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Level 2

Tips for Streetview App?

Hi everyone,

I've been taking 360 degree photos on my DSLR for a while, but have recently started taking them on my phone using the SVA as well. This is so much more convenient as I don't have to carry my tripod and other associated gear with me, and can quickly take a nice 360 shot wherever I am. However, I seem to be unable to get my stitching consistent. Sometimes the image comes out perfectly, with all of the parts stitched correctly and smoothly, then others it seems to be completely off and has massive errors - there doesn't seem to be an "inbeteween". This includes having sections of pathways randomly shoot out a few feet higher than the rest, or an image wrapping around 400 degrees so it pastes over itself again. I have tried everything from keeping my feet and arms locked in place the whole time (makes taking the photo behind me a real pain) to lifting the camera instead of tilting it for the higher angles, but I can't seem to find what makes them come out so poorly. I have also noticed that sometimes the gyroscope does not pick up where I actually am (for example, it thinks I have moved 160 degrees when I have actually moved 180) so that causes immediate stitching issues, so that I often just discard and try again. As far as I can tell, it seems to be random, but there is obviously some mistakes that I'm consistently making without realizing. 

 

Does anyone else have any experience with this, and can share any tips, YouTube videos, guides etc to best-practices with the SVA? I'd really love to take consistently acceptable photospheres when I'm out-and-about but can't seem to overcome this issue.

 

Thanks you so much!

 

New York, NY, United States
9 comments

Accepted Solutions
Level 6
Solution

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

This guide for shooting Photospheres with the Google Camera app was written a while ago, but much of the information still applies to the Street View App as well. In my opinion, the most helpful tips are in the second section called "While Shooting".

 

Although the second tip certainly makes a lot of sense ("Start the sphere at the least-interesting point"), it's worth noting when opening that Photosphere in the Street View App, it will have the starting frame or initial view centered in the direction of where you took the first shot. I tend to start shooting the Photosphere slightly off center relative to the item of greatest interest as a compromise between avoiding major stitching errors running through the "main attraction" and having the first opening view be entirely uninspiring.

 

I'm sure software exists to manually change the bearing of the Photosphere afterward (such as this website), but I have no personal experience with that. I don't know if it requires the original un-stitched photo panels to do so (I'm not sure), which to my knowledge are erased from the app after automatic stitching is finished to save storage space anyway.

 

I've heard it's extraordinarily difficult to get near-perfect Photosphere stitching without using a tripod or stable object. Even with lots of practice using my phone and taking my time to capture each photo panel, I usually end up with at least 1 or 2 distorted or mismatched stitches afterward (not bad, but not spectacular either).

 

Everyone has their own approach. I hold my phone at eye level with both hands, elbows tucked into my body a little bit (for some stabilization/consistency). As best as possible, I keep the camera in the same imaginary fixed point in 3D space. To do that, I try to hold the phone slightly off to one side in order to center it over one of my feet. I then pivot on that same foot without picking up my foot during turns to try to keep the vertical z-axis anchored—you want to pivot around the camera keeping it in the same spot, not sweep the camera around you. When capturing photo panels near the zenith (up) or nadir (down), you also don't want to lift or lower your arms, but rather tilt the phone in your hands or aim with your wrists. If you shift the camera up, down, left, or right between different shots, I think that messes up the equirectangular (a.k.a. Plate Carrée) projection.

 

Outdoor Photospheres tend to turn out better than indoor ones, mostly because if you don't rotate/pivot the phone's camera properly (at the fixed intersection of our imaginary X,Y,Z axes), images of objects up close (i.e., indoors) suffer a lot more from parallax shifts than objects far away (i.e., outdoors) and may not fit together correctly.

 

I'm not exactly sure how to fix the gyroscope issue, but maybe you could try calibrating your phone's compass in the Google Maps app and see if that helps?

View solution in original post

Level 6
Solution

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

This guide for shooting Photospheres with the Google Camera app was written a while ago, but much of the information still applies to the Street View App as well. In my opinion, the most helpful tips are in the second section called "While Shooting".

 

Although the second tip certainly makes a lot of sense ("Start the sphere at the least-interesting point"), it's worth noting when opening that Photosphere in the Street View App, it will have the starting frame or initial view centered in the direction of where you took the first shot. I tend to start shooting the Photosphere slightly off center relative to the item of greatest interest as a compromise between avoiding major stitching errors running through the "main attraction" and having the first opening view be entirely uninspiring.

 

I'm sure software exists to manually change the bearing of the Photosphere afterward (such as this website), but I have no personal experience with that. I don't know if it requires the original un-stitched photo panels to do so (I'm not sure), which to my knowledge are erased from the app after automatic stitching is finished to save storage space anyway.

 

I've heard it's extraordinarily difficult to get near-perfect Photosphere stitching without using a tripod or stable object. Even with lots of practice using my phone and taking my time to capture each photo panel, I usually end up with at least 1 or 2 distorted or mismatched stitches afterward (not bad, but not spectacular either).

 

Everyone has their own approach. I hold my phone at eye level with both hands, elbows tucked into my body a little bit (for some stabilization/consistency). As best as possible, I keep the camera in the same imaginary fixed point in 3D space. To do that, I try to hold the phone slightly off to one side in order to center it over one of my feet. I then pivot on that same foot without picking up my foot during turns to try to keep the vertical z-axis anchored—you want to pivot around the camera keeping it in the same spot, not sweep the camera around you. When capturing photo panels near the zenith (up) or nadir (down), you also don't want to lift or lower your arms, but rather tilt the phone in your hands or aim with your wrists. If you shift the camera up, down, left, or right between different shots, I think that messes up the equirectangular (a.k.a. Plate Carrée) projection.

 

Outdoor Photospheres tend to turn out better than indoor ones, mostly because if you don't rotate/pivot the phone's camera properly (at the fixed intersection of our imaginary X,Y,Z axes), images of objects up close (i.e., indoors) suffer a lot more from parallax shifts than objects far away (i.e., outdoors) and may not fit together correctly.

 

I'm not exactly sure how to fix the gyroscope issue, but maybe you could try calibrating your phone's compass in the Google Maps app and see if that helps?

Level 10

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

I suggest you to build something similar to this:

 

http://www.fotografia360.org/tayrona-360-rotula-panoramica-celulares-planos-manual/

 

This could help you to obtain better alignment between shots and avoid stitching problems.

Level 2

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

Thank you so much for the tips!

 

Firstly, my compass is DEFINITELY off. I tested it and the beam was so wide, and wouldn't change no matter which way I faced - so that's one major problem fixed. I also really liked that guide you shared, and will go and test out your method of shooting (pivot around the foot, arms close to your chest etc) soon.

 

I really appreciate the detailed response - thank you! 🙂

Level 6

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

@BryceB You're welcome. It will take some time with practice to improve, but I get decent results with the method I described.

 

Here are a few examples from my Photospheres on GMaps that demonstrate some mistakes I referred to:

 

  1. I forgot to avoid starting this Photosphere directly on the main subject—in this case, St. Charles' Church—and the prominent columns next to the front facade ended up with two glaring stitching problems, which are an eyesore. Otherwise, the technique I used seemed to work pretty well.
  2. I took this Photosphere because of the monument, but I started the photo in the opposite direction of the subject. Now when you first open the Photosphere, its first impression is just the street and nearby buildings (it's not a huge deal, but it doesn't capture someone's attention right away).
  3. This one is inside a hotel, and there are many more stitching problems (the ceiling, the carpet, and the chandelier) due to small unintended shifts in camera positioning having a larger effect indoors.

 

A few other tips I forgot to mention:

 

Try to avoid taking photo panels by sweeping the camera in the same direction that people or cars are moving because you'll probably capture the same person/object in multiple places as they follow the frame of each shot (depending on how close they are and how fast you're rotating ahead of them).

 

While in the middle of taking a Photosphere, some of the individual panels may not look like they fit correctly having mismatched edges because of arm movements with the camera. As long as the movements aren't huge, sometimes the Photosphere turns out relatively okay anyway due to sufficient overlap of picture data. So if you're almost near the end of a Photosphere and the last bit doesn't seem to match so well with where you started, I would complete it anyway and see how the processed image looks first rather than discarding it and starting all over (depends on how much time and patience you have to redo it 😉

 

I also like how the Street View App lets us sequentially undo all previous shots, unlike the Google Camera app that only lets us undo the single prior shot (which means you can't go back and correct anything more than the last panel without discarding the whole thing). The undo is helpful if the exposure/focus/lighting is not right, or if someone walks into the frame of view and appears cut off.

Level 5

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

Indeed this application is very good but when it can not stitch. I retrieve the photos, in the folder android, and I use another application on the PC. Too bad, I do not know how are ordered files on the ios.

Level 7

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

Couple of things that I do when using the Streetview App, I've found that holding the phone landscape seems to work better for me. I actually start on the most important subject and build out both sides (either zig zag or spiral motion) and making sure that the main objects are complete and the left side of the captured sphere is at a place of less importance before filling in the rest of the horizon to right, usually finishing the sky and ground last. Unless there are skyscrapers or trees, in that case I try to include them in the first phase. 

@ackushiw
Level 8

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

I'm having the exact same problem. Gyroscope tends to randomly mess up while taking photospheres, sometimes it wrapped the sphere at more than 360, sometimes less, making really annoying stiches/blackened out angles. I have to pay attention at my first full round at the horizon, if the phone doesn't reconize me at first full round, I'll have to start from scratch. Try calibrating the sensor doesn't seem to help. I'm using a HTC U11, flagship of HTC in 2017 yet still have this problem. I have read all the techniques online I could find with Google street view app but this gyroscope thing is really making things more difficult than necessary .

Level 6

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

Hi, 

Thanks for the tip. I was looking for parallex shift as I was trying indoors and didn't know about the shift.

Level 10

Re: Tips for Streetview App?

Nice question I am looking for.

Thank you @BryceB

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