Instant Polar Panorama with Google Street View

January 4, 2012 10:03 AM

This link will create a polar panorama of any Google Street View location.
posted by yellowbinder (43 comments total)

Either I'm doing something wrong, or it's not working for me in Chrome.
posted by griphus at 10:04 AM on January 4

(not seeing an official save function, but right-click save as will get the images for you.)
posted by yellowbinder at 10:04 AM on January 4

Working for me in Chrome. Had to drag the marker a bit around Disneyland to find a suitable intersection.

This is really neato.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:06 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Not for me.
posted by Fnarf at 10:07 AM on January 4

Not here either.
posted by DU at 10:08 AM on January 4

This is really cool!
posted by notsnot at 10:10 AM on January 4

Jinkies, sorry Chrome friends. Working perfectly for me in Firefox.
posted by yellowbinder at 10:10 AM on January 4

What browser / OS does this work on? I just get this, which is really neat I guess, but it is not a panorama:

uniform sampler2D texture;
uniform float scale, aspect, time;
uniform mat3 transform;

varying vec2 v_texcoord;

#define PI 3.141592653589793
#define PI_2 1.570796326794897

void main(){
vec2 rads = vec2(PI * 2., PI);
float x = (v_texcoord.x - .5) * scale;
float y = (v_texcoord.y - .5) * scale * aspect;

// Project to Sphere
vec3 sphere_pnt = vec3(
(2. * x) / (1. + x*x + y*y),
(2. * y) / (1. + x*x + y*y),
(x*x + y*y - 1.) / (1. + x*x + y*y)
);
sphere_pnt *= transform;

// Convert to Spherical Coordinates
float r = length(sphere_pnt);
float lon = atan(sphere_pnt.y, sphere_pnt.x);
float lat = acos(sphere_pnt.z / r);

gl_FragColor = texture2D(texture, vec2(lon, lat) / rads);
}

posted by koeselitz at 10:11 AM on January 4

Dude, it's a "polar panorama", aka miniature world.
posted by notsnot at 10:12 AM on January 4

Image manipulation with drag and scroll is trippy.
posted by eyeballkid at 10:14 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

If it's not working for you there might not be any Streetview data for that particular location. This is fun.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:20 AM on January 4

What it really needs are little effects buttons like wobble and vibrate so you can really trip out hands-free.
posted by Burhanistan at 10:22 AM on January 4

Hmm. In Safari I just get a map of Hong Kong on the right half of the browser window.
posted by chococat at 10:24 AM on January 4

If you only see the street map, you're missing the polar panorama half. The total image should look like this, which worked for me in Chrome for Windows, v16.0.912.63 m.
posted by filthy light thief at 10:30 AM on January 4

works for me in chrome on osx 10.6
posted by tomswift at 10:39 AM on January 4

filthy light thief: “If you only see the street map, you're missing the polar panorama half. The total image should look like this, which worked for me in Chrome for Windows, v16.0.912.63 m.”

Same version of Chrome on Ubuntu, exact same intersection - doesn't work. In the space where the image should be, I see the code I posted above. Hrm.
posted by koeselitz at 10:46 AM on January 4

I always thought there were neat things to be done with the GStreetviewPanorama API. I hope there are more fun projects like this to come.
posted by mattbucher at 10:46 AM on January 4

Chrome for windows here. Functioning and kind of awesome.
posted by sciencegeek at 10:50 AM on January 4

I wasn't totally sure what a "polar panorama" is, but when I click the link, all I get is a white screen. So... sure, that could be a view at one of the poles, I guess.
posted by ricochet biscuit at 10:55 AM on January 4 [1 favorite]

Yay for planet my house!
posted by Popular Ethics at 10:59 AM on January 4

Worked in Firefox on Mac OS X. Not so much on Safari. It's neat, if a little bit brain bending.
posted by Mooski at 10:59 AM on January 4

Blank screen for me in Firefox. What am I doing wrong?
posted by lydhre at 11:24 AM on January 4

And I see nothing but code in Safari. Strike two!
posted by lydhre at 11:29 AM on January 4

Works fine on Chrome on Win7n and is FAAABULOUS! I need high res prints of these to put all around my office. All my favourite places as tiny little planets. I have been trying to get good results myself before, but they've all looked like ass. This is wonderous, thank you! Rotating in the planet window is trippin' balls though, I am going to have a little drinky and watch that for a while.
posted by Iteki at 11:53 AM on January 4

How do you input the location for the street view? Either something's not working or I'm a moron.
posted by COBRA! at 12:02 PM on January 4

Ooh, trying this again, I realize shorter highrises look better and tree-lined suburban streets are adorable, though the pavement now looks a bit overwhelming. Ooh, and lots of power lines make for interesting patterns.

If this crazy thing works for you, you can skew the perspective by clicking on the polar panorama view and skew the view. So much fun!

COBRA! - it's on the bottom of the map view. The text is bold and the text entry window is rounded at the ends, instead of the smaller font and rectangular menu boxes in the usual Google Maps interface.
posted by filthy light thief at 12:08 PM on January 4

Oh, OK, it all makes sense in Chrome. FF and Explorer were just giving me a white screen with nonfunctional buttons.
posted by COBRA! at 12:10 PM on January 4

I'm going to rupture reality by basing it right next to The Bean in Chicago.
posted by COBRA! at 12:12 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]

4 different browsers. Map on right, blank on left. Apparently some sore of metaphoric exercise for me.
posted by davebush at 12:32 PM on January 4

Go to full page view and zoom out (two finger slide on Mac/Chrome). Your little neck of the woods becomes a little planetoid.
posted by beagle at 12:32 PM on January 4

works perfectly fine on chrome (osx).
posted by babbyʼ); Drop table users; -- at 12:47 PM on January 4

I am getting a white-out now too. Did we break it? Or have we caused him to over the limit for free usage with the google map API?
posted by Iteki at 12:50 PM on January 4

This intersection where I'm having coffee right now.
posted by babbyʼ); Drop table users; -- at 12:56 PM on January 4

This makes me sad again that google was short a cam in my neighborhood, so no gorgeous christmas cards from this for me, but it does reduce it to a menacing cube.

Also, apropos nothing, its nice to note you can also make a turd rainbow, something I think the world needs more of.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 12:56 PM on January 4

This one is my favorite.
posted by aubilenon at 12:57 PM on January 4 [1 favorite]

What it really needs are little effects buttons like wobble and vibrate so you can really trip out hands-free.

You can hold down one of the arrow keys (with a rock or whatever). That works pretty well.
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:13 PM on January 4

Coliseum!
posted by twoleftfeet at 1:21 PM on January 4

Doesn't work for me; does it use WebGL? That doesn't work on my computer (it needs OpenGL version something higher than my crappy graphics has...), so that might be why it's not working for other people.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:10 PM on January 4

Wait, never mind. It's working now, so that's not it.
posted by BungaDunga at 2:11 PM on January 4

With the right browser, this is astonishing.

Transforming from a miniature floating globe to sky buried in a hole looks like a great special effect.

I appreciate hacks like this that reveal unexpected hidden worlds.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot at 2:20 PM on January 4

I checked on iOs and it did give a WebGL needed error message, so that's probably causing issues for some.
posted by yellowbinder at 2:21 PM on January 4

In Firefox it worked once I disabled Adblock Plus, so maybe try that.
posted by Winnemac at 5:04 PM on January 4

Very cool. I made one for my picture blog of Queen Street W, Toronto.
posted by KS at 5:29 PM on January 4