Does anyone here have a GoPro Max?
Can they confirm it can capture 360 spherical time-lapse images rather than just in ‘Hero mode’?
Also, if it does -
I’ve seen some mixed descriptions in my research online about these specs. There is some good info here but still keen to hear first hand about it.
Thanks!
Hi
I do use the GoPro max as a mapillary camera.
It does 360 degree timelapse 2sec max. I use a 256GB MicroSD card and usually the battery takes up to 3 houre continuus pictures (aka roughly 5500 pictures).
All geotagged with rather acceptable GPS position.
You can look in mapillay for 360 degree pictures taken in 2021 around Graz -
I do have 2 replacement batteries for longer bike trips, and several lens protection caps (the included ones do easy scratch if you mount the GoPro on your helmet).
Overall this camera is IMHO the best currently in handling, weight and size for taking 360 degree panos mounted on helmet while bike riding, or hiking.
Amiga4000
I am using the GoPro Max professionally for gathering field imagery of bike road infrastructure. We discovered quite quickly that the 2 second interval was not fast enough for adequate spacing between each photo.
Our solution was to use GoPro’s TimeWarp mode. That’s equivalent to TimeLapse Video. We record at 10x speed. When recording a .360 video the workflow for Mapillary get’s radically different and is not as straight forward as I had hoped.
First of, if you’re on a Windows computer and not a Mac you should be beware that GoPro Player for Windows strips the .360-video of any GPS data when exporting to any other video-format.
As of now I currently have a workflow of about 7 applications until the .360 files are geotagged and uploaded to Mapillary.
Until MapThePaths releases a new Desktop Uploader for GoPro Max and Fusion I would probably choose another camera.
thanks @kartmann - would you choose something like the Insta360 instead to ensure you get a shorter time-lapse interval on photos?
@badgerseatfrogs1 I have no experience with the Insta360 so I really can’t say if it’s a better camera.
Rumour is a new 360 from GoPro is in the works for release Q3/Q4.
Have a read of this, I’ve tried to document some of the tradeoffs when choosing shooting config on the MAX: Kit Setup - Trek View
I suggest you contact Dean Zwikel on Facebook Messenger. He is the processing workflow specialist. It is his toolset that I and already many others use.
You may want to have a look at Labpano Pilot cameras. They do Street View video mode and I use Dean Zwikel’s toolset to get geotagged jpg’s that I upload with Mapillary Desktop Uploader. Contact Dean on Facebook Messenger.
Labpano has promised to have a Mapillary mode, but with many other things with them it is not there (yet).
Hi
video always have do far less quality than pictures.
Remind the amount of data for 1h video and 1h of pictures, Video is always less data, and pictures derived from less data do not magiccally contain more data afterwards.
(e.g. 1h video is 2 GByte and 1h photos is 20 GB, the pictures do contain 10 times more information that the video, you may create 20GB pictures fromn the 2GB video, but those will only contain the same information as the 2GB video, not more.
Also even if pictures do look the same for human eyes, machine algorhythms like mapillary do see it completely different.
Thats why I do not like video, except for m-jpeg, which none of these cameras do),
Labpano is bigger than GoPro and weight more. And price is higher. If you use it for single pictures it does have a bigger resolution, but goes only down to 3 sec between pictures.
(also the time between pictures tells about the capability of the cam to process data, e.g. max data rate it can handle, aka informations)
I would like a 8k camera with 1sec schedule for pictures. Currently not available in this segment, as it takes to much cpu power in to small case, yet.
Amiga4000
In practice moving picture files deliver less quality than still pictures indeed.
However, that is not a hardware matter. From the sensor comes a continuous stream of frames. The difference is in the compression codec used and its parameters used.
As far as I know machine algorithms for recognition are very different from the human eye and our brains. I expect higher resolution is what matters to the algorithms.
The Labpano Pilot Era with its about 750 grams is not light. I have been carrying it once on my head for 5 hours though. The Pilot One EE is a much smaller and lighter camera with the same image quality.
The Pilot One could easily be the camera you ask for if Labpano would put the effort into adding the software functionality. Check out the image sensor’s capability here IMX477/IMX477R: Datasheet PDF, Specs, Use & Buy (2021) (arducam.com)
I am sure that Labpano can deliver a 7 fps still interval capture mode if they wanted to.
Thanks for the tip @trekview . It would be good to wait for the new a 360 from GoPro but I might have to get my new capture before that release date. I will keep an eye on that news though. I wonder how soon after the GoPro launch it, it would be available in Australia?
Thanks @Amiga4000 . Seems like to do a capture travelling at 30-40kmph, you have to choose choose: reduced capture interval OR reduced image quality and battery chewing. There’s not currently a device that does 1 or 0.5 sec interval AND high quality photos.
Hey JoscTr
the issue is not only the sensor, but hardware capabilities over the whole system.
IMHO the pilot does not have the ressources/CPU power to create still images at 7 FPS high quality (that would render at least 20-30 MByte/sec written to disk, and much more ahead of image-compression, RAW read from the sensor, also).
The hardware encoding of video is done with less CPU power and is lossy, thats why it is easy to be done on the hardware in a mobile (android/ARM) device.
Also, more CPU Power = more battery usage.
I doubt the hardware for 1-2 frames/sec at 8k image 360 degree is not available yet in less pricy tags.
Amiga4000
Here is a capture I did on bike with the Go Pro MAX in 360 TimeWarp mode (at about 10 frames per second). It’s filmed in 6K and scaled down to 5.6K. I think the quality is quite good for my use cases, but it’s not crystal sharp like Apple Look Around, but I wouldn’t expect that from a consumer camera either. In TimeWarp mode the battery lasts about 90 minutes to about two and a half hour. I use the GoPro MAX dual charger, two extra batteries and a power bank with 10 000 mAh to charge on the go. I been in the field for almost 16 hours straight and still had plenty of juice left in my setup.
The Pilots do 8K mp4 at 24 fps to storage. Why wouldn’t they be able to do jpg at 7 fps?
Of course, it is not written to disc before compression as you state. It is written to storage after compression.
Hi
Simple, MP4 wtream is way way below RAW datarate and way below JPG datastream.
Amiga4000
Thinking further on this, the GoPro Fusion had 360 photo time-lapse with a 0.5 second interval. It seems the newer GoPro Max only has a 2 second interval so is actually worse for Mapillary capture at speeds above 30kmph (30kmph with 2 second interval is a capture every 16m). That’s a shame!
I have a Max to play with now so I will be testing what the workflow is like for Timewarp video timelapse > to Mapillary.
If that’s even possible. If anyone has any doco on that, let me know.
I will contact Dean Zwikel too. thanks!
Try the Dean Zwikel toolset for sure.
I was able to use the GoPro Max in time lapse / 0.5 second interval. However it records to GoPro video format; 2 frames per second. I used the GoPro app to convert to MP4, then was able to extract and geotag the images. The processing chain is awkward with a custom geotag program so I haven’t bothered to document the workflow. The advantage over photo timelapse is that the GoPro app can do horizon leveling.
Gold readings … thank you for sharring!
Best nnj4