WARNING - BUGS, PROBLEMS, DISTORTED VIEWS - SUMMARY

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Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 24, 2011, 12:05:27 PM10/24/11
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Hello everybody

Thanks for reporting the bugs during uploading. We are working on them all and they should be fixed soon or all already fixed. We are sorry for the troubles, there is more than usual amount of problems due to some major infrastructure updates we are doing. They all have the same cause.

Here's a list of problems I've recorded so far

1. You upload a panorama and it never appears in your account (happened before and during the weekend, should be mostly fixed, but can occur again). We have almost solves all related problems but there could still be some.

2. You upload a panorama via FTP and it sits forever in the FTP folder. The same as #1

3. Distorted views in the Heading and Viewpoint viewers. It didn't affect the published panoramas but sure it did make the editing a difficult task. Should be now fixed.

4. Distorted published panoramas (It affected only some panos.) This is something new on Monday. We are working hard on fixing it. Please hang on for at (I hope) most 24 hours.

5. Distorted published panoramas in Google Earth: It seems that Google Earth has refreshed our content after some time (yay!!!) but it also allowed some of the distorted panos to go to Google Earth (yiy!). For this, we need to fix #4 and then get the GE updated asap, with Google's help.

Hope this helps to clarify things. Please let me know if there's anything else than this. Thanks and once again, sorry for all the troubles!

Jan

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 24, 2011, 12:13:58 PM10/24/11
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6. Image looks totally distorted when you swap it with a new version. This is tightly related to #4.

Calvin Jones

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Oct 25, 2011, 12:10:41 AM10/25/11
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Hi, I am happy that google earth has been updated with photos from 360 cities.  I have noticed that the photos that were updated are only visible in the "360 Cities" default photo layer and not in the "360 Cities" gallery layer.

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 25, 2011, 5:08:21 AM10/25/11
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UPDATE:

We've fixed many of the badly converted panoramas on 360Cities (#4). We are working on fixing them in Google Earth as well (#5).

Jan

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 25, 2011, 10:09:01 AM10/25/11
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UPDATE: All cases of #4 (distorted published images) should now be resolved.

Also #1, #2 and #3 should be working fine now.

J-P. Scherrer

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Oct 25, 2011, 11:07:06 AM10/25/11
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Hi Jan !

Can't you find the panoramas allready upladed via FTP (which obviously ARE somewhere in you system !) ?

Do I HAVE to try to upload all of them again ?

;-(
J-P.

J-P. Scherrer

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Oct 25, 2011, 2:23:12 PM10/25/11
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OK then........

I DID re-sent my 5 panoramas, (each one 96 Mo.) via FTP, as you
suggested !

Result: 3 hours later... they are still NOT VISIBLE in PENDING nor
UNPUBLISHED !

So... WTH shall I do ???

;-(
J-P.

Calvin Jones

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Oct 25, 2011, 10:33:22 PM10/25/11
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Hi Jan, The Gallary layer appears to be working now.  There must have been a lag between when the Default Photo Layer and the Gallery layer markers are updated.

Werner Joemann

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Oct 26, 2011, 3:41:10 AM10/26/11
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Congratulations Jan !
You have eliminated all the problems very quickly. Everything works perfectly now. Also, GE has now updated. Everything is working satisfactorily

Best regards
Werner Joemann

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 26, 2011, 8:33:09 AM10/26/11
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It still seems that we are having problems with TIFF uploads. 

JPEGs have been fine since Saturday. 99% of our uploads are jpegs.

We are working on fixing the TIFFs as well today.

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 26, 2011, 9:03:22 AM10/26/11
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TIFF uploads are fixed now as well.

Herbert Johannes Weber

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Oct 27, 2011, 5:36:53 AM10/27/11
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Hello Jan,
all my pics which I have uploaded last week and this week are working perfect in 360cities, but a lot of them in the GE-Layer distorted!!!
Especially the pics of Passau, Bad Toelz and Schliersee. Pleas let my know what can I do now? Shall I delete these pics and upload it again?
best regards Herbert

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Oct 27, 2011, 11:49:17 AM10/27/11
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Hi Herbert

If your images are showing ok on 360Cities but distorted in Google Earth then there is nothing you can do. All problems like this should be resolved soon automatically.

Jan

Herbert Johannes Weber

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Oct 27, 2011, 12:53:18 PM10/27/11
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Hello Jan,
thanks a lot for this information.
best greetings from Bavaria
Herbert

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Nov 8, 2011, 8:08:22 AM11/8/11
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We are still getting reports about panoramas being distorted in Google Earth - the original #5.

We are working on fixing it.

Jan Dunlop

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Nov 14, 2011, 1:54:18 PM11/14/11
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Thanks for the update, just to let you know I'm still seeing distorted images in google earth as well but I'm sure you are onto it.

Peter Steneld

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Nov 15, 2011, 2:15:32 PM11/15/11
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Hi Jan,

I am not sure if I am adding a note on something you have already commented here, but anyway:

My latest panorama was created on 360 cities just a few days ago and already it has apeared on GE...which is great :) ! However, the pano is correct in 360 cities but distorted on GE. Will this be fixed automatically on the next GE update or do you need to know about it?

In GE it is distorted in the nadir and in the same direction it openes if you open it from within 360 cities
http://www.360cities.net/image/djupafors-sweden#184.04,0.37,70.0

Regards,
Peter

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Nov 16, 2011, 9:13:09 AM11/16/11
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Hi everybody

The panorama distortion seems to not be going away for some days. We'll see what we can do about it.

Here's how the problem looks

For some panoramas
- There is a visible seem at the 0-360 degree boundary of the panorama in Google Earth
- The nadir is pinched or distorted

This is now a known issue listed here #1405

We will try to fix it asap, it's not as easy as it may seem.

Jan

PS Yes, the Google Earth updates are daily now, which is great! :)

Calvin McDonald

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Nov 16, 2011, 12:35:57 PM11/16/11
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Jan:

Once this problem is corrected, will we be required to do anything to update the now distorted images on GE, or will that be automatically taken care of?

Oh, and thanks for your efforts to get daily GE updates, that is great!

Calvin

HighDesertView

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Nov 17, 2011, 10:31:11 AM11/17/11
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On Wednesday, November 16, 2011 10:35:57 AM UTC-7, Calvin McDonald wrote:
 
Once this problem is corrected, will we be required to do anything to update the now distorted images on GE, or will that be automatically taken care of?

There's still the issue of swapped panoramas not being updated in GE (bug report #888 on the Known Issues @360cities).  So, it seems to me unlikely that there will be things we can do as users to force an update.  Interestingly, when I swap a pano and go through the usual delisting on GE (which happens immediately now when swapping), waiting for general reapproval @360cities, and relisting on GE it can be a month or more while my pano is NOT on GE.  Yet when the swapped pano is reapproved, GE posts the old pano!  I tried erasing my local GE cache, but the issue seems to be on Google's server side.  They must be caching our photos there and not updating.

I do think it's great, however that the uploads come so fast now, once approved.  That, and it's amazing how fast a new pano gets processed and is ready for posting once uploaded.

Thanks to the developers for all the great work!
John.

HighDesertView

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Nov 17, 2011, 10:49:42 AM11/17/11
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Hello again,

Tomasz noted the same issues in a recent post:


I directed him here.

I did want to comment about one observation of his - the dark black hole in the nadir of some photos.  I sometimes see something similar on my panos on GE and reported this a long time ago.  It's sometimes caused by a mismatch between the reported elevation of the photo and the elevation of the terrain on GE.  The hole in the nadir appears to be the intrusion of the local terrain into the sphere of the 360.

You can get rid of this particular effect in the nadir by turning terrain off in GE.  Back when I reported this, it was suggested that I could adjust the elevation of my photos but I was never really able to make that work and decided it wasn't a big deal anyway  to turn off terrain for the few 360s it affected.

John.

Tomasz Makarewicz

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Nov 17, 2011, 6:29:28 PM11/17/11
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Hi everyone,
Thanks John for pointing me out here.
I'm going to read all posts in this thread but from what i read so far the issue seems to be related to the glitch that we had within 360cities website causing distortion of panos which wad then passed to GE? My panos never seemed to be affected in 360cities, I never had to swap them and they look perfect on the web. It seems that it's only GE that's an issue.
With the dark patch: I think John is right - my panos that are affected are placed on sloped terrain and after closer inspection I noticed that in fact GE terrain interferes with panorama sphere. I agree: changing the altitude would fix the problem but I guess it would have to be done from GE side.

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Nov 18, 2011, 6:46:37 AM11/18/11
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@John: Thanks for directing people talking about this issue to this thread.

@Calvin: Once we fix this distortion problem you will not have to reupload your panos.

@John, Tomasz: Covered nadir in photos in Google Earth is a problem of the viewer in Google Earth which has nothing to do with 360Cities, unfortunately. We cannot fix this. The issue should be reported and reminded in Google Earth forums. You cannot set elevation for your photos on 360Cities.




Tomasz Makarewicz

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Nov 23, 2011, 7:25:29 PM11/23/11
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Jan, could you please let us know the expected date when the problem
will be resolved so we can re-upload panoramas that were affected?
Thanks

Tom


On Nov 18, 7:46 pm, "Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net" <jan.

Alexander Adashkevich

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Nov 24, 2011, 5:18:15 AM11/24/11
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http://www.360cities.net/image/kemer-turkey-boat-pier-at-the-beach-september-2011 - still have problem with distorted view on Google Earth, but in 360cities it looks OK.

HighDesertView

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Nov 29, 2011, 11:25:31 AM11/29/11
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Any word on the issue with swapped panoramas? (#888) 

I notice that the preview image in the GE gallery layer has my updated 360, but that when I enter the 360 bubble itself, I get the old image.  

So the swap has sort of trickled through, but not completely.

I guess this is an issue with how frequently GE updates their image cache in their database?

Note: I completely cleared my local GE cache prior to accessing the swapped 360s in GE.

Evgeniy Veldyaev

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Dec 2, 2011, 1:18:52 PM12/2/11
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My last panoramas normal appear in 360cities, and on Google Earth in the layer 360cities, but are distorted in the layer photo on Google Earth.

Best regards, Evgeniy

Tomasz Makarewicz

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Dec 8, 2011, 6:24:00 PM12/8/11
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Jan, could you please let us know if anything is happening in regards to this issue?
Thanks

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Dec 12, 2011, 9:28:50 AM12/12/11
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We are still working on it.

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Dec 14, 2011, 4:29:30 AM12/14/11
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It seems that we've identified the problem. All newly uploaded images should be now correctly displayed in Google Earth. For older images, we will need to convert them in upcoming days. 

This is just for your information, please don't report that your images are still having problems. We know they are. Once everything is fixed I will send another message. In the meantime, you should see the situation gradually improving.

EwingKang

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Dec 14, 2011, 6:36:00 AM12/14/11
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What a greate news! I'm glad to hear that! Thanks for all your effort!

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Dec 21, 2011, 9:04:03 AM12/21/11
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We are now more and more sure that all new panoramas are being shown just fine. We've got a backlog of old panoramas that still need to be converted. We'll slowly update them - and it might take some days or weeks.

HighDesertView

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Dec 21, 2011, 10:31:10 AM12/21/11
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Hi Jan, can you give the date at which new panoramas should have been fine?  I have one that appeared in GE within the last week where the nadir shows the odd star shaped pattern.  

It's not a big deal in my case - nothing interesting in that direction - but it is different from the copy on 360cities.

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Dec 28, 2011, 6:53:43 AM12/28/11
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Hi all

All panoramas should now be fixed ON OUR SERVERS and should look fine in Google Earth ONCE THE NEXT SYNC HAPPENS. As you might have noticed, our syncing with Google Earth happens now virtually daily (!!!) so it shouldn't take long. To be on the safe side please wait until the beginning of the year 2012 and then if you still see some distorted panoramas in Google Earth, please send links so we can look at it.

Enjoy!

Jan

EwingKang

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Jan 1, 2012, 11:54:23 PM1/1/12
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Well, it's 2012 today.Happy new year everyone!
I'm sorry to say that some of my pano still wraped incorrectly.
Please help me fix that ,thanks.
 

Calvin McDonald

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Jan 2, 2012, 2:18:32 AM1/2/12
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sky...@web.de

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Jan 3, 2012, 3:25:06 AM1/3/12
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Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Jan 3, 2012, 7:51:58 AM1/3/12
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Guys, please be patient. Everything is fixed on our side and the change will propagate into Google Earth once the next sync happens. The Google team stopped the syncing before and during the holiday season for security reasons and they will resume this or next week.

Jan

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Jan 3, 2012, 7:52:59 AM1/3/12
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The syncing should be restored to the daily frequency soon.

EwingKang

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Jan 4, 2012, 6:56:38 AM1/4/12
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It seems that my panos are correct now!
Sorry for hurrying and thanks again, Jan.

Franck Masschelein

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Jan 4, 2012, 12:26:16 PM1/4/12
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Hi,
It seems that a new sync happened. Good news !
However, I have a pano that still have the problem in GE, both in photo and gallery layer (it looks OK on 360Cities.net) :

http://www.360cities.net/image/les-6-bonniers-20111118

Is it possible that this one has been forgotten and has not been fixed on 360Cities servers ?
Could you please check ?
Thanks, and happy new year 2012 !
Franck

Calvin McDonald

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Jan 10, 2012, 12:00:10 PM1/10/12
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The Created date on most, if not all, my panos with pinched nadir defects have change recently - so I'm assuming this means they have been recreated.  Looking them over on GE I see most still have image defects.  Some no longer have a pinched nadir but most have a disjoint vertical line and other problems.

But I don't know whether I've waited long enough or not for the fixes implemented by 360cites to flow through the system.

Calvin

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Jan 12, 2012, 4:45:32 AM1/12/12
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How about now? Calvin, don't forget it takes usually at least 24 hours for the Google Earth to be synced with 360Cities. Is it better now?

Franck Masschelein

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Jan 12, 2012, 1:49:26 PM1/12/12
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Hi Jan,
My pano http://www.360cities.net/image/les-6-bonniers-20111118 (message above of January 4) still have a disjoint vertical line in GE.
It has been updated on January 5 (not by me, see thread https://groups.google.com/d/topic/360cities/_DK786e9H-M/discussion).
Does that mean that GE has not been synchronized with 360Cities for a week ?
Regards,
Franck

Calvin McDonald

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Jan 13, 2012, 2:49:42 PM1/13/12
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Jan:

Is there a definite way for me to know when 1) An image has been recreated, and 2) When an image has been synced to GE?   I don't have a way of knowing if I'm to expect updated panos.

Many of my panos still have image defects (only on GE) in 2-3 different classes, excluding pinched nadirs.  I haven't had time to check all my panos yet but all I've looked at so far that had pinched nadirs before no longer do.

The most common defect apparently being introduced is a dotted line visible at the 360 wrap junction, which is most (only) visible at widest zoom.
Example:
http://www.360cities.net/image/pulpit-point-sawtooth-national-wilderness-idaho-usa#181.27,-10.32,110.0

I have at least one that displays image distortion when zooming.
Example:
http://www.360cities.net/image/fishhook-creek-redfish-lake-inlet-idaho-usa#-0.93,58.51,49.7
(on GE watch the log in the center of the screen when zooming)

I'm getting a lot of banding in blue skies and intersections with the sphere and ground (holes in the nadir) but I think these are defects outside the scope of this particular thread.  My older panos don't seem to suffer as bad with the banding problem as the new ones.  Has it gotten worse?

Calvin

HighDesertView

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Jan 14, 2012, 11:07:08 AM1/14/12
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I waited two weeks into 2012 to give the system ample time to catch up but...

What I understand from Jan's posts is that Google Earth performs a daily pull of all new and approved 360s on 360cities.  I'm not certain whether that means "never before seen on GE" (only just uploaded and approved on 360s) or "any modified 360" (possibly swapped and re-approved).

Case 1: Brand new 360 all around (only just posted and approved)
My limited experience is that "never before seen on GE" are indeed pulled into GE almost immediately after approval on 360cities.  I've only had one or two cases of this lately, but I should be able to test this in a few days when my newest 360s are approved.  My new cases, unfortunately, were loaded during our recent problems and so are corrupted on GE but they did load fast!  So, for the first appearance ever on GE, the system does seem to update rapidly (perhaps the next day after approval).

Case 2: Existing 360 that was swapped and reapproved
For the month or so preceding the holidays, I went through all my old 360s and re-rendered them using my latest software and the techniques I've picked up over the last year or so.  I'd say I swapped over half of my old 360s with new renderings.  When I started, we didn't yet have the daily GE update, but eventually by the end of my redo, we did have the GE daily update.

What I noticed with Case 2 was that the thumbnails in GE would update, but that the sphere itself would not.  By "thumbnail" I mean the initial GE pop-up that gives the flat equirectangular preview of the 360 before you decide to enter its sphere.  In all cases, this thumbnail was updated daily after reapproval on 360cities.

However, the spherical view itself was not updated.  I even logged out of GE (you can read the help for how to do this) and wiped my local GE cache on several occasions just to make sure my local GE wasn't serving up a sphere cached locally.  Nope, the "old" sphere seemed to be coming from GE despite the thumbnail being updated.

I suspect that GE has a backend caching system that currently does NOT update daily.  I could believe that this is a compromise on their part between service and computational/storage expense.  They'll spend the time to process Case 1 (never before seen on GE) daily but not Case 2 (swapped).  Case 2 seems to update on a slower schedule.

Before the holidays, none of my swapped and approved 360s had been updated on GE (the thumbnails: yes, the spheres: no).  In the week between December 23 and January 1, when I understood Jan to say that the whole GE process was on hold, all of my updated 360s were updated on GE, this time in their spheres.

In early January, the first few updated 360s that I checked were corrupt as others have described - patchy nadir with discontinuities along longitudinal lines.  I opted to wait to see if the daily updates would fix the problem.  But they have not.  I'd say more than half my 360s in GE now have the image corruption problem.

FYI, I also noticed that little time stamp update issue that others have seen - some of my panos showing new modification dates for times that I didn't touch them.  I assumed this was an effort on 360cities's part to trigger an update at GE.

Also, people should remember to turn off terrain in GE (Tools->Options->3d View->Show Terrain) before they report nadir problems.  I find that the terrain often comes into a 360 sphere if you have it turned on and looks similar to the patchy nadir problems that we're seeing.  If the problem goes away when you turn off Terrain, you don't have the nadir problem we're talking about.

Calvin McDonald

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Jan 14, 2012, 2:25:01 PM1/14/12
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Nice report John.  It's consistent with what I'm experiencing ... other than the swapping stuff.  I haven't swapped any recently so haven't had any experience with that.

You mentioned several image defects.  I was wondering if you've seen images that distort as you zoom.  I've only seen (so far) this in one of mine.  It's very odd.  This link gives the image and view direction.

http://www.360cities.net/image/fishhook-creek-redfish-lake-inlet-idaho-usa#-0.93,58.51,49.7

When viewed in GE and zoomed in/out near the most narrow view the log in the picture distorts.  There are other places in the same image that do this but this log is the most obvious.  Are you seeing anything like this?

Another thing I've noticed is that I have some image defects the occurrence of which are dependent on how I view the image in GE.  For example, if the first thing I do after entering the sphere is to pan around, the defects don't appear.  But if I zoom to full wide first then pan around they do appear.  The most common defect that acts like this is about a 5-10 degree wide top-to-bottom distortion where I normally see the dotted line at the 360 wrap junction.

Calvin

HighDesertView

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Jan 15, 2012, 2:05:10 AM1/15/12
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Hi Calvin,

At first, I didn't see the distortion you mentioned or any artifact until I found the dashed line at the 360 wrap junction.  After I zoomed in and out a few times looking at the log, I saw the log warp with zoom level.  Pretty funny.  It seems to be some sort of zoom dependent compression error.  The warping is probably occuring along longitudinal lines.

I thought I'd look at one of my swap/updates in GE.  Fun!  This one really loaded really strangely for me:


The interesting thing is that the GE image is my OLD unswapped pano. Before all these problems, that image looked fine in GE (apart from my own bad stitching work that I corrected in my swapped version at 360cities - you can see some horizontal discontinuity in the trunk of one pine about half way up in the GE version).  Somehow, after I uploaded my swapped version and that was approved, the GE version was recreated but from my old 360.

The artifacts I commonly see:
  • Nadir patch - Usually a little circle at the nadir that looks like a pie graph.  I imagine looking at the north or south pole of a globe where all the longitude lines converge on the pole.  It seems to be a compression artifact.
  • Longitudinal discontinuities.
    • Minor zipper stripe along the 360 wrap junction/seam.  If you're luckly, only a few degrees are lost at the seam.  It becomes more apparent when you zoom in
    • Large discontinuity.  More then 10 degrees missing at the edge of the 360.  Apparent at all zoom scales.
  • Zenith patch.  Repeat of the nadir with the pie chart or north/south pole look of converging longitudinal lines.  This isn't always as apparent as the nadir artifact, probably because the zenith is typically uniform sky or relatively featureless.
The nadir/zenith artifacts seem to be an issue with lost data at 85 degrees south or 85 degrees north.  Below or above these latitudes, let's say only every 10 degrees longitude is saved instead of every 1 or 2 degrees longitude at lower latitudes.  To fill in the gaps between longitudes, the remaining data is stretched.  So in the nadir and zenith, it looks like you're getting pie-shaped bits of a blurry version of your true nadir and zenith.

Calvin McDonald

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Jan 15, 2012, 9:02:38 PM1/15/12
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John, here's one for you to figure out....

I followed your link then clicked on "View in Google Earth".  I saw what I believe you are seeing in the way of image defects.  Maybe and strange ones.  But, if I exit the image and then re-enter it, the defects go away.

Calvin

HighDesertView

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Jan 16, 2012, 11:46:46 AM1/16/12
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Calvin,

That particular 360 loaded very oddly, but once fully downloaded was defect free except for the nadir and zenith patches.  I don't see any missing parts at the 360 seam on this one.

John.

HighDesertView

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Jan 16, 2012, 1:26:31 PM1/16/12
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Funny thing.  Now, when I load that 360 in GE I am getting the latest swapped version and no longer see the old version I replaced a few months ago.  (I recognize the changes in stitching.)  So, in the course of a few days the swapped version (which has been at 360cities for a few months) finally triggered a complete update on GE - without a seam artifact, but still with the nadir/zenith patch artifact.

And I made sure to clear my local GE cache before checking my 360s the other day.  That downloaded corrupt old version really came from GE servers and not from my system.  

John.

HighDesertView

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Jan 24, 2012, 1:02:45 AM1/24/12
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It's a week later and I still see the artifacts.  But, I've made an important observation.

Case 1: Using 360cities GE links
If I use the Google Earth link (View in Google Earth) to either pull down all my panos from my main 360cities profile (as a kml file), or pull down specific panos (as separate kml files), then the images are almost always corrupted with nadir/zenith artifacts AND a big discontinuity at the 180/-180 longitude seam.

Case 2: Finding panos in the Gallery layer
If I navigate inside GE and use the Gallery layer, then the behavior is different:

Case 2a: Old panos load as expected with NO artifacts.

Case 2b: Newest panos load with minor nadir/zenith patch artifacts and minor dashed lines at the 180/-180 longitudinal seam.  There are no large discontinuities at the 180/-180 position.

Case 2c: My panos updated in the last several months on 360cities (via the swap option) which were approved over a month ago are in fact not updated in GE.  GE still displays the old panos.

I was confused in my previous posts because I followed links to the pano in two different ways - via the GE link FROM 360cities and via finding it in the gallery layer on GE.  Following the link from 360cities, you get the updated/swapped image that loads incorrectly in GE.  Following the GE link from the Gallery gives you the old image (not yet reflecting the updates on 360cities) that loads without artifacts.

So, it seems to me that there are two problems:

1) Links to GE from 360cities are not handled correctly.  The latest 360 is loaded but the 360cities server that is sending GE the data is not sending all of the data properly.  I'm talking about the "View in Google Earth" link on an individual pano's 360cities page or the blue GE logo in the author's home page which lets you load all the author's images.  It's my impression that these panos are served up live from 360cities through GE rather than from GE servers.  This is why you can see the newest panos that arent' yet in the gallery or photos layers of GE.

2) At least some (all?) of the panos that I updated and had re-approved for GE months ago have not made their way into GE.  Either GE has a longer period than a day for updating swapped panos or something is preventing their update along with the brand new panos from 360cities each day.

Since I'm on a free account, I'm in no particular rush to have anyone try to fix this anytime soon.  However, I do want to give my observations and to say that at least in my experience "GE is updated every day" may only be true for brand new panos.

Cheers,
John.



Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Jan 24, 2012, 9:15:37 AM1/24/12
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Hi

1) This is to confirm that "view in 360Cities" link loads the data from our servers.

2) If you have any problems with any panoramas it would be helpful if you could send us some links. One or two is enough for us to find a general problem. Thank you!

Jan

HighDesertView

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Jan 24, 2012, 10:40:12 AM1/24/12
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Hi Jan,

No problem.  In the USA, I might be accused of having come from the mid-West, where the people are traditionally uncomfortable talking about themselves.  I'm shy among all these great photographers on here.

Here's a pano which has: 1) been updated with swap and approved; and 2) had its thumbnail in GE updated but not the main pano itself.  I painted my shadow out of the picture in the updated version, but the GE version still has a shadow.


Here's the "View in Google Earth Link" for the same pano:


You'll need to use the Gallery layer, of course, in order to see GE's version with my shadow still in the picture.  Note how the GE gallery pop-up thumbnail does not have the shadow (ie. updated) but the GE gallery sphere does.  Can I assume, based on that, that the 360cities servers are also serving up the thumbnails live?  That it's only the sphere which is cached at GE?

For other panos with the same issues, if you sort my published panos by the "Updated" date, pretty much any of the panos from page 2 through page 7 have been swapped and approved, but not updated in GE for months.  With the quirk you described earlier where your system can now update the date of the pano without my interaction, it's a bit harder to say that all the panos on pages 2 through 7 have to do with my updates.  For most, my updates had to do with improved stitching.  For several, I also painted out my shadow.  Here's another with my shadow painted out in the updated version, but with the shadow still on GE:


Thanks,
John.

Jan Vrsinsky | 360cities.net

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Jan 25, 2012, 5:39:49 AM1/25/12
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Thanks for the input! This is very helpful. Interesting. Our developers will look at it.

HighDesertView

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Mar 7, 2012, 12:13:54 AM3/7/12
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Update: these images have still not updated in GE.  Thumbnails are updated (presumably served live) but the actual spheres are apparently cached on GE servers.  You have to use the GE photo layer or gallery layer to see the old spheres.  The update problem does not occur if a 360 is launched with the GE button on the image page on 360cities.

Having uploaded new 360s to 360cities since I noticed this issue, I can attest that new panos, once approved appear within GE very quickly.  Thanks for the great work on that!  However, these "improved" panos where I went back and swapped out old panos for better edited ones, never seem to update in GE, even after approval by 360cities.  Whatever hits GE first seems to be what sticks, whether I later swap out images on 360cities or not.

Peter Mad

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Mar 8, 2012, 7:45:12 AM3/8/12
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Ian I don't know if this is related to the the some of the topics you are already addressing.

But this morning a had a problem in setting up the ViewPoint and still now the displayed pano has settings that are different from those I introduced. Being a rather symmetrical church the result is particularly visible.

The image: http://www.360cities.net/image/milan-basilica-nazaro-maggiore-chapel-catherine-cappella-santa-caterina#355.00,-9.80,70.0
The settings: 0, -15, 65. (repeatedly introduced)

Any help?
Thx
Pietro

Willy Kaemena GM

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Mar 8, 2012, 9:13:52 AM3/8/12
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depending on the browser it could be the cached information which you are viewing. Check always the situation with a different browser which never has opened that pano, or flush your cache.

Willy

Peter Mad

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Mar 8, 2012, 9:48:02 AM3/8/12
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Thx, I didn't notice the problem before. Checked with other browser and cache cleaned. All OK

Thx again.
By the way compliments for your pictures Willy.

Pietro

HighDesertView

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Apr 1, 2012, 6:05:14 PM4/1/12
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No change from last month on my older 360s.

There was a processing problem with a recent 360 that DID get fixed in GE after I uploaded a replacement:

However, older 360s that I spent last fall cleaning up and improving still have not made it through to GE.  They're IN GE, but it's the old versions.  Other than the one most recent swap that I described above, none of my swapped photos ever show up as changed in GE.  

Is this just me?  Has no one else swapped a photo in the last year and seen no difference in the GE version?

John.

Red Fox

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May 10, 2012, 5:28:32 AM5/10/12
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Hi. There is a wrong link (Sochi) in text about Russian Federation: 
«...
Although you may not have heard of Sochi, on the Black Sea, they're building up quickly and hope to host the 2014 Olympics.
...»

Link directs to another panorama (in city of Chita). Thanks.

Jan Vrsinsky | User Advocate, 360Cities

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May 11, 2012, 6:12:17 AM5/11/12
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Thank you. Are you aware of any good and representative panorama of Sochi I should replace this wrong link with?

Red Fox

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May 11, 2012, 8:21:49 AM5/11/12
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May be this or this?

Jan Vrsinsky | User Advocate, 360Cities

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May 14, 2012, 4:50:59 AM5/14/12
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OK, thanks. I've chosen the railway station. The link will be updated in 1-2 days.

Jan

Tomasz Makarewicz

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May 23, 2012, 9:32:49 AM5/23/12
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I have exactly the same problem as John - I swapped a panorama at 360cities, it was re-reviewed and approved for GE. When I'm in GE and click on the red icon to display the image, it shows up the new version, but when clicked on the image to view the sphere, I get the old image. I tried clearing cache in GE, but it doesn't help. The panorama was swapped at the end of March and soon after approved for GE, so I would have thought it should make it to their server already.

On a separate note, is anything happening on the GE side with the artifacts, sitiching line and distorted image at the nadir? I remember Jan saying that they were working on it, but that's been ages ago and I haven't heard from anyone since then and the problem still exists - looks awfull!

Tom

HighDesertView

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May 30, 2012, 10:39:06 AM5/30/12
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I suspect it is time to start a new thread on this topic.  This particular thread has grown long and used for several topics now.

John.

HighDesertView

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May 30, 2012, 10:58:04 AM5/30/12
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