With over 10 million views on Google into years, I have reached Level 7 with over 9000 points. This is primarily due to my 3D like virtual tour imagery. My 360º imagery gets results. 2 weeks after my first luxury apartment tour, over 5600 views were recorded of Elliston 23 in Nashville.
Remember what a big deal plagiarism was in high-school? It’s an even bigger deal on the web – and easy to detect. Aside from the ethical issues, it can also seriously effect your SEO (search engine optimization). Google accounts for 100 billion searches. How you rank with them, is determined by A LOT of things. Duplicate copy content is one of them – even if you have permission to use someone else’s. This can be remedied by modifying the meta data in the post or page. Using a “no-follow” line of instruction will tell Google not to crawl that page or post, but it will also prevent that document from being searchable on the internet.
So, if you pay a third-party for copy content (i.e. blog posts) make sure that they are creating original content for you. According to Ross Jones of 2 the Top Web Site Design & Promotion, one way to run a check on your own, is with copyscape.com. You can run a free search of any page or post, or pay for an automated detection system.
There are Trusted Google Street View photographers, and there are Certified Trusted Google Street View photographers. I am now one of only 24 Certified Google Photographers in Tennessee, the 7th in Nashville (as of February 15, 2017). In the last 12 months I have over 4.8 million views on Google. Not only can I shoot for Google, I can also customize virtual tour points for websites or video monitors. I can embed video, audio, pop-up imagery or informational text in these 3D like tours. 360º photo spheres can be up to 30,000 pixels wide (Google limits their perspectives to 10,000 pixels).
Google offers indoor 360º tours on Google Maps. These tours are shot by Trusted Google Photographers such as myself. They consist of panoramic sphere’s shot every three feet, to provide a virtual tour of the business or organization.
The clarity must be at least 8000 x 4000 pixels. Mine are typically 15,000 x 7,500, but can go as high as 26,000 x 13,000 depending on the subject. In this case I shot most of the frames at 15,000 pixels wide with bracketing exposure to utilize HDR (high dynamic range). These spheres consist of 56 images, with 3 exposure shots each. This level of clarity allows one to zoom in and read the title of most any book on the shelf of the store (Landmark Booksellers, located at 114 Main Street in Franklin, Tennessee).
Landmark Booksellers in Google Street View
To view Google Virtual Tours:
The Peg Man image above is in celebration of the National Parks 100 year anniversary.
Starting this week, I am shooting indoor, as well as outdoor virtual tours. As a Trusted Google Street View Photographer, I can shoot any non-residential business for Google Maps. For residential virtual tours, such as homes for sale, I use Pano2VR embedded in a WordPress webpage. These images can also be used with a VR headset, such as Google Cardboard or Oculus Rift.
This Gigapan Epic Pro technology was developed for the NASA Mars missions. This robotic tripod head and the new Canon 70D, produces life-like panoramas. I shoot up to 50 HDR images in a single location and stitch them together with a sophisticated software which produces a photo sphere free of distortion. Tours are shot by shooting a series of perspectives three feet a part to create the experience like Google Street View. It’s as close as you can get to being there.
I have now passed the 2 million view mark on Google Maps.
#virtualtours
Imagery by Bob Henderson
Photography has evolved with new technology that can enhance the interpretive experience. It’s now possible to look at landscapes from a new 360º perspective with embedded photos and informational “hot spots”. FaceBook now interfaces with some 360º images. I shot this with a iPhone 6S, and stitched it with the Google Street View app. It was output with Pano2VR.
As I look at new camera’s, the iPhone 6S is still the best bang for the buck for outdoor 3D . For indoor, or close-quarters shots, the parallax error induced by the position of the iPhone camera lens creates distortion of linear lines. The best results are with a DSLR and a camera mount with a fixed nodal point. Nodal Nija has a good one for around $350 USD. The Giga Pan Pro has an automated robotic tripod mount for $1000.
Virtual Tour of Franklin, Tennessee
Imagery by Bob Henderson
#virtualtour #franklin
There are many options for creating 3D like imagery. You can use a DSLR camera, a smart phone, or a dedicated 360 camera like the Ricoh Theta or the NCTech Iris 360.
Using a smart phone, there are plenty of programs to choose from. I like the Google Street View application because it integrates with Google Maps. Launch the app, and follow the orange circles to shoot a panorama (usually 24 photos). It automatically stitches them all together for you. The images can be published public (private by default) and the public ones are counted for the number of views by Google. You can also download the images in high resolution to your computer, but touch-ups can’t be reloaded to Google Street View as far as I can tell.
It is best to use a tripod for optimal results, especially with objects that are near. The closer the object, the more crucial this is. In fact, it’s nearly impossible to get indoor panorama’s to stitch everything without some parallax error. Even with a tripod, utility poles and power lines usually always require touch-ups, as well as the tripod image itself.
Shooting with a DSLR is more accurate. Use a fish-eye lens and a tripod mount that has a calibrated nodal point. Stitching can be done with Adobe Lightroom or PTGui software for instance. But like the smart phone, this requires 24+ shoots per panoramic position (sphere). When shooting in HDR, this can multiply the photographic equation considerably.
If you are shooting a panoramic tour, there can be a lot of moving parts with all the images. For speed of use, a dedicated 360 camera is a good option. The Theta, at around $350, is a good value. But if you want to shoot professional Google Street View Virtual Tours, the resolution is not high enough. There are two high-end camera’s that are popular for professional use: the Matterport, used by many professional real estate photographers, and the NCTech Iris 360. The Iris is around $2000, and is the only dedicated 360 camera supported by Google Virtual Tours. The Theta will upload to Google Street View (blue spheres), but will not integrate with the Google Virtual Tour (orange spheres). The Iris 360 seems to be more adaptable to indoor and outdoor environments, vs. the Matterport. But for the highest resolution and clarity, a DSLR still has the best results.
To publish a Google Virtual Tour, you must be a Trusted Google Photographer. I was invited to join after the total views of all my photography on Google Maps passed the 500,000 mark (pano’s and stills combined – but mostly panos). Google Virtual Tour has its own software for organizing the tour images, which is accessible online only to certified shooters. Google Tours cannot be used for real estate sales.
For integrated 360 tours (including real estate listings), I like Pan2VR Pro software. The basic version is only $99, but if you want to interconnect multiple spheres, you will need the $500 pro version. It has a lot of integrations, including “hot spots” for info boxes, website links, sound, photo and video embeds. It integrates with Google Maps, Open Street Map, MapQuest and ArcGIS for correcting geographical points. It also links to Adobe Photoshop for super quick touch-ups. Outputs can be HTML, Quicktime VR, MPEG and Flash. It also supports a responsive design for mobile devices. Tech support by email is good (U.K. based) and they have plenty of detailed video tutorials online.
How to use the Google Street View Application with an iPhone 6S:
#googlestreetview #pano2vr #virtualtours
Imagery by Bob Henderson
The 3D virtual reality experience has never been easier – or cheaper. Download the free Google Street View app, and order the Google Cardboard Viewer for only $15 USD. Viewing (and creating) 3D Panoramic spheres is easy with the app. These also can be viewed on Google Maps and even embedded on a web page or post.
To find panorama’s go to Google maps and click on the stick-man icon on the bottom right hand of the screen. Zoom into an area and look for the blue and orange circles. The blue ones are amateur 3D spheres, the orange ones are Google Street View professional 3D virtual reality tours (I am certified to shoot both).
Soon, I will be upgrading to the new state of the art NCTech Iris 360 camera. It’s the only approved 3D camera for Google virtual tours. They are on back-order, but I should have mine by June. This camera is designed to integrate with Google Street View and Google Maps for business virtual tours.
Panorama made with an iPhone 6S
Contact me for more information.
Bob Henderson
615-477-0737
Client bookstore Landmark Booksellers, showcases their store using Panorama 360 linked to Google Maps. This was shot with an iPhone. I am upgrading to the Gigapan Pro system soon.
Landmark Booksellers, Franklin, TN
360 view panorama below. Click in the image to move the perspective.
A merchant called me last week regarding a bad review they received on Yelp, wanting to know what he could “do about it”. I almost responded: nothing.
The structure of unfiltered reviews with Social Media can cut both ways. It’s great for consumers, it’s great businesses that provide top quality service, but what do you do when you’re unfairly criticized by a sour customer? No matter how well you run your business, sooner or later someone is going to get ticked-off about something.
My immediate response to the client was there’s not much you can or should do if you can’t resolve the gripe. Take a deep breath. It’s best to just thank them for the business and the feedback. It’s easy to be misunderstood in this medium, and a bad situation can easily get worse, so it’s good idea is to keep your response short, polite and very general in nature.
Last year I had another client get slammed on City Search by an unhappy bridesmaid that she had done a dress for. The details that I received suggested that there was a bad experience at the wedding that had more to do with the customers anger, than way her dress fit (she had declined to try it on when she picked it up the day or two before the event).
My suggestion was to let it go. The bridal shop had dozens of great reviews and this was the first one in the shops long history. Against my advise, they hired an attorney. The lawyer waited a few months in order to let things cool down and drafted a very conciliatory letter that actually resulted in the review being deleted by the customer. This could have gone either way, and in my opinion the expense was probably not worth the trouble and the risk of another “cyber attack”. The bottom line was, with or without the ding, the shop still had a 5 out of 5 star rating.
Another reaction many merchants have is to call in all their friends and fans to layer good reviews, trying to push the bad one down. Sounds like an effective idea, but this can back-fire too. In this ever evolving social media word, SM’s are getting savvy to ploys like this and will sometimes recognize the tactic and remove ratings that don’t look natural.
A web designer friend of mine did a trade for their SEO and some body work for his car. He subsequently gave them a glowing review for the auto paint job on AngiesList.com. Apparently Angies List identified him as the web designer for that shops site (probably from the IP address), pulled the review and warned them not to do it again. Even though the review was authentic, it appeared that the collision center was writing their own reviews.
For more information on customer reviews check out: https://biz.yelp.com/support/responding_to_reviews
More about Bob Henderson on Google+
Imagery by Bob Henderson