actually result of the multiplication of the width and height. In your example picture: 8704 pixel * 4352 pixel = 37,879,808 pixels - or  ~ 37.9 Megapixels (just as in your screenshot of the example image). This is apparently bigger than the required minimum (14 Mp) for Street View - so you are okay with that image. 

 

The last number was the image file's size in Megabytes - this is the "weight" of the file (the space it occupies on your computer or on Google's servers once uploaded). There used to be a maximum file size limitation in the SV Guidelines but there does not seem to be any more. The file size is usually in direct correlation with the image's pixel size but many image file types can be compressed so this is not a rule of thumb. Compressed images tend to look uglier though. 

 

I hope this helps to understand Joe's explanation better.

Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Thank you, I got it, @JosephDewey

I understood clearly about the conditions which I were confused.

Best Regards,

LG Summit Attendee in 2016 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Regional Lead before 2017
Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo


@Csaba wrote:

Hi @ThanhLan, I can confirm what @JoeCullity said is correct. Maybe if I rephrase it a little bit,it may be more clear to you.

 

The Mp (or Megapixel) count is actually result of the multiplication of the width and height. In your example picture: 8704 pixel * 4352 pixel = 37,879,808 pixels - or  ~ 37.9 Megapixels (just as in your screenshot of the example image). This is apparently bigger than the required minimum (14 Mp) for Street View - so you are okay with that image.

 

The last number was the image file's size in Megabytes - this is the "weight" of the file (the space it occupies on your computer or on Google's servers once uploaded). There used to be a maximum file size limitation in the SV Guidelines but there does not seem to be any more. The file size is usually in direct correlation with the image's pixel size but many image file types can be compressed so this is not a rule of thumb. Compressed images tend to look uglier though.

I hope this helps to understand Joe's explanation better.


Yes, I really now get well about the conditions of Google Street Views. Thank you so much @Csaba for explaining more detail about the infor of my photo (39.7 MP (8704x4352) 6.9 MB), that make me know about my confuse. So I understand that I do not look carefully at MP (Megapixel) and MB (Megabytes), because the Street View conditions said in MP. About 2:1 ratio, @JoeCullity, made me understood already.

Thank you so much for your enthusiasm. Love some day to see you around.

 

LG Summit Attendee in 2016 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Regional Lead before 2017
Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo


@LucioV wrote:

Just adding a bit: some confusion come from the guidelines that are different for minimum size, in megapixels (14), and maximum size, in mbytes (72)


Hello @LucioV, with your confusion, I have some thoughts:

 

MP = megapixels = it talks about the NUMBER OF IMAGING POINTS in a photo, belong to the field of digital imaging. A pixel (pel, dots, or picture element) is a physical point in a raster image, or the smallest addressable element in an all points addressable display device; so it is the smallest controllable element of a picture represented on the screen.

MB = megabytes = it talks about the SIZE of photo, belong to the field of computer science. A byte as a measure of computer processor storage in real or virtual memory. A megabyte means either 1,000,000 bytes or 1,048,576 bytes.

LG Summit Attendee in 2016 ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ Regional Lead before 2017
Level 10

Re: Size of a 360 degree photo

Thanks @ThanhLan! 🙂 But I'm not confused about these numbers, as I'm a computer science engineer and I work on graphics since 1990 on SGI 🙂

I mean that guidelines are not so clear regarding upper and lower limits 😉

Thanks anyway, Lucio