New JavaScript Street View renderer brings rendering improvements and better mobile supporthttp://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2016/08/new-javascript-street-view-renderer.html

Posted: Wednesday, August 17, 2016

Street View is one of Google Maps’ most loved features, providing users with a way to explore and experience the world around them. Developers all over the world use Street View in the Google Maps JavaScript API to make their apps more unique and exciting, giving their users a sense of what it’s like to visit a place in real life.

Today we’re making Street View even better, especially on mobile devices, by launching a new Street View renderer in the Google Maps JavaScript API. Read on for the full details of what we’ve improved!

Better display

Smoother Transitions

Transitions from one point to another in Street View now include more animation frames, creating the effect of gliding smoothly to the next location. Transitions in the old renderer looked like jumping from one location to another.

Old renderer	New renderer

Smoother Loading Animations

The old renderer repeats images while loading new content, resulting in a stuttering effect. The new renderer uses lower resolution imagery while loading, resulting in a smoother animation when rotating an image in Street View.

Old renderer	New renderer

Object modeling improvements

Objects in Street View look better in the new renderer because it builds a 360-degree model that considers all possible perspectives. For example, this high rise building has wavy lines in the old renderer, as opposed to crisp lines in the new renderer.

Old renderer	New renderer

In another example: for imagery on an incline, such as a street with a steep hill, the new renderer corrects the objects to be vertical, whereas the old renderer would have shown the objects at an angle.

Old renderer	New renderer

Better mobile support

WebGL imagery

The new renderer uses WebGL (on browsers that support it) which results in a higher frame rate and better rendering, especially on mobile devices. On mobile devices, the old renderer would display a fish-eye projection of the image, whereas WebGL allows us to present a rendered sphere that looks as it would in reality. For example, the street in the image below is straight, but the old renderer made it look curved on mobile devices.

Old renderer	New renderer

Touch support

As mobile web usage grows, users expect familiar touch-based interactions to work everywhere. The new renderer supports the same natural touch-based gestures on mobile which have been available in the Google Maps Android app: pinch-to-zoom and double-tap-to-go. In the old renderer, zooming was only available through the +/- buttons, and movement was only possible by clicking the arrows on the ground.

Motion tracking on mobile devices

Mobile devices give developers the opportunity to provide their users with more natural ways to explore and interact with their applications. We’ve enabled support for device orientation events on Street View so that users on mobile devices can look around in Street View by moving their phone. Developers have the option to turn this off if they prefer. Please see the developer documentation for more details, or open the documentation link on a mobile device to see motion tracking in action.

Better controls

X Forward

When using a desktop device with a mouse or trackpad, users will see a small "X" at the cursor location that indicates the next camera location if they choose to move forward. Arrows indicate the direction of movement. Wall rectangles identify the direction the camera will point towards.

Next image targets	Next centered image target

Cleaner street names, labels and targets

Street names and labels are now separated from controls, removing overlap issues and allowing for clean display in right-to-left and left-to-right languages.

Old renderer	New renderer

We hope you enjoy using the new and improved Street View renderer! Also a big thank you to all the developers who use the Google Maps JavaScript API and provide feedback via the issue tracker. Getting feedback from developers is vital for us to be able to keep improving our products, so if you have any bug reports or feature requests, please let us know!

For more information on Street View in the Google Maps JavaScript API, please see the developer documentation.

Optical Gas Imaging and Natural Gas versus Innovations - FUD just when you need it?

FLIR, Eye-C-GAS, and Niatros each have models of Optical Gas Imaging.  The GFIR 320 FLIR cameras and the Eye-C-GAS are common OGI hand-helds with wide use with a well established training and interpretation certification process.

FLIR studies this stuff and provides roc-steady OGI solutions.   And when you read the detail of the several fugitive methane regulational documents they describe, they are excited to alert you to a documented reliance on OGI to expedite the millions of inspections required in the re-capture of fugitves.

Indeed here in Colorado, OGI was first included and is now fully established in recent decrees - we even know the cost per day per pad/inspection missing.  OGI is also fully expressed in how BLM wants its clients to conduct their inspections on our National O&G lease and trusteeships.  They do this to play well with EPA GasStar and DoT safety initiatives culminating in the 2014 Climate Action Plan.

OGI once the newest and coming best practice is now the standard? If I were FLIR I would be excited.  But there is room for inclusion of yet another alternate work process. Well, yes, is the simple answer.

Given the specified camera, OGI, runs around $80k to more, there is a big stack of pending, and by design, disruptive 'alternate process" instrumentation just emerging to assure FUD in your decision process on a half-dozen 320s - a cool $500k commitment?

https://www.edf.org/energy/natural-gas-policy/methane-detectors-challenge

Over the last several years as the progression of these rules have come forward, the DoE and EDF have mutually incentivized a dozen or more innovations for methane detection and indirectly fugitve control.  If any one of the three most promising instruments come to market in the next several quarters as planned, the OGI process will have direct competition.  These replacements will initiate a shift to providing 7/24 monitoring and alarm at a fraction of the cost of a single "multi-purpose" and "hand-held" OGI camera.  Getting these fielded and in test should be happening as I write this?

Methane Observation Networks with Innovative Technology to Obtain Reductions (MONITOR) – $30 Million

ARPA-E’s MONITOR program focuses on reducing methane emissions associated with energy production to build a more sustainable energy future. The program plans to provide $30 million to support 11 project teams in developing low-cost, highly sensitive systems that detect and measure methane associated with the production and transportation of oil and natural gas.
Example of a selected MONITOR project:
Bridger Photonics, Inc. | Bozeman, Mont. | Mobile LiDAR Sensors for Methane Leak DetectionBridger Photonics will develop a light-detection and ranging (LiDAR) system capable of rapid and precise methane measurements resulting in 3D topographic information about potential leak locations. A novel near-infrared fiber laser will enable long range detection with high sensitivity and can be deployed on a range of mobile platforms to survey multiple sites per day. This mobile LiDAR system will dramatically reduce the cost to identify, quantify and locate methane leaks compared to currently available technologies.

OGI is only going to get better.  In two cases of the new instruments noted above their essense remains the OGI IR sensor. Niatros is emerging as the leading OEM source for these OGI cores that provide the OGI signal processed by new innovative signal processings that makes approximations of volume of observed plumes. It may not sound like much but estimation of emission volume is emerging as a big deal.  Most of the detail to reduce emissions is in terms of weight and measures. Niatros OGI cores are enabling new advancements in the science of methane flux or volume estimates to improve the OGI process.