Category: Google Street View

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iStaging’s VR Maker App Is Now Google Street View Ready

Late last month iStaging announced a new feature for their virtual reality (VR) Marker app that brought the power of ARKit into play for use when making floor plans of locations. The applications for this feature would benefit estate agents, interior designers and event organizers offering a range of valuable capabilities. Now, iStaging have revealed that their VR Marker app is now Street View ready.

iStaging Street View

This new feature means that users can now effortlessly share their 360-degree panoramas capture within the app directly to Google Maps Street View with just one tap. This functionality means that users can easily create virtual tours for viewing on Google Maps Street View thanks to the affordable solution. The VR Maker app and included capture kit are already being used by thousands of real estate agents, photographers, designers and retailers around the global to digitize spaces and now, these can be shared to Google Map Street View with ease.

“Our customers have high quality standards, and we’ve worked hard on creating a capture solution that delivers on their expectations,” noted Johnny Lee, CEO of iStaging. “We’re humbled to see it recognized as Street View ready by Google”.

The VR Maker app is a spatial VR capture solution that enables users to take advantage of their mobile device to create immersive virtual tours within minutes using a fisheye lens and Rotator. The solution also includes an all-in-one virtual tour builder that can create real estate walkthroughs, digital stores, 360-degree previews of vehicles, and much more. With the addition of the Google Maps Street View support, iStaging have enabled a new workflow for users offering a new platform to share immersive 360-degree panoramas.

Google Cardboard can be leveraged as well, with iStaging LiveTour supporting unique web links that can be embedded onto any website allowing users to view the 360-degree panoramas in VR thanks to platform. These new features bring more to the iStaging ecosystem are a sure to offer a range of benefits to users as the product continues to develop.

As iStaging continue to bring new features to their VR Maker app, VRFocus will be sure to bring you all the latest so stay tuned for more.

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VR Quiz Game ‘Go Guess’ Uses Google 360 Captures to Make You Guess Where You Are

Go Guess (2018) is a new interactive VR quiz game from developers Oblix that tosses you into Google 360 captures and makes you to guess where you are. The twist? You’re playing against other people, and you can hobnob in a social VR space between rounds.

Like its 2D forebears such as GeoGuessr (2013), Go Guess tasks you with investigating the captures by hunting for clues. You might be out in the wilderness looking at plants, or on a sunny beach hunting for a sign—anything that will help you distinguish the Welsh countryside from Tasmania, or Japanese islands from the Pacific North West coastline.

Image courtesy Oblix

Giving you a number of nodes to teleport to, you can investigate the scene as much as you like. Rounds take place periodically, although avatars are named randomly currently, so it may be difficult to find and make friends in between matches, which is represented as a 3D render of Times Square in New York City.

Once you’ve found out where you are in the linked-together captures (or where you think you are), you can pull up a globe, mark the map and do some fine-tuning until you’re happy with the location. The closer your guess is to the actual location, the higher the points.

Image courtesy Oblix

Google opened up its treasure trove of 360 Street View captures to developers late last year, although there was a proviso for developing apps and games with the data: it had to be free.

The app is free and supports Oculus Rift headsets, although since it’s on Steam, it’s likely SteamVR-compatible headsets such as HTC Vive and Windows “Mixed Reality” VR headsets will work as well, albeit without appropriate controller models.

The post VR Quiz Game ‘Go Guess’ Uses Google 360 Captures to Make You Guess Where You Are appeared first on Road to VR.

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Matterport’s Immersive 3D VR Platform Gets Faster Space Capture and Google Street View Features

Matterport customers are about to get a few more features to enhance the speed and accuracy at which they can use the software. Matterport’s thousands of customers should find a few more business opportunities opening up soon, with faster space capture thanks to new camera firmware, and introduction of Google Street View publishing.

Both initiatives are currently in beta, but are expected to help customers in the restaurant, retail, travel, hospitality, real estate, architecture, construction and engineering industries.

We’ve recently seen Matterport help with Virtual Housing Spaces. The busy company have also been expanding their platform globally.

With the Google Street View publishing beta, Matterport users will easily be able to convert their Matterport 3D Space into an experience that can be exported and show up on Google Maps, Google Earth and Street View as panoramic photo tours, giving potential customers browsing the local area much more insight into the businesses in that area.

Matterport CEO Bill Brown believes this Google Street View publishing beta will enhance the value of Matterport to its existing customers, and simplify the publishing process; “Google Street View publishing and faster space capture are two of the many initiatives that greatly increase the value of Matterport for camera operators, as well as businesses that want to use Google to drive people to their websites. Matterport is the solution of choice for all types of businesses because our automation makes it easy for anyone to quickly capture a space and get a high-quality 3D environment. Now this content can be experienced as a Matterport immersive 3D environment on a business’ website and can also be used to published as a Google Street View experience on Google Maps, Google Earth, or mobile Street View.”

The software essentially automates and eases the process of creating and publishing panoramic photo galleries, all of which can be done with the Matterport camera and software. No additional hardware or software required – a relief for anyone who has previously had to use several cameras and additional editing to achieve a similar effect in the past.

And even the base process of creating a Matterport 3D Space will be easier than ever before, thanks to new firmware which speeds up the camera rotation, enabling the camera to scan 3D spaces in a fraction of the time it did previously.

The firmware update is of course free, and will work for all Pro2 and Pro Matterport cameras. The quality of images will remain unchanged. You can see the new firmware in action at the link below.

For all of the latest advancements and updates from companies like Matterport, make sure to keep reading VRFocus.

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Explore the World Even Faster With Google Earth VR’s Latest Update

Last year Google made exploring the world that bit more immersive by creating a virtual reality (VR) version of its popular app Google Earth for HTC Vive. A few months later a version arrived for Oculus Rift then Google went one further by introducing Street View to Google Earth VR. Now the tech giant has released a new update, making the world not only faster but also easier to explore.

Google Earth VR update

The update is centred around Street View. Before, users were able to fly down to street level, check their controller to see if a 360-degree photo was available and dive right in. They would then need to exit that photo (or sphere) to find another, which made the process rather clunky.

Now as long as an adjacent 360-degree photo exists, you’ll be able to stroll along the streets and roads as if you’re there. This is achieved by selecting the preview sphere by pulling the trigger, rather than putting the sphere on your head like before. You then aim the pointer in the direction of the next sphere to move onwards, helping you stay immersed for longer.

Alongside the Street View addition, Google has been working to make changes that more efficiently use a customers bandwidth, resulting in faster load times. This will improve imagery load times on Internet connections that may have been slow in the past.

Google Earth VR is completely free for HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, downloadable via Steam or the Oculus Store. For any further updates keep reading VRFocus.

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How to become a Google Street View trusted photographer

(Image courtesy Google.)

If you are a 360-degree photographer, or want to become one, then working with Google Street View and becoming one of their Trusted Photographers will definitely help establish credibility in the industry. In fact, Google actually helps their contributors get hired to create virtual tours.

According to Google, market research conducted in July 2015 showed that listings with a virtual tour are twice as likely to generate interest.

In this new realm of democratized photosphere and virtual tour creation, it can be hard to tell a hobbyist from a true professional. In order to help clients make the decision on who to trust with a project, Google created the “Google Street View Trusted Photographer Certification.”

It means that the photographer have submitted at least 50 images for Google Street View that are level, in focus, stitched well, correctly spaced and of an even height.

To get started, you first need to download the Google Street View app for either Android phones or iPhones.

(Image courtesy Google.)

The full list of criteria for certification are here.

This video by Willem Van Zyl gives a full Snapseed and Google Street View workflow from taking photos, editing to uploading your final work.

 

This one by Plus Your Business shows you step by step on how to import and edit your Street View photos.

 

What you can do after becoming Google Trusted Photographer

A trusted photographer has the ability to upload their work directly to various platforms Google has created that display photospheres and virtual tours.

This includes Google Maps, Street View, Google Earth, Google My Business and of course, Google Search. These interactive images may be internal or external shots depending on the client and if a business that operates from inside a building via the business see inside button on Google Street View.

Once you become a trusted photographer, you have a competitive advantage over other panoramic photographers in the area. And when your work is published on the platform, your clients may see a boost in search results.

Another benefit of using the Google Street View platform rather than a commercial virtual tour service is that the Google version is free and people can easily find it.

Google also has an online community for its photographers, called Local Guides Connect.

This article was adapted with permission from

 

Source from the Veer VR Blog.

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Insta360 Pro Achieves Google Street View Ready Certification

Insta360, the immersive camera company behind the Air, Nano, One and Pro, has announced that the Insta360 Pro camera has now been approved by Google as part of the ‘Street View ready’ program.

This means that anybody who wants to contribute 360-degree content to Google’s map service no longer need the cumbersome Trekker backpack, instead they can use the far more diminutive offering from Insta360. And because of the partnership between the two companies Google will also use 50 Insta360 Pros to extend the range of collection capabilities under its Street View camera loan program.

Insta360 Pro Upcoming Google View ready’ webpage

Featuring six 200° lenses, the Insta360 Pro captures photos and video in 8K with built in real-time stitching technology to capture finished 360 degree videos that don’t require any post-processing. As it is Insta360 most high-end camera all this tech doesn’t come cheap, retailing for $3,499 USD.

Users will be able to access the cameras features with the Street View app, then upload any photos or videos shot directly to Street View using the free Insta360 Stitcher software. In further support for the ‘Street View ready’ program, Insta360 Pro will now include a new 5 FPS 8K shooting mode – optimized for efficient Street View content collection – and support an optionally-bundled USB accessory to automatically append GPS data to 360 content.

“When Google Street View kicked off in 2007, high-quality 360 photography was only available to those with the resources and know-how to build their own cameras,” said Charles Armstrong, Google Street View product manager in a statement. “Now, thanks to the advances of companies like Insta360, anyone can create immersive 360-degree experiences and contribute them to Street View’s extensive map of the world.”

As further cameras are added to the Street View program VRFocus will let you know.

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Explore the World from Street Level as Google Earth VR adds Street View

Since December 2016, HTC Vive users (April 2017 for Oculus Rift) have been able to explore the planet in virtual reality (VR) thanks to Google Earth VR. Now the company has released a new update that enables users to get an even closer look at the world around them using Street View.

With the addition of Street View to Google Earth VR users will be able to fly down to street level, check their controller to see if a 360-degree photo is available and dive right in. The image appears as a ball atop the controller which you just put your head inside. Street View imagery is available from 85 countries.

Google_Earth_VR_ATT-Park-Daytime_32mb

Google Earth VR gives you the ability to flyover the Grand Canyon, explore the streets of Tokyo, head to Paris to see the Eiffel Tower, discover the hidden gems of the Amazon rainforest and much much more. Besides being able to wander around the planet however you like, the software also provides cinematic tours and hand-picked destinations like the Manhattan skyline or Swiss Alps to provide a learning experience as much as a good view.

The Google Earth VR app is free for Oculus Rift and HTC Vive. If you happen to own Google Daydream or Cardboard then there’s always the Street View app.

For any further updates keep reading VRFocus.

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Google Street View Testing New 360-Degree Camera

Google Streetview is an invaluable tool for many people, and Google are always wanting to improve the product relied upon by so many people. As such, Google are set to trial a new 360-degree imaging camera to capture updated footage for Street View.

The camera is produced by NCTech and is designed to be mounted on any kind of vehicle for a 360 x 300 field of view, capturing data at five frames per second to be sent to the Street View platform. The camera is due to be trailed by Google in three countries. Early details of the camera were revealed at the Google Street View Summit in Tokyo, and manufacturers NCTech believe a commercial version of the camera will be available by Q4 of 2017.

“We are keen to explore technologies that can help increase the volume and frequency of data uploaded to Street View,” said Charles Armstrong, Street View Product Manager at Google. “NCTech is a truly pioneering company – they continue to set the bar in spatial reconstruction by blending futuristic tech with accessible design and price points, and we look forward to seeing the results of our pilot with their new camera.”

“We’re delighted that Google will pilot our new camera in support of its Street View offering,” said Camerson Ure, CEO, NCTech. “With this new camera, we aim to enable a further wave of expansion in digitising the planet with the goal of increasing the 10 million miles per year currently available online, to one billion miles per year.”

Another NCTech product announced at the Summit was a Street View compatible virtual reality (VR) camera. The VRC camera was designed for the consumer market for capturing interior places in 360-degrees to let users explore VR at low cost.

“The VRC is the first affordable consumer Virtual Reality Camera. It will help democratise virtual reality by making the capture of user generated 3D VR content easy and abundant,” said Neil Tocher, NCTech’s CTO, “The VRC’s Street View API compatibility now enables anyone to be able to share their virtualized places on Street View.”

VRFocus will bring you further news on new VR/360-degree products as it becomes available.

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A Guide to the Apps for Google Daydream View

Google Daydream, like most virtual reality (VR) formats, is being lead by its videogame experiences. But head-mounted displays (HMDs) can do much more than simply entertain. The launch of the Daydream View has been accompanied by a number of unique and exclusive VR applications, and VRFocus has experienced each one to bring you the details on the best the HMD has to offer.

YouTube VR app

YouTube VR

Perhaps a surprise for some, but not for those already immersed in the world of 360 degree video. YouTube VR is the answer to anyone’s complaints about lack of content in the dawn of modern VR: tens of thousands of 360 degree videos are already available on YouTube, and here on Daydream viewable in VR mode with no additional requirements. Simple and immediate, YouTube VR is the reason to own a Daydream View at present.

invasion_2

Invasion

Free to download for Google Daydream View (for a limited time, as stated on the Google Play store), Baobab Studios’ Invasion! is an animated short with all the personality of a Pixar Animation Studios feature film. Starring two bumbling aliens and a rabbit – the real hero of the piece – the viewer is transported into a cartoon world where the aggression of your adversaries is lesser than their panic upon realising that you’re not scared by them.

Invasion! has already made it’s way to other VR platforms, such as HTC Vive and Oculus Rift, and comes to Google Daydream View ahead of the launch of Baobab Studios’ second title, Asteroids!.

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Google Street View

VR can transport you to another place, and with Google Street View, Daydream View does exactly that. Pick any location on Earth and there’s likely to be at least a handful of 360 degree images already available, showing you streets, venues, tourist attractions and more. Whether it’s a place you love or a place you’ve never been, Google Street View together with Daydream View can take you there.

fantastic beasts and where to find them

Fantastic Beasts

A Google Daydream exclusive, Fantastic Beasts is based on the hugely popular franchise, J. K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. Users are invited into Newt Scamander’s case to explore the world of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in this new VR experience. Meets the beasts, conjure spells and become immersed in the fantasy world ahead of the film’s launch later this month.

A Guide to the Games for Google Daydream View
A Guide to Google Daydream View: Installation, Games & Apps