So I went a bit crazy and stocked up on GoPros from ebay (garmins are much harder to find on ebay).
The plan is to do either 2 cams on each side+phone forward facing, or 2 cams fwd/bwd,
If I go even more crazy, it will be 4 cams for each direction - hence the question.
Is it worth to use some software to stitch them into ~360?
Even if you do not stitch them, Mapillary is great at handling multiple angles. Just make sure to use the script feature to interpolate direction and set a different offset for each camera. Personally I have cameras in 4 directions and a 360 cam. Most of my action cameras are different, so they will not stitch well.
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Thanks for the replies!
They are Hero 2018 (so basically Hero 5), with GPS, but not sure about compass.
@tryl since you have a workflow similar to the one I am planning (I also got Fusions), what would you recommend? I plan on mounting these on a car (too much weight for cycling): the Fusion(s) would go on the centre of the roof, while the Heros would be shooting in 4 directions. Should I mount them on the corners of the roof (so 45/135/225/315 deg direction), so as to get better angles and some overlap? Or would that be an issue for interpolating them, and I should just set them 0/90/180/270 deg and instruct the Mapillary app accordingly?
Also, although as you mention Mapillary is good at handling multiple images with some overlap to space map, a stitched 360 photo would presumably look better? Would also save me the trouble of interpolating them
This might seem funny, but I was actually hoping for a fairly quick and easy workflow: capture - (optionally stitch) - upload, hence why I went for gps-equipped cameras. Plus I still have trouble with getting python to run, so avoiding the scripts would be nice.
(maybe I can get virbs next time for easier workflows, but not sure if they fixed that slow exposure issue)
I don’t have GoPros, so I have not tried to attached action cams to the Mapillary app.
Regarding palcement and what to do, I suggest you try the different methods and decide what you like. If you will try to stitch the images you need a significant amount of overlap. However, if all of your cameras are not the same, it can be hard to get a good result stitching. If you don’t already have a work flow or knows how to do it, I think you should go for multiple angles.
So when you want to avoid the python scripts and does not sound like you knows how to stitch, go for multiple angles and let the Mapillary app do the job. That is by far the easiest way.
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So I used this setup, and for now just cropped and somewhat batch corrected the roll.
I am currently running Hugin just to see what it outputs, but:
- it takes very long for just 1 pano from 4 images - is this like that all the time?
- is there a way to do a whole sequence, ie where I have 4 folders from 4 cameras?
Yes!
Please take a look at this thread I started about Hugin.
What platform are you using? I created a perl script that runs on the linux platform on which I do the batch processing. When you work (or can work) on a linux platform I could help you out. On windows one can also run perl and Hugin, but I must admit my experience with perl on Windows is a bit old.And as for Hugin I know batch processing is possible, but haven’t put that to practice 
As for speed… well… when you have created a great template, the result is ehh great 
But that greatness comes at a price… which is time. When you have good automation you can just start it and let it run (ater some testing and debugging, that is what I can do now with my script)
Thanks for the reply, I did indeed look at that thread.
I think my issue might be that I’ve got 4 separate image files, as opposed to 1/2 with normal workflows.
From what I’ve read, Hugin could potentially reuse a template from one set of these images for others, but I would need to place them all in separate folders and name appropriately (a-la this)
This can probably be done faster with scripting, but would still require some preparation.
I am using Windows
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Have you been able to create a successful stitch with Hugin?
If so, paste the ‘pto’ file, I can help you to create a template from it