If you clicked the white "backwards" arrow to zoom out and see the storefront (along with neighboring stores), click the "forwards" arrow to get back into the store.
You have to click on the link to the stores Place Page on the left then under the mini map on the right you will see rotating images, click that and bam!
Love the idea, but the Street View UI has never felt all that fun to use and it feels worse indoors. Walking around a shop or mall at Street View pace—12-ish steps for every press of a small, non-fixed arrow—is something I hope I never have a reason to do.
You can double click on the ground to move to that spot, or on the side of a building to move there and look at that spot. I see that indoors you cannot do this, but hopefully they will add it.
Yeah, that's the "pancake". It works in street-level view because there's 3D spatial data to help bound navigable regions, and because when you're at street-scale you don't mind being a little off. In this comic bookery or in any cramped space I feel like I'd need slightly higher fidelity.
The Street View UI in the Google Earth app lets you walk around using first-person shooter WASD controls.
The surrounding textures are pasted onto simple 3D rectangles approximating buildings and houses. As you move, they transition into each other, giving you the least distorted view possible. With a fast connection, it feels pretty realistic, like you're walking around the neighborhood.
Almost like how mipmaps, if done well in 3D games, aren't really noticeable.
Since forever? As I recall it's always been Flash.
You might think you'd like to make a more open viewer, but Google won't let you. For example, someone reverse engineered the data formats (fairly trivial, they're just XML documents that point to the panorama jpgs) and Google cease and desisted their info off the web: http://igargoyle.com/streetview/
The UI is definitely not enjoyable but I still like the effort and what we have now. It's been a great way to scout places in advance to figure out where I'm going and suitability for renting.
I like them plotting more of the Y axis points of place. But I really look forward to the day when we can move on X, seeing the changes in these over time.
There are a few research projects to reconstruct historical views by automatically aligning and extracting building outlines from old photographs, e.g. this one from a few years ago: http://4d-cities.cc.gatech.edu/atlanta/
Google presumably has a ton of data to do it going forward somewhat more easily, though, if filling in pre-streetview periods isn't a priority.
So is there anything other than this one comic book store an Legoland San Diego available? How can we find 'em? I'd love to go for a stroll through, say, the British Museum.
Wow, that's what I wanted! Google is one step ahead of me.
And I don't mind the fact that it's missing the British Museum, which I've already seen a couple of times anyway, cuz it has the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, and the Palais de Versailles.
And the store owners will be able to put on digital price tags and ads, and viewers may click to buy online... next thing you know, you and your friend are "sitting" inside a restaurant on google "store" view and eating the food delivered from that place...
Over time, the problem of maintenance overwhelms usability. Like the street view, but to a greater degree now, comes the problem of keeping those googlebytes of data updated ahead of looming obsolescence. Cool I can go in a store and look around...but what updates store change or - worse - closure?
ETA: puzzled by downvotes. Satellite views can be updated on a regular basis with relative ease by a largely passive system, and what's imaged is rather static; street view updates come with re-driving every road which ain't easy or cheap and may need more frequent updates; interiors change even more often and imagery/data cost much more per byte to maintain. Sure, interior views are cool - what's the cost of obtaining, and more important maintaining, them?
Although I agree that most comic faces are left unblurred--when I look at some (perhaps 15%) of the faces visible, they are without a doubt blurred. They tend to be the ones that are forward-facing, without facial hair, and natural skin colors.
Example: Take a look at the GI Joe comic on your right all the way at the end.
If you look straight down in the linked shot you can see that they are using a camera on a tripod in lieu of the previous backpack or cart mounted multi-camera rigs
I do think the interior is the next big push, but its not grabbing historical photos - its interior location so you can target ads in real-time and real-location. Manga, produce, housewares, TVs?
This one's my business. They came to shoot the interior as a perk for participating in a "Google Offer". I think this is how they are rolling it out, at least in the Bay Area. To me, the results came out fine, although I worry that it now makes "casing the joint" a little easier.
It took them two visits to get it right. The first time apparently had some silly technical glitch where the automatic processor didn't stitch the photos together correctly. It took maybe 20-30 minutes for the full visit, which would make doing this universally quite a chore.
I actually wasn't present during the shoot, although I saw her setting up. It seemed like a semi-pro digital still camera on a tripod. Perhaps it was on wheels? I think it was a fisheye lens? It seemed very low tech. I think all the fanciness is with the post-processing to stitch the photos together and correct the perspective.
You can see the tripod legs if you look down on any shot by clicking the "Down" arrow on the white wheel in the upper left of the interior shots. For our shoot, you can also get a pretty good reflected view in the doorway if you "stand" halfway outside then look left.
I find getting inside the virtual store tricky as well. First click on the text link to the Places page. Then click on the right arrow on the image on the lower right of the page (labeled Store Front). Then click on the white arrow on the ground pointing at the door. Alternatively, just wait until the still image turns into video and starts showing the inside of the store, then click on it. Badly designed video game seems accurate!
I'm happy to talk about sorbet and food in general, but this thread doesn't seem like the right venue. My email is in my profile, or if you are in the area we could talk at the store some slow afternoon.
> It took maybe 20-30 minutes for the full visit, which would make doing this universally quite a chore.
I assume they're working out the quirks so the process can be much smoother and they can do a row of businesses in a strip mall in the same amount of time.
How did a Hacker News reader happen to open a sorbet shop??
Opening my own ice cream shop (in the south Rockridge/Temescal neighborhood, no less!) has been my (half-joking) dream job if I decided to switch careers. When Scream Sorbet opened in Temescal, I was both excited and frustrated that someone saw the same market opportunity! <;)
I opened it through strange circumstances. I was getting ready to launch a likely ill-conceived movie recommendations business with a couple friends, when I got West Nile Virus. Recovery was slow, and I thought I'd do a small farmers' market sorbet business with a friend while (literally) waiting for my brain to recover enough to do linear algebra again.
The product was great, and while the margins were OK, a few farmers' markets a week proved not to be enough to cover all the various overheads. The friend dropped out because he needed something that would pay his rent, others got involved, and we kept adding markets. Then a fantastic location next to Bake Sale Betty came open, so we jumped on it. Now I just need to figure out how to get it to the point where it can sustain itself so I can get back to recommendations engines!
Feel free to stop by and say hi. If you're serious about a career change, would be a better manager of a sorbet company than I am (not hard), and don't need to make much money, maybe we can work something out. I'm proud of the product quality, but I'm sure there are people who could run it as a better business than I can. :)
The technology is 360 x 180 degree virtual tours made with panoramas similar to street view technology. There is a few different methods of shooting the panoramas all of which produce a 360 x 180 photograph(s). The photographs are then designed into a tour to allow for transitions. You can view more of these type tours over a http://hdvirtualcitytours.com
This set me to imagining: every item in the store is dropped into a box before being put on the shelf. The box contains cameras on every interior face to snap a set of 360° views of the item. The UPC code is scanned and entered into inventory. The item goes on the shelf. If sold, the sale removes that item from inventory.
Each night after store closing, a Store View bot roams the aisles taking pictures and updating for the next day.
You browse to the store on Google Street View, go inside with Store View, and if you see an item you like, you draw a box around it and ask the image search algorithm to look for a match based on appearance. It finds the item, tells you how much it costs, and gives you the option to buy it.
Stores would get some basic frequency (annual?) of scan free, more frequent scans or keeping a bot on premises to scan every night would cost more. Integration of the online store would have a fee attached to every purchase. Prices and discounts could be updated daily and there could be different incentives for online vs. in-store purchases.
As data storage and computational power get cheaper and cheaper, and image recognition algorithms get more sophisticated, this would seem to be a potential outcome. A package of algorithms could even be marketed as a store manager: moving stock that has sat on the shelf too long with discounts, predicting what will require reorders soonest, integration with price comparison engines to analyze competitiveness, etc. Once imagery is dissectable and searchable in the same way that language is, things could get very interesting very fast.
Through this idea, Google turns brick-and-mortar stores into the equivalent of an Amazon distribution warehouse. The result could be a highly decentralized Amazon alternative with Google's imprimatur, grown from the bottom up.
And while Amazon is stuck with maintaining both computer and physical infrastructure, Google will have effectively offloaded the physical infrastructure to the free market. Not only that, but while Amazon must seek economies of scale and efficiency at every point of the distribution network, Google can leverage the irrationality and inefficiency inherent in a distribution network composed of individual retail outlets. In the same way that eBay doesn't have to worry about packing up and shipping millions of disparate items, it just takes a fee off the top for delivering the sale.
I wonder about the benefits versus the costs to stores. Though you can already walk into a retail store and Google up an item on your phone to see if it's cheaper somewhere else... and you can already search for reviews of an item online, etc. I guess what is interesting here is that Google is delivering the physicality of a store to your screen; so conceivably some walk-ins that might have occurred just to check a place out will now occur online. On the flip side, turning every retail outlet into a 24 hour business has got to have some appeal.
Going really crazy with this, looking ahead to Google's driverless cars getting approval to run without a safety driver on board, you could Store View to your favorite cafe, put in your order for the caffeinated beverage of your choice, have the Google car drop by, the barista puts the drinks in a carrier in the back seat, the car picks up some Chinese food, energy bars, and a pair of earphones for you on the way back, you get a text telling you to go outside to pick everything up, you scan your GoogleID into the car, get your stuff, head back into the office and prepare to code all night. If you are so inclined, you drop a few bucks into the online tip jars of the coffee shop and restaurant. Based on your tip ratio, the star rating of the establishments in question are bumped up ever so slightly.
Google has the computers, cameras, and cars to take over the world of running errands.
One of the phrases I've started using is, in the future you don't have to talk to anyone.
You see this already with the self-checkouts at stores. You walk in, grab what you want, check out and leave without talking to anyone. This is just the start of a torrent of low level automation. At some point there is not a lot left to do.
You can move forward/backwards/anywhere an arrow points using the arrows on the keyboard and look up/down/left/right with the WASD keys - much better than clicking with the mouse :-).
Now I have everything I need to plan a robbery. I can see the setup of the store and the best getaway route, all without having to step foot in the store before the robbery!
If I were a business I would OPT OUT of this immediatley.
The only thing I can parallel this too is Googling your date before the first date. Going in knowing too much can often ruin the fun or the mystery of discovery.
Sure it might save you from "bad experiences", but we need bad experiences in life to really value the good ones!
On the other hand, being able to share links to products in a specific store may have interesting effects. Imagine someone writing a Facebook post about dress they found, and linking directly to it in the store. Or some viral twitter post. Once that happens a few times, stores will be paying companies to keep their interior up to date on Google.
124 comments
[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 172 ms ] threadThe pancake (http://techcrunch.com/2009/06/04/introducing-the-pancake-a-l...) and the city-scale of things make moving on streets more tolerable (though Legoland is not bad: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=legoland&hl=en&ll=33.1...), what's the interface for person-scale, cramped interior navigation? Until there's a solid answer this doesn't seem very enjoyable.
I accidentally discovered some keyboard commands to navigate which feels slightly easier, though the constant pausing to re-render the image is wonky.
The surrounding textures are pasted onto simple 3D rectangles approximating buildings and houses. As you move, they transition into each other, giving you the least distorted view possible. With a fast connection, it feels pretty realistic, like you're walking around the neighborhood.
Almost like how mipmaps, if done well in 3D games, aren't really noticeable.
You might think you'd like to make a more open viewer, but Google won't let you. For example, someone reverse engineered the data formats (fairly trivial, they're just XML documents that point to the panorama jpgs) and Google cease and desisted their info off the web: http://igargoyle.com/streetview/
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/10/google-maps-in-webg...
Good point, I cannot find this anywhere else at the moment.
btw, you've been hellbanned for about 52 days now, so no one can see your comments unless they have showdead=on.
Google presumably has a ton of data to do it going forward somewhat more easily, though, if filling in pre-streetview periods isn't a priority.
And I don't mind the fact that it's missing the British Museum, which I've already seen a couple of times anyway, cuz it has the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg, and the Palais de Versailles.
http://maps.google.com/help/maps/businessphotos/
Perhaps someone was riding the bike and they're using content-aware filling to delete them!!
And also have a digital assistant whose ethnicity changes based on who wanders into my virtual business.
ETA: puzzled by downvotes. Satellite views can be updated on a regular basis with relative ease by a largely passive system, and what's imaged is rather static; street view updates come with re-driving every road which ain't easy or cheap and may need more frequent updates; interiors change even more often and imagery/data cost much more per byte to maintain. Sure, interior views are cool - what's the cost of obtaining, and more important maintaining, them?
I'm curious what long-term incentive would be for updates, though.
Example: Take a look at the GI Joe comic on your right all the way at the end.
Otherwise you'd see camera guys hiding behind trees and such, which is an amusing thought.
This one's my business. They came to shoot the interior as a perk for participating in a "Google Offer". I think this is how they are rolling it out, at least in the Bay Area. To me, the results came out fine, although I worry that it now makes "casing the joint" a little easier.
It took them two visits to get it right. The first time apparently had some silly technical glitch where the automatic processor didn't stitch the photos together correctly. It took maybe 20-30 minutes for the full visit, which would make doing this universally quite a chore.
Edit: and here http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Scream+Sorbet,+Oakland,+CA&...
You can see the tripod legs if you look down on any shot by clicking the "Down" arrow on the white wheel in the upper left of the interior shots. For our shoot, you can also get a pretty good reflected view in the doorway if you "stand" halfway outside then look left.
Also, you own a food business!?? I am fascinated by the idea, can you talk more about it?
lol me too.
I'm happy to talk about sorbet and food in general, but this thread doesn't seem like the right venue. My email is in my profile, or if you are in the area we could talk at the store some slow afternoon.
I assume they're working out the quirks so the process can be much smoother and they can do a row of businesses in a strip mall in the same amount of time.
Opening my own ice cream shop (in the south Rockridge/Temescal neighborhood, no less!) has been my (half-joking) dream job if I decided to switch careers. When Scream Sorbet opened in Temescal, I was both excited and frustrated that someone saw the same market opportunity! <;)
The product was great, and while the margins were OK, a few farmers' markets a week proved not to be enough to cover all the various overheads. The friend dropped out because he needed something that would pay his rent, others got involved, and we kept adding markets. Then a fantastic location next to Bake Sale Betty came open, so we jumped on it. Now I just need to figure out how to get it to the point where it can sustain itself so I can get back to recommendations engines!
Feel free to stop by and say hi. If you're serious about a career change, would be a better manager of a sorbet company than I am (not hard), and don't need to make much money, maybe we can work something out. I'm proud of the product quality, but I'm sure there are people who could run it as a better business than I can. :)
I dragged the little guy around, and all it shows are streets that I can view (even a parking lot, which seems pretty retarded).
Each night after store closing, a Store View bot roams the aisles taking pictures and updating for the next day.
You browse to the store on Google Street View, go inside with Store View, and if you see an item you like, you draw a box around it and ask the image search algorithm to look for a match based on appearance. It finds the item, tells you how much it costs, and gives you the option to buy it.
Stores would get some basic frequency (annual?) of scan free, more frequent scans or keeping a bot on premises to scan every night would cost more. Integration of the online store would have a fee attached to every purchase. Prices and discounts could be updated daily and there could be different incentives for online vs. in-store purchases.
As data storage and computational power get cheaper and cheaper, and image recognition algorithms get more sophisticated, this would seem to be a potential outcome. A package of algorithms could even be marketed as a store manager: moving stock that has sat on the shelf too long with discounts, predicting what will require reorders soonest, integration with price comparison engines to analyze competitiveness, etc. Once imagery is dissectable and searchable in the same way that language is, things could get very interesting very fast.
I wonder about the benefits versus the costs to stores. Though you can already walk into a retail store and Google up an item on your phone to see if it's cheaper somewhere else... and you can already search for reviews of an item online, etc. I guess what is interesting here is that Google is delivering the physicality of a store to your screen; so conceivably some walk-ins that might have occurred just to check a place out will now occur online. On the flip side, turning every retail outlet into a 24 hour business has got to have some appeal.
Going really crazy with this, looking ahead to Google's driverless cars getting approval to run without a safety driver on board, you could Store View to your favorite cafe, put in your order for the caffeinated beverage of your choice, have the Google car drop by, the barista puts the drinks in a carrier in the back seat, the car picks up some Chinese food, energy bars, and a pair of earphones for you on the way back, you get a text telling you to go outside to pick everything up, you scan your GoogleID into the car, get your stuff, head back into the office and prepare to code all night. If you are so inclined, you drop a few bucks into the online tip jars of the coffee shop and restaurant. Based on your tip ratio, the star rating of the establishments in question are bumped up ever so slightly.
Google has the computers, cameras, and cars to take over the world of running errands.
You see this already with the self-checkouts at stores. You walk in, grab what you want, check out and leave without talking to anyone. This is just the start of a torrent of low level automation. At some point there is not a lot left to do.
"At some point there is not a lot left to do" reminds me of the story "With Folded Hands" by Jack Williamson. http://www.powells.com/biblio/61-9780312852535-0
Userinterface needs some improvement, how about using a mouse wheel to navigate forward/backword. Move mouse left/right to turn.
The only thing I can parallel this too is Googling your date before the first date. Going in knowing too much can often ruin the fun or the mystery of discovery.
Sure it might save you from "bad experiences", but we need bad experiences in life to really value the good ones!