Lee at LightHawk pointed me to Google’s Photo Spheres, which are pretty much like Google’s street view where you can turn around, look up, down, etc. except you can create your own. Creating your own usually means using your Android phone with an app and turning around in circles.
It seemed possible to do one with an airplane. Well, it turns out you can, but it was a lot harder than it looks. First, I tried to do one near Mt. Baker, Washington near South Twin mountain. I used my motor driven mount to do a 360 degree pan while I flew between North and South Twin. But that doesn’t give it enough up/down resolution for a Photo Sphere. You can see it turned out pretty cool, but it doesn’t do a complete, seamless 360.
So, next I flew over Crater Lake (on the way home) and did a 360 with the plane, except this time I didn’t use the motor mount. I wagged the wing up and down in order to capture a lot more area as I did the 360. Later, on the computer, I created a composite photo consisting of more than 60 individual photos. It didn’t turn out perfect, but not bad. Click on “View Larger Map”, then zoom in, out and pan around. Its pretty cool.
I bet yours will be the only photosphere located in the middle of Crater Lake for quite awhile- https://www.google.com/maps/views/explore?gl=us&vm=1&ll=42.944609,-122.109245&z=13
Nicely done.
Did you see the new (~2 months ago) 16 camera rig?