360tools

README

360tools

Tools to help publish 360 degree JPEG photos

Introduction

Publishing 360 degree JPEG photos ( otherwise known as Photo Spheres ) can be tricky -

• A simple upload to Google Maps (web or app) via the Contributions feature replaces the image location with the location of the Place
• Google Street View app has been deprecated
• Google Street View Studio only works with mp4s, even then takes a long time to process
• OpenStreetMap's umap works well, but can be tricky to configure 360 images

360tools is a command-line tool to process and upload 360 degree photos generated by 360 degree cameras.

Features

• Invoke Googles Places API to display points of interest near photo locations
• Prepare and upload photos to Google Maps
  • Use Googles Oauth2 API to authenticate uploads
  • Extracts location, time and altitude data from photos
  • Use Googles StreetViewPublish API to upload the photos
  • Generates photo metadata
  • Generates photo connections - the first photo links to the second, second to the third etc
  • Generates photo heading - each photo is pointed at the location of the next
  • Use Googles StreetViewPublish API to upload the metadata
• Option to use a GPX track to obtain missing location information
• Generate uMap files ( requires hosting photos on a web server )

Google credentials

Before interacting with Google, you will need to create an API key and an OAuth 2.0 Client ID from the Google Cloud Dashboard.

• Create a API Key and restrict the key to only access the Places API. Save the key in file apikey.dat.
• Create a Client ID for Web Application and add http://127.0.0.1 to the Authorized redirect URIs. Save the Client ID in file clientid.dat and the Client secret in clientsecret.dat.

Uploading photos to Google Maps

Run the tool with the list of JPG photos to upload -

360tools-darwin *.JPG
2023/03/23 12:44:39 need to renew new access token
2023/03/23 12:44:39 Authorize this app at: https://accounts.google.com/o/oauth2/auth?client_id=...

At this point a browser window should appear promting you to authenticate to your Google account. Once done, the tool will continue.

2023/03/23 12:44:45 Got code: ...
2023/03/23 12:44:45 R0010165.JPG: Timestamp 2023-03-12 09:26:54 +0000 GMT
2023/03/23 12:44:45 R0010165.JPG: Latitude 51.427569, Longitude -0.855367
2023/03/23 12:44:45 R0010165.JPG: Altitude 92.700000
2023/03/23 12:44:48 R0010165.JPG: Uploaded
2023/03/23 12:44:49 R0010165.JPG: Created metadata with id CAoSLEFGMVFpcFBpNmtYcnlkZjBhVHk3SG5mbkdhbXRUcVdIWUxSLUdYdVZHM2dv
2023/03/23 12:44:49 R0010166.JPG: Timestamp 2023-03-12 09:27:07 +0000 GMT
2023/03/23 12:44:49 R0010166.JPG: Latitude 51.427622, Longitude -0.855147
2023/03/23 12:44:49 R0010166.JPG: Altitude 92.700000
2023/03/23 12:44:52 R0010166.JPG: Uploaded
2023/03/23 12:44:53 R0010166.JPG: Created metadata with id CAoSLEFGMVFpcFA5Q2VKZWxwMnYzMERHYnpxN0dwZl9zTVg1eGxhX2FlMC0yeG5j
...
2023/03/23 12:47:30 CAoSLEFGMVFpcFBpNmtYcnlkZjBhVHk3SG5mbkdhbXRUcVdIWUxSLUdYdVZHM2dv: Waiting to be published
2023/03/23 12:47:31 CAoSLEFGMVFpcFA5Q2VKZWxwMnYzMERHYnpxN0dwZl9zTVg1eGxhX2FlMC0yeG5j: Waiting to be published
...
2023/03/23 12:48:03 CAoSLEFGMVFpcFBpNmtYcnlkZjBhVHk3SG5mbkdhbXRUcVdIWUxSLUdYdVZHM2dv: Connect to next CAoSLEFGMVFpcFA5Q2VKZWxwMnYzMERHYnpxN0dwZl9zTVg1eGxhX2FlMC0yeG5j, bearing 68.956884
2023/03/23 12:48:04 CAoSLEFGMVFpcFA5Q2VKZWxwMnYzMERHYnpxN0dwZl9zTVg1eGxhX2FlMC0yeG5j: Connect to previous CAoSLEFGMVFpcFBpNmtYcnlkZjBhVHk3SG5mbkdhbXRUcVdIWUxSLUdYdVZHM2dv and next CAoSLEFGMVFpcE4xLXpyb1hpdHFPbVZ0SkZLbi0xTWhNOTQ2UmpNbnpIVnlyaFZL, bearing 47.354476
...

These photos should appear on Google Maps ( when Street View detail is enabled ) as blue dots. Arrows should be be available to navigate from one photo to the next. Note that it can take a bit of time to appear.

However the photos will not be associated with any Google Place.

Uploading photos to Google Maps and add to a Google Place

First run the tool to get a list of nearby places -

360tools-darwin --pois *.JPG
2023/03/23 14:48:27 ChIJ34aXR8ODdkgRSPYmPPFK6RM: PJM Roofing
2023/03/23 14:48:27 ChIJB2vKz_mDdkgRIKm50jzhTGk: Old Forest Meadows
2023/03/23 14:48:27 ChIJR-N9NBODdkgRDV3BgOGyCMU: Oven Doctor - Oven Cleaning Wokingham
...

Then pass the Place ID to the upload -

360tools-darwin --placeid ChIJB2vKz_mDdkgRIKm50jzhTGk *.JPG
...

The photos should now be assoicated with a Google Place.

Generating uMap configurations

Run the tool with the Umap options -

360tools-darwin --map-type umap --web-url https://plord.co.uk/360test *.JPG
2023/03/25 09:02:57 uMap files have been generated in umap directory
2023/03/25 09:02:57 To use in uMap :
2023/03/25 09:02:57 1. Copy photos, html pages and csv files to https://plord.co.uk/360test
2023/03/25 09:02:57 2. On uMap server, click "Create a map"
2023/03/25 09:02:57 3. Click "Edit map settings" ( cog wheel ), "Advanced actions" then "Empty"
2023/03/25 09:02:57 4. Click "Import data" ( up arrow ), browse and upload photos.umap then "Import"
2023/03/25 09:02:57 5. Click "Save" and "Disable editing"

The umap directory now contains -

• Copy of photos
• html wrapper for each photo
• csv file for 360 photos
• csv file for non-360 photos
• uMap configuration file

The output of the tool gives instructions what to do with these files.

Obtaining location data from GPX trace

If the photo doesn't contain any location data the following is reported -

2023/03/23 20:00:19 nolocation.JPG: Unable to get metadata: exif: tag "GPSLongitude" is not present

However, if a GPX track is recorded at the same time as the photo(s) are taken ( for example from a handheld GPS or a phone app such as OsmAnd) , the timestamps can be compared and the location inferred -

360tools-darwin --placeid ChIJB2vKz_mDdkgRIKm50jzhTGk --gpx-file 2023-03-10_12-05_Fri.gpx *.JPG
...

Testing

This tool has only been lightly testing on my Mac ... whilst I can build binaries for other platforms, I don't have an easy way to test these.

Beer

Whilst this tool is open source, if you like it please consider buying me a beer :-)

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