Photospheres Part I -- What you'll need...

For those just joining us, I am posting a series of Topics Titles “Photospheres…” Parts 1, 2, and 3 or more as necessary…

This is a Photosphere as displayed in Google Earth and Google Street View…

This is the first part of my explanation of how to post Photospheres that you create using your DJI Drone. I am flying a Mini 2 using the DJI Fly App. I’ve seen various YouTube videos that hint at this capability but fall short of creating a Photosphere and they are using other models of DJI Drones, however, I do not know if the features are in other DJI Apps, such as DJI Mimo, DJI Ronin, DJI Virtual Flight, DJI GO 4, or DJI GO.

Most of these YouTube Videos show them creating a “Little Earth” or as some call it “an Asteroid View” and they edit the base photo to put a “Castle in the Sky…” My sole interest is to create Photospheres for publication in Google Earth and Google Street View

I will use the term “device” whenever I am referring to a smartphone of a tablet. I use an Android Tablet as my device. I do not have any Apple IOS devices so all of my instructions are Android specific; however, I imagine IOS is much the same… My two devices are a Samsung Galaxy Tablet S2 (8" Screen) and a Samsung Galaxy Tablet A8 (10" Screen) and the procedures work exactly the same on both devices.

In order to post a Photosphere on Google Earth or Google Maps, you will need to have a Google Account. I imagine almost everyone does have one of these accounts; if not, Google it and create an account, they are free.

I have several Google accounts, Home, Hobby, Play, and Droning… I created a Google Account specific for my Drone Photos and Photospheres. The User Name that I use for all my Drone Accounts is LoudThunder and I created a Google Account called “LoudThunder Drone” and this name displays when you open one of my published Photos or Photospheres.

So, depending on the User name your Google Account uses, you might want to create a separate More Drone or Business Friendly name that you only use when publishing on Google.

As I wrote earlier, I fly a Mini 2, using the DJI Fly App, and that is all you need to shoot Photospheres.

You will need one more App to publish the Photospheres. Go to the Google Play Store and search for the “Google Street View” App. This is the App that will let you “Blur” an area of the Photo, if necessary, and then Publish it to Google Earth/Google Street. This App is an Android/IOS App, so it’s best to load it on the device that is running the DJI Fly App.

OK, that’s it for now, Part I. Now that you know what you need, some of you may want to go and try to figure out how this fits together. Be the One to Push the Red Button…