Hi folks, I did a quick test of a new 360 camera which looks to be quite good for Mapillary, the PANOX V2 (thank you LabPano for the sample!). Has anyone tried this camera out? If not, I think it’s worth your while to give it a go.
The things I liked about it:
8K 5 FPS mode (so both higher density and higher resolution than GoPro Max which tops out at 5.7K)
Built-in GPS (unlike the Insta360 X3)
On device stitching of 360s (so you just drag the files right into the desktop uploader, no other processing needed unlike the Insta360 X3)
Standard tripod camera mount (so you don’t have to buy an adapter like you do for GoPro)
Things that could be improved:
The UI on the camera feels a bit less polished than GoPro or Insta360
Acquiring GPS satellites can take a bit of time (at first I thought it wasn’t working)
I haven’t done extensive testing for long recording sessions or detailed image quality comparisons, but overall this feels like a solid camera. Here’s a sample Mapillary sequence I shot at 8K 5FPS.
Looks good!
Some nitpicking:
In low light it seems to increase exposure time a bit too much, leading to motion blur, it should rather increase gain, noise would be more acceptable than motion blur. Mapillary
What exposure did it set here, maybe it can be read from the EXIF?
Might there be a setting to limit exposure time?
Other things:
The battery seems to be fixed?
The app is not available for my phone. (Pixel 6 Pro with Android 14 https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pi.panox
From your post I read that it is not necessary at all? Does it contain shady tracking and spyware like too many other Chinese apps?
The manufacturer’s page says it has a fan for cooling. Hopefully helps against overheating. But might limit flexibility in rainy weather, or generally in dirty environments.
@enteq - good point about the exposure in that moment. Good find, playing with settings might be an answer, or it could be a limitation. Regarding the other things you mentioned:
Yes, the battery is fixed in place (but the usb-c port is exposed, so it should be possible to run it from an external power-bank - though I haven’t tried that yet)
That’s strange that the app is not available on your phone. I have a Pixel 7 with Android 14. Maybe its country dependent, what country is your Play Store set to? I’m sure PanoX support could help there. I haven’t tried setting up the camera without the app, but FWIW the company that makes this is LabPano which has been around for 10+ years and made consumer and professional cameras: https://www.labpano.com/en/about
Good point, ideally we should avoid capturing Mapillary imagery in the rain, and I haven’t done testing in dirty environments.
Quality of that sample sequence looks comparable to Kandao 8k (which itself is not too different from the 5.7 from Fusion/Max) - there is still a woeful lack of detail in all of these consumer cams, and I wasn’t expecting better given only 2 sensors.
Maybe 72mp still are better (although I have doubts over how quickly it can capture them), but not holding my breath - this is supposed to be the cheaper Labpano camera, and even their existing more expensive models are not blowing Pro/Pro2 out of the water
This camera looks interesting! It looks like an insta360 X3 funnily enough but it seems to actually work and stuff. If it works great, then I might get this camera for my next 360 camera upgrade!
You can set time lapse (called interval) in image mode, but I think it’s not really meant for the Mapillary use case as the intervals as 5, 8,10, 15, 20 seconds. I think you also then need to run a stitch on the camera (where as video is stitched automatically). Video mode is I think what we’d want to use (which offers 8K at 1,2,5 FPS and 5.7K at 1,2,3,4,7 FPS)
Yes, you can set “Middle, High, and Ultra High” VBR
I’m not sure I can tell, I think it might be plastic based on the sound, but hard to tell.
This is called 12K on the camera, here’s an example image: Mapillary - note that this does take quite a while to capture, so again, I would probably stick to the video capture at 8K for the Mapillary use case.
Stitching is fairly quick in image mode (several seconds?) and you do it async to capture, so I don’t think it has any impact on capturing speed. I didn’t try doing it in the smartphone app.
Yes, I noticed this as well, it looks like the GPS time for this image was not set for whatever reason. I reported it to LabPano (and we’ll also add a workaround to use “created at” time when GPS time is Jan 1, 1970). Note that this wasn’t an issue in video mode.
This does look like a pretty solid camera to me overall, so if you’re considering it, I’d say go for it, and would love to hear your detailed feedback (I’m sure the community and perhaps LabPano would be interested as well).
The specifications looks very similar to the Ricoh Theta X that I have been using for the past year, and at less than even the repair/replacement cost (~$600), so this seems like a excellent “budget” option in comparison. (Yes, Theta X bit slow to get the GPS started, (so sometime no GPS-data in the first or second clip).
With the Theta X the USB-C connection if further away from the lens, but a standard cable end up more visible in the pictures than wanted; and found a my self in need of a cable with angled connector, e.g for when mapping more for longer than 30~40 min. (In my experience the Theta X is more stable when swapping batteries, and it a bit more convenient to do so then managing a cable to a pocked power bank…)
So from you experience, how much impact on images the does the a USB-C power cable have ? Have you tried it with a angled connector ?
Also as the leases are typically very sensitive, (yes I damaged my camera lens by letting it slide around it in a cardboard box for the drive home); do you know if LabPano offer any Lens Protectors/Guards as an accessory ?
I’ve received the Panox V2 yesterday and have started trialling it with Mapillary. It’s my first 360 camera, and I’m keen to use it with Mapillary to help in my efforts on Openstreetmap.
First impressions, big gap in detailed documentation and community support.
Just on the consumer side and recording fun 360 videos, I figured out that videos must be ‘stitched’ before they’re useful. This can be done in device. I don’t know the history of 360 cameras, so I assume this is typically done on a computer. That’s all fine. It’s a bit slow to stitch videos on the device, slower than real time, but it’s fine.
I’m using street view video mode for my Mapillary captures. This is my main use case. 8k 5fps. Mounting the camera on top of my car. Captures aren’t coming out great. Can’t read street signs 5 meters way, for example. I don’t understand what options like ‘Bitrate Multiplier’ or ‘Video Quality’ does. I’m a video professional. I like to know bitrates and encoding settings, but they seem to be abstracted in the camera menus. The videos seem to be coming out already stitched and ready to use, but I don’t know if I’m missing a processing step to make it higher quality. Also I think the horizon isn’t locked like in normal video 360 mode. Without documentation, it’s hard to tell what these settings actually do or what I should be doing to get best results. I may have to do trial and error. Maybe my expectations are too high for a palm-sized device, but I’d like to read street signs and house numbers. Advice would be appreciated.
GPS seems fine. Google Street View Studio does complain, but I can’t see a problem with the actual data. It’s accurate within 3-5 meters and is very quick to acquire a lock for me. Under 5 seconds. I will however be using an external GNSS device, and build it into an ‘all in one’ mapping tool, so that I can do accurate surveys as well as 360 captures.
My tests are still processing as of this post, but here’s a link: Mapillary
Resolution just not good enough to read house numbers at 20 metres distance. You probably should not compare these devices with google streetview equipment. Lets wait a few years for 16k
That’s fair. I’ve started having good success with it in real runs. The quality actually is absolutely fine. Sure it’s not Google, but it does 90% of the job, and it’s invaluable to be able to capture up to date imagery of areas that have been missed by Google for years.
I’ve had a couple glitches, so some tips for anyone else looking to use the Panox V2:
I’ve had a capture file fail processing for both Google Street View Studio and Mapillary. Not sure why yet, but I had the file segments set to 30 minutes, so it’s affected the whole 30 minute file. I’ll be using 5 minute segments for now on to reduce the impact.
The Street Video recording mode doesn’t keep the horizon level, so ensure it’s mounted straight.
Phone connection to the camera can be difficult. I’ve found success by manually enabling the hotspot feature on the camera, connecting to the hotspot manually on the phone, and then opening the app.
If the image on the phone preview freezes but hasn’t disconnected, the recording has likely frozen too.
Despite the above, I’m very happy with the camera. GPS accuracy seems very good. Not having to process captures is fantastic.
I’m testing a Panox V2. First test was with mode set to “Street View” mode, 5min storage divide, Ultra High Bitrate Multiplier, 5FPS, 8K. I had the lenses facing forwards/backwards with the camera’s screen facing the back. One of the images is here. I notice that the yellow, view indicator in the overview map only points in one of two directions - it does not swivel freely. I can’t tell if the camera was facing properly to get the correct orientation. For my intended use case, it will be important that I can properly analyze which part of the image is which “face” of the view (left versus right). Any tips of figuring this out?
EDIT: I checked an older image taken with a GoPro MAX and it does do the complete swivel of the yellow view indicator, so I may just need to wait a bit longer for the processing to complete? I would like to be able to have the camera oriented with its lenses left and right. I guess I could also use the command line uploading tools and add in a parameter to adjust the facing?
And do you know if the “360 Video” mode saves GPS information? And if so, then what the “Locked View” options of “Fixed” or “Follow” do? I wish that this device did the horizon leveling like the GoPro MAX. I notice that the “Timelapse” video mode also has the “Locked View” options but can only do 30FPS at 5.7K (the 360 Video mode can do 10FPS at 8K).
Thank you for sharing. Apart from the barely useful 360° image resolution there is not much favorable to say about the PANOX V3. Everything else looks rather disappointing. The firmware and hardware apparently neither support both sensor exposure syncing nor rolling shutter compensation.
The firmware and hardware apparently neither support both sensor exposure syncing nor rolling shutter compensation.