Am I The Only One Who Knows This???

[RangerEd]

I have to ask; really, am I the only one who knows this??? My Mini 2 (as well as other DJI Drones) can shoot "Photospheres" just like the ones you see in Google Street View. I searched all over looking for information about this. It's not documented in the user manual, it's not on YouTube, and it's not mentioned on any web site, and it's not on the DJI Forum Web Site or in any DJI Tutorial…

A Photosphere is a Google Street View, but it's from a stationary position. You can scroll all around, Left, Right, Up, and Down, and you can even Zoom into an area of particular interest.

But the Big Difference with my Mini 2's Photospheres is that they are not at ground level, but from whatever altitude my Drone was flying at… And when you look down, you are not just looking down at the ground, at your feet, but from the sky, at altitude.

If you are not familiar with Google Street View, you need to bring up Google Maps or Google Earth on your computer or Tablet (a Phone's screen is really too small…). On the lower right of the screen, you see various controls, a "bulls eye" to show your location, Plus and Minus Signs to enlarge or shrink the map, several small "squares" to choose the imagery (various photos from the area of the map, and a "Little Man" figure (Officially called the PegMan).

You Grab the PegMan and drag him over the map and your map will light up with blue lines indicating where the Google Car has driven and taken a moving street view. But, depending on your location, you may see Little Blue Circles. These indicate a Photosphere and if you drop your Pegman onto a Blue Circle, your computer screen with light up with a view of the location and you can scroll around as if you are there and turning in a circle, you can look up and see the tops of building, birds, planes, and clouds. You can look down and see the pavement, the grass, ground, and sidewalk, whatever the photographer was standing upon.

Here is a Screen Grab of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, USA. I grabbed the PegMan and Dragged him over to one of the Little Blue Circles and a Thumbnail photo will pop up and if you want to see that view, drop the Pegman…

View attachment 148391

Ok, now here are two Photospheres that I have published onto Google Maps, they are visible to anyone, anywhere in the world as a Little Blue Circle. BTW, the total time to create one is calculated in minutes…

This Photosphere is shot near my Home…


This Photosphere is taken over a Park where I frequently fly my Mini 2…


Have I wetted your appetite; if so, do you want to learn more about this feature, I need to hear from you so I know it is worth the time it takes to type it all up and test the instructions so I'm not wasting your time with erroneous instructions.

Also, if you already know about this, please chime in and let me know if it's one of those secrets that everyone knows and few care about…

As I probably write too often, Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

That's pretty cool.

Yeah I'm interested.

 

[monteolsen1]

I have to ask; really, am I the only one who knows this??? My Mini 2 (as well as other DJI Drones) can shoot "Photospheres" just like the ones you see in Google Street View. I searched all over looking for information about this. It's not documented in the user manual, it's not on YouTube, and it's not mentioned on any web site, and it's not on the DJI Forum Web Site or in any DJI Tutorial…

A Photosphere is a Google Street View, but it's from a stationary position. You can scroll all around, Left, Right, Up, and Down, and you can even Zoom into an area of particular interest.

But the Big Difference with my Mini 2's Photospheres is that they are not at ground level, but from whatever altitude my Drone was flying at… And when you look down, you are not just looking down at the ground, at your feet, but from the sky, at altitude.

If you are not familiar with Google Street View, you need to bring up Google Maps or Google Earth on your computer or Tablet (a Phone's screen is really too small…). On the lower right of the screen, you see various controls, a "bulls eye" to show your location, Plus and Minus Signs to enlarge or shrink the map, several small "squares" to choose the imagery (various photos from the area of the map, and a "Little Man" figure (Officially called the PegMan).

You Grab the PegMan and drag him over the map and your map will light up with blue lines indicating where the Google Car has driven and taken a moving street view. But, depending on your location, you may see Little Blue Circles. These indicate a Photosphere and if you drop your Pegman onto a Blue Circle, your computer screen with light up with a view of the location and you can scroll around as if you are there and turning in a circle, you can look up and see the tops of building, birds, planes, and clouds. You can look down and see the pavement, the grass, ground, and sidewalk, whatever the photographer was standing upon.

Here is a Screen Grab of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC, USA. I grabbed the PegMan and Dragged him over to one of the Little Blue Circles and a Thumbnail photo will pop up and if you want to see that view, drop the Pegman…

View attachment 148391

Ok, now here are two Photospheres that I have published onto Google Maps, they are visible to anyone, anywhere in the world as a Little Blue Circle. BTW, the total time to create one is calculated in minutes…

This Photosphere is shot near my Home…


This Photosphere is taken over a Park where I frequently fly my Mini 2…


Have I wetted your appetite; if so, do you want to learn more about this feature, I need to hear from you so I know it is worth the time it takes to type it all up and test the instructions so I'm not wasting your time with erroneous instructions.

Also, if you already know about this, please chime in and let me know if it's one of those secrets that everyone knows and few care about…

As I probably write too often, Inquiring Minds Want to Know…

Definitely!!!!!!

 

[hchen]

I am really interested in the instruction. Please share. Thanks!

 

[LoudThunder]

This is a quick follow-up on this initial posting… In case you did not notice, I have followed up with two more postings with instructions.

Photospheres Part I -- What you'll need...

Photospheres Part II -- How to do it...

I am presently working on "Photospheres Part III -- How to publish it on Google Earth and Google Street…"

The reason it is taking so long is that I do not want to write up incomplete or erroneous instructions. I've been victimized by bad instructions in the past and I know how frustrating it can be to do "everything right" only to find out you did it wrong due to bad advice…

However, in the meantime, here is a video and a website you might want to peruse as you get ready to publish your stuff…

How To Use Google Maps STREET VIEW on Computer & Phone!

Google's instructions on how to add, remove, or share photos and videos

If you know of other ways to publish your Photospheres and Photos, I hope you write up instructions like these for all to share…

And before I go, if you get ahead of these instructions and start publishing your Photospheres, Please, Please, review them very carefully. I jokingly teased in a previous post that you do not want to publish a Sphere that you took over your neighborhood and find out later when your neighbor comes pounding on your door because his wife was sunbathing topless in the privacy of their back yard and you sent the image out for all the world to see…

Additionally, you will want to blur out images of people and the video above tell you how and I would not publish any Spheres that show children or exotic, expensive items that are identified by your Spheres.

Yeah, Great Fortune carries Great Responsibility…

 

[NorthEastJohn]

I’m interested as well. I’ve done this years ago, but had to use the Hanger 360 app to create and were only stored there. I’m curios to know how else this can be done….also…using the Mavic 3 that is…

I used to use Hanger to a few years back. Interested in how to stitch or a site that will do that as well as hosting them. the Pilot app from DroneDeploy lets me collect the pano images, but have to have the Enterprise subscription to upload and host them. This would be very helpful for hovering just over the roof top and creating an pano. FYI DroneDeploy is in final stages of testing their app with Air 2S

 

[samtex]

manual pg 36 pt 7 Pano sphere...supported by one of many you tubers:

 

[LoudThunder]

manual pg 36 pt 7 Pano sphere...supported by one of many you tubers:

Thank you for the heads up.

It shows how to make videos from your Spheres, but does not get into posting spheres on Google Earth of Street View, my main purpose, But this is good information and I am sure many will want to try out his techniques. I will include this link in my Part III,

Again, Thank you for the heads up!

 

[myuziq]

Are you kidding me?? This feature has been around for a long time on most drones. Many youtube videos on how to do this manually or using the Auto feature for most DJI drones. Nothing new at all.
Its a simple 360 Panaorama

Right. More people call it 360 Panorama. I shoot real estate and I use it for virtual tours. Most clients don’t need the drone 360 panoramas so I dropped the subscription to CloudPano. Kuula is cool, many more sites to post these 360 panoramas have been around.

 

[Kywon McCain]

I always knew it could when I saw it did 360 panorama. Just didn't know how to do it.

 

[jephoto]

Maybe in Go4, but in DjiFly, they have pano and sphere but not the 360.

Isn’t a Sphere a 360°?
360°x180° is the correct term.

 

[GFields]

Isn’t a Sphere a 360°?
360°x180° is the correct term.

Yes

 

[NorthEastJohn]

Momento360 has a free account that I use all the time. Easy and FREE!

 

[Don Testme]

I've taken these kinds of images with my mini and Air2, which I no longer own. I didn't know they were called Photo Spheres though. I wasn't that keen on using them though. I just did a few for fun and stopped using the feature.