Tools to help publish 360 degree JPEG photos
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
- Google My Maps doesn't support 360 photos and has limits per layer
- 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.
- 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 )
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.
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.
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.
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.
Tracks can also be specified - these are combined into a single tracks.gpx file that should also be placed on the web server -
360tools-darwin --map-type umap --web-url https://plord.co.uk/360test *.JPG *.gpx
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 2023-03-10_12-05_Fri.gpx *.JPG
...
Alternatively, you can use exiftool to update the photos from GPX -
exiftool -geotag ../2023-03-10_12-05_Fri.gpx *JPG
15 image files updated
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.
Whilst this tool is open source, if you like it please consider buying me a beer :-)
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