Creating 360/180 Panoramas for Google+/Picasa lightbox display

[Brian Sullivan]

Any information out there about creating for the Google+ lightbox (which apparently has built in display capability for 360/180 panoramas that can be created using an Android 4.2 app)?

https://plus.google.com/photos/114266681735641499053/albums/5813381890198650705/5813381893599555170 is a sample

[Bruno Postle]

Neat, the image itself looks like straightforward equirectangular
format, which you can produce in Hugin of course. The only question is
how do you tag an image as a panorama in Picassa/Google+ so the viewer
is enabled?

--
Bruno

[Brian Sullivan]

"The only question is..." exactly. 

I have been unable to get any response from Google so far but it looks like a perfect place to show panoramas.

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[Matthew Petroff]

It's enabled using XMP tags. Unfortunately, there's no documentation as far as I can find. I figured out how to add the required data to full equirectangular panoramas, though:

http://www.mpetroff.net/archives/2012/11/05/google-photo-spheres/


-Matthew

[Geoff G8DHE]

If it helps as much detail as we have found so far, and its now built into EXIFTools as well.  Most of the parameters are about the individual images that go to make up the shot, only the basic ones regarding the equirectangular size are needed for display.  See http://u88.n24.queensu.ca/exiftool/forum/index.php/topic,4569.0.html

[Fabian Kröpelin]

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Seems to be a new google service.

http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/contribute/index.html#mine

Android 4.2 includes a special panoramafunction

http://support.google.com/android/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1753571

[Bruno Postle]

On Sat 24-Nov-2012 at 19:27 -0800, Matthew Petroff wrote:
>It's enabled using XMP tags. Unfortunately, there's no documentation as far
>as I can find. I figured out how to add the required data to full
>equirectangular panoramas, though:
>
>http://www.mpetroff.net/archives/2012/11/05/google-photo-spheres/

That script works for me, though the Google display is a bit wobbly:
https://plus.google.com/photos/118083750463296979868/albums/5814886762107667009/5814886765963807282

Hugin already writes this info in a different format to the EXIF
comment tag, it ought to be possible to create this XMP format too
for all panoramas.

--
Bruno

[Jan Martin]

Please be so kind to explain how to do the following using exiftool?

# Exiv2 Google Photo Sphere command file
# -------------------------
#


# $ exiv2 -m photo-sphere.txt file ...

reg GPano http://ns.google.com/photos/1.0/panorama/


set Xmp.GPano.UsePanoramaViewer             XmpText     True
set Xmp.GPano.ProjectionType                XmpText     equirectangular 

set Xmp.GPano.CroppedAreaImageWidthPixels   XmpText     4096
set Xmp.GPano.CroppedAreaImageHeightPixels  XmpText     2048
set Xmp.GPano.FullPanoWidthPixels           XmpText     4096

set Xmp.GPano.FullPanoHeightPixels          XmpText     2048
set Xmp.GPano.CroppedAreaLeftPixels         XmpText     0
set Xmp.GPano.CroppedAreaTopPixels          XmpText     0

Thanks.

[Bruno Postle]

On Nov 26, 2012 7:44 AM, "Jan Martin" <janm...@diy-streetview.org> wrote:
>
> Please be so kind to explain how to do the following using exiftool?
>
> # Exiv2 Google Photo Sphere command file
> # -------------------------
> #
>
> # $ exiv2 -m photo-sphere.txt file ...

It is an exiv2 command.

There is likely a way of doing the same with exiftool, when you figure it out can you post it here?

--
Bruno

[Jan Martin]

A few observations after playing a bit this morning:

I uploaded to google+ using my PC, not Android 4.2:

- Uploaded panoramas are downscaled to 2508 x1254 pixel.
- "Download full size" refers to the downscaled panorama, not the original.
- With Firefox there is a nasty black seam where the left and right end of the pano touches. (Firefox 17 on 64 bit Ubuntu Linux). Not so with Chromium. Also happened with Bruno's pano.
   Anyone observed this too?

There seems to be no way to share with "Maps".
Anyone got any idea how to publish a hugin created panorama into Google maps?

Jan

--
Bruno

--

[Geoff G8DHE]

Yup provided your using Exiftool version 9.07+ then this line in a batch file works well as a droplet;

exiftool -xmp:UsePanoramaViewer=True -xmp:ProjectionType=equirectangular -"file:ImageWidth>xmp:FullPanoWidthPixels" -"file:ImageHeight>xmp:FullPanoHeightPixels" %1

The first two commands tell it to use the Viewer and its an equirectangular file, the next two copy the image size parameters of the file into the relevant GPano tags.

[Geoff G8DHE]

Yup getting similar results, also a "grid" appears finer than the boundary seam for the entire image.  Again using FF17 on Windows7x64.

[Bruno Postle]

On 26 November 2012 14:47, Geoff G8DHE <geoff....@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yup provided your using Exiftool version 9.07+ then this line in a batch
> file works well as a droplet;
>
> exiftool -xmp:UsePanoramaViewer=True -xmp:ProjectionType=equirectangular -"file:ImageWidth>xmp:FullPanoWidthPixels" -"file:ImageHeight>xmp:FullPanoHeightPixels" %1

This command doesn't include the 'GPano:' prefix in the attribute
names, is this is a typo or does this version of exiftool fix
everything up?

--
Bruno

[Thomas Pryds]

2012/11/26 Thomas Pryds <tho...@pryds.eu>

Yes, I got this, too, on Brunos pano - on Firefox 16 on 64 bit Ubuntu. Both the nasty vertical one you mentioned, but also thinner vertical and horizontal ones scattered all over the pano. Nothing on Chromium.

BTW, exactly the same with Matthew's pano at https://plus.google.com/u/0/113977386325730945324/posts/LjtpLvhqcuL -- although the wobbly effect is harder to see here (if present at all) since there are no long, (almost) straight lines.

Thomas

[Thomas Pryds]

2012/11/26 Jan Martin <janm...@diy-streetview.org>

- With Firefox there is a nasty black seam where the left and right end of the pano touches. (Firefox 17 on 64 bit Ubuntu Linux). Not so with Chromium. Also happened with Bruno's pano.
   Anyone observed this too?

Yes, I got this, too, on Brunos pano - on Firefox 16 on 64 bit Ubuntu. Both the nasty vertical one you mentioned, but also thinner vertical and horizontal ones scattered all over the pano. Nothing on Chromium.

And as Bruno mentioned, quite wobbly. Both on Firefox and Chromium.

Thomas

[Harry van der Wolf]

This might seem off-topic but really relates to this discussion.

I'm about to release a GUI for exiftool written in python (a python pyside gui for a perl program), which I wrote last week.
I wanted a tool to add GPS data, and do that on a set of images at once, and as there wasn't any available I wrote one myself (digikam can more or less do it (but not half as good), but I like to preprocess my photos before putting it in some photo management tool and I hate digikam).
My tool (pyExifToolGUI) can write all kind of stuff to images. If exiftool supports it, will add this functionality as well.
See (1) and (2) for the initial website text and (obligatory) screenshots. Page 3 (workflow) is not even finished yet.
I'm working on a python executable for windows as well, but the executable as such gives me some headaches (stupid windows).

I only wanted to post it when I was ready, but this topic "forces" me to "pre publish" some of it.

Harry

(1): <http://panorama.dyndns.org/index.php?lang=en&subject=pyExifToolGUI&texttag=pyExifToolGUI>
(2): <http://panorama.dyndns.org/index.php?lang=en&subject=pyExifToolGUI&texttag=screenshots>

2012/11/26 Thomas Pryds <tho...@pryds.eu>

[Geoff G8DHE]

Looks good Harry, keep us updated   especially when we can download it!

[Geoff G8DHE]

Exiftool looks for unique names first so doesn't need the extra Namespace info. if the tag is already unique.

[Harry van der Wolf]

These are the gpano tags in exiftool

http://www.sno.phy.queensu.ca/~phil/exiftool/TagNames/XMP.html#GPano

 

but they are only available in very new versions of exiftool. I just tested with exiftool 9.05 on windows and that versions still doesn't know these tags. On standard linux distributions exiftool is normally much older: 8.88 on latest Ubuntu 12.10.

 

Harry

[boardhead]

Harry,

This looks very nice.  Just FYI, this workflow (geotagging images with missing GPS data between other images which have GPS) may be automated to a certain degree by using exiftool to 1) create a GPX track log from the images with GPS, then 2) interpolate in the GPS track log to geotag the rest of the images.

- Phil

[Harry van der Wolf]

2012/11/27 boardhead <phil....@gmail.com>

Harry,

This looks very nice.  Just FYI, this workflow (geotagging images with missing GPS data between other images which have GPS) may be automated to a certain degree by using exiftool to 1) create a GPX track log from the images with GPS, then 2) interpolate in the GPS track log to geotag the rest of the images.

- Phil

I have seen it, but it's a non-priority for me at the moment.

By the way: are you THE Phil Harvey, or is it just a coincident that you have the same first name?

Harry

[Geoff G8DHE]

Yup as I said earlier its version 9.07+ where Phil has added the details we know about so far.  The downloads from the site are for 9.07 currently, so no need to wait!

[boardhead]

On Tuesday, November 27, 2012 12:32:33 PM UTC-5, Harry van der Wolf wrote:

By the way: are you THE Phil Harvey, or is it just a coincident that you have the same first name?

That's no coincidence. :)

- Phil

[Geoff G8DHE]

Looks like Google have made the Spec. available here https://developers.google.com/panorama/metadata/
however some parameters that were used in the camera software don't appear in the Spec. so my guess is its a work in progress....

[Brian Sullivan]

I have started a Google+ community around the subject for those that might be interested (and are Google+ visitors):

https://plus.google.com/u/0/communities/109746796402649001884

On Fri, Dec 7, 2012 at 10:57 AM, Geoff G8DHE <geoff....@gmail.com> wrote:

Looks like Google have made the Spec. available here https://developers.google.com/panorama/metadata/
however some parameters that were used in the camera software don't appear in the Spec. so my guess is its a work in progress....

[Brian Sullivan]

I have found that the Google+ display doesn't work all that well. I am not sure if it is something I am doing or a problem with their code (so far I am thinking the latter).

A panorama that as far as I can tell is stitched and assembled correctly (I ran it through Pano2VR and produced panos that appear to work correctly when exported to their HTML5 and Flash renderer) looks wonky on Google+.

https://plus.google.com/u/0/116962569222236871012/posts shows the issue.

The bookshelves, walls and ceiling are straight lines (and appear so in Pano2VR presented versions) but are wavy and generally just no right here.

[Geoff G8DHE]

I've put the wavy lines down to the old Flash limitations, looks like the developers haven't been following the improvements available in the older viewers ?
More interesting is why the 15 sided display rather than Cubic or Spherical!