Google announced today another step in their efforts to crowd source the images and street views available on their platforms. This latest move from Google promises to reduce the “significant time and effort” it was taking for users to prepare and upload their interactive photography. Google is doing this by introducing a new certification for 360-degree cameras and creating a new framework to guide the work flows needed to get images ready for publication.
On the hardware side, Google announced a new “Street View ready” certification standard for 360-degree cameras. Already 20 new devices slated to come to market in 2017 are on the list and should be available within the coming months. Google has already anticipated different applications of the cameras, from people walking through a location to others whizzing down the road on a bike or in a car to users who want to publish quickly versus those who want to do some pre-publication prep work on their images.
To accommodate the different use groups, four new standards have been created for the new certification and a camera has to meet one of them to be considered “Street View ready.” The four criteria are:
- Street View mobile ready – this will apply to cameras that “can publish Street View directly from a mobile app”
- Street View auto ready – this is for cameras that have been designed for vehicle based collection and can maintain accuracy at higher speeds
- Street View vr ready – this is for cameras and systems that not only collect sets of connected 360 photos, they also collect geometry information
- Street View workflow ready – this is not really for cameras, but instead will apply to publishing tools that work with Street View accounts, although Google anticipates these tools will be bundled with cameras in many cases.
Some of the camera manufacturers and publishing tools already in the pipeline as part of the new program include Giroptic, 360Fly, Sphericam, Z CAM, Insta360, Samsung, GoPro, iGuide and GoThru among others.
Google notes that while they have a Street View trusted photographer program, these new cameras and the associated tools will be available to anyone who is interested in giving it a go.
source: Google
