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Apple Posts Gyroscope-Friendly Panorama of Grand Central Retail Store Opening

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Apr 12, 2001
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As noted by The Next Web, Apple has posted a 360-degree panorama of its new Grand Central Terminal retail store on opening day, showing the large crowds and the new store in the context of the massive terminal building. The panorama supports gyroscope input on compatible iOS devices, allowing users to experience the panorama simply by rotating the device.

The panorama is accessible by visiting Apple's Grand Central retail store page and tapping on the "View More Photos" link on the featured store photo. The panorama is the final image in the gallery, and can be navigated by gyroscope on newer iPhone and iPad devices and by clicking/tapping and dragging on other devices.

grand_central_panorama.jpg



The gyroscope-supported panorama is a new inclusion for Apple on its site, adding a new immersive experience for site visitors right from the mobile Safari browser.

Mobile Safari was updated to support gyroscope input late last year with iOS 4.2, and developers quickly began taking advantage of the new capabilities once they became publicly known. Occipital was among the first developers to integrate the functionality, using it in its popular 360 Panorama app to allow users to view panoramic photographs in the same way Apple has now done with its Grand Central panorama.

Article Link: Apple Posts Gyroscope-Friendly Panorama of Grand Central Retail Store Opening
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/12/apple-posts-gyroscope-friendly-panorama-of-grand-central-retail-store-opening/
That's a well done stitch. I wonder how many cameras they used.

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MultiMediaWill said:
This is cool and all but can Apple please just focus on the iPhone 5. I don't think anyone was really wanted this.
Click to expand...

Haha their retail devision operates separately from their engineering teams. And let's be honest, they have enough money to run as many concurrent projects as they want.
 
Thats really cool! Yeah I wonder how many cameras they used. They ever did the ceiling. Coming from my tiny Sherway Gardens Store that is one huge genus bar! Love all the iMacs.
 
Maybe I'm a little late to the game, but I'd never seen a gyro-based picture(s) like this. I have to say that is pretty awesome. Anyone know of any other sites or apps that do this?
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0_1 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A405 Safari/7534.48.3)

Why can't they enable the gyroscope for Google street view?
 
Absolutely brilliant! Spent 5 minutes looking at it on my iPad 2 ^.^

It even impressed my mum, who always tell me she "just doesn't get technology"... must be good.
 
I’ve used the accelerometer in HTML pages before to do some fun stuff, and it boggles my mind that it works on iOS and not Android. It’s a proposed standard--apparently led by two Google employees--it has a webkit syntax, and yet while Apple has supported for ages, as near as I can tell Android still doesn’t. Maybe with ICS? (Or whatever fraction of Android users actually get ICS... eventually.)

I hate to see a standard (or even a proposed one) just sit there when it could be implemented and doing cool things. Thank goodness Apple is around to push open, cross-platform standards for web apps. (Accelerometer being just one example of Apple leading with open browser technologies while Google/others lag behind or don’t bother.)

P.S. The app 360 Panorama is very cool for making accelerometer-enabled panoramas like this, which they host for you (no cost) on their site. My favorite panorama app so far—and the easiest to use. (But for distant shots: panos of rooms/nearby objects/moving people are always quite tricky.)
 
360º panorama with gyro

Caliber26 said:
Maybe I'm a little late to the game, but I'd never seen a gyro-based picture(s) like this. I have to say that is pretty awesome. Anyone know of any other sites or apps that do this?
Click to expand...

well on this site you will find 200000 panoramas from all over the world, with giro enabled on iPad2 or iPhone4/(s)

http://www.360cities.net/

http://www.360cities.net/map#lat=45&lng=19&zoom=2

in regard of Apple store opening:
Hamburg 2nd store/ Germany http://www.360cities.net/image/hamburg-apple-store-jungfernstieg-store-opening-run-of-staff-germany

http://www.360cities.net/image/hamburg-apple-store-jungfernstieg-store-opening-germany

Or Hamburg 1st store:
http://www.360cities.net/image/hamb...-einkaufs-zentrum-25min-poppenbuettel-germany

http://www.360cities.net/image/hamb...tertal-einkaufs-zentrum-poppenbuettel-germany

Or the first Apple store in Germany in Munich
http://www.360cities.net/image/germany-munich-apple-store-opening
 
Wkaemena said:
well on this site you will find 200000 panoramas from all over the world, with giro enabled on iPad2 or iPhone4/(s)

http://www.360cities.net/

http://www.360cities.net/map#lat=45&lng=19&zoom=2

in regard of Apple store opening:
Hamburg 2nd store/ Germany http://www.360cities.net/image/hamburg-apple-store-jungfernstieg-store-opening-run-of-staff-germany

http://www.360cities.net/image/hamburg-apple-store-jungfernstieg-store-opening-germany

Or Hamburg 1st store:
http://www.360cities.net/image/hamb...-einkaufs-zentrum-25min-poppenbuettel-germany

http://www.360cities.net/image/hamb...tertal-einkaufs-zentrum-poppenbuettel-germany

Or the first Apple store in Germany in Munich
http://www.360cities.net/image/germany-munich-apple-store-opening
Click to expand...

Thanks! I've had an iPhone since the "3G" and it goes to show some us never stop learning. I just assumed the gyroscope was mostly used in games, when it was introduced last year.. :eek:
 
How many cams????

42streetsdown said:
That's a well done stitch. I wonder how many cameras they used.

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That is not very complicated :) you need ONE cam and four photos only :rolleyes:

check my Munich Apple Store Opening 360º Panorama from Dec. 2008

http://www.360cities.net/profile/wi...-munich-apple-store-opening#183.70,27.37,80.0

on Mac and PC it will be displayed using flash and on iDevices in HTML5

on iPad2 and iPhone4/s the GYRO is enabled

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wrinkster22 said:
Thats really cool! Yeah I wonder how many cameras they used. They ever did the ceiling. Coming from my tiny Sherway Gardens Store that is one huge genus bar! Love all the iMacs.
Click to expand...

I answered in an other post already :)

check a very cool one: hovering above Chicago downtown

http://www.360cities.net/profile/wi...ncock-center-observatoy-usa#344.50,28.80,80.0

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brightstarbeing said:
Odd... Panoramic photo doesn't even show up in Chrome. :confused:
Click to expand...

because the panorama on the Apple site was done in HTML5 only and some browsers don't like it.

Check this Apple store opening panorama made in Hamburg Germany which works in flash where flash is available and in HTML5 on flashless iDevices

http://www.360cities.net/profile/wi...ple-store-jungfernstieg-store-opening-germany
Click to expand...
 
Pretty cool, though I noticed that it gets confused if you sweep it overhead -- you wind up looking at the opposite side upside down, and have to sweep it back overhead to get right side up again.
 
Impressive, most impressive.

I was really surprised that they got every detail of the place. I was expecting that I would just spin around in my chair and see a horizontal 360 but was even more surprised that it was a true 360 when they captured the vertical as well. They got the floor beneath and the ceiling above. What's next, tap to "walk down the stairs"?
 
Great pano - wish I could zoom, though!

Looking around the panorama, I see they still have the message boards that were used to announce train arrivals and departures. What are those being used for now? The resolution I'm getting isn't quite up to reading the display.
 
Click to walk trough.....

iMikeT said:
Impressive, most impressive.

I was really surprised that they got every detail of the place. I was expecting that I would just spin around in my chair and see a horizontal 360 but was even more surprised that it was a true 360 when they captured the vertical as well. They got the floor beneath and the ceiling above. What's next, tap to "walk down the stairs"?
Click to expand...


that is darn easy to do!! I don't have an Apple store right now, but to get the idea check this out. It is amazing on an ipad!! and ipad 2 with GYRO

http://www.kaemena360.com/360/Westbahn/WestbahnTour/ ( check the papers on the table ;-) )

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weckart said:
Swivel panoramic cameras are nothing new and are a staple of school photos.
Click to expand...

You cannot do it with a swivel cam... I use a normal Nikon D300 with Sigma 8mm lens. Four shots will give you all !!
 
alangore said:
Looking around the panorama, I see they still have the message boards that were used to announce train arrivals and departures. What are those being used for now? The resolution I'm getting isn't quite up to reading the display.
Click to expand...

They're still used for train arrivals and departures. Grand Central is the second busiest train station in the United States. The Apple Store is only occupying a small portion of it.
 
42streetsdown said:
That's a well done stitch. I wonder how many cameras they used.
Click to expand...

Actually you only need one camera to do a shot like this. It's done by putting your camera on a special head which is then placed on a standard tripod. The head allows you to incrementally rotate the camera about the central axis, which is your tripod. For the ceiling, they just take a photo with the camera pointing upwards (sometimes two). For the floor, they take one photo pointing down, rotate 180°, and take a second so you can edit out the tripod. Once all the photos are taken, you stitch them together and the display software wraps the image inside a virtual sphere.

One of my favorite 360s is one of Space Shuttle Atlantis' cockpit, which was taken in the same way and is also gyroscope-friendly. I actually helped make it work in HTML5, although unfortunately I wasn't there when the photos were taken.

I don't know if these are any good, but they're exactly the type of head I've seen used by the Last Shuttle guys.
 
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