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We're currently in the process of recording 1fps time-lapsed 4k 360 photos of every island in the Bahamas, with embedded GPS EXIF data. An average hour of filming tends to produce around 600 image frames, which can easily expand to 2000-10,000 images per day on bigger routes. 2000 or so are approved on Google Maps already, but we're hitting a larger brick wall.

The Street View app is obviously the best way to upload when you have 50-100 image files, but it obviously struggles when it starts to hit over 500+ uploads in a batch (publishing doesn't start, or the app crashes), so we're left manually submitting collections. Add that to the standard 4000/day quota, and it's quite a challenge.

Having looked at the Publish API, it's rather tricky to leave a CLI tool running as it's designed with OAuth flow in mind with 1hr access tokens. The service account route seems to the way to go, but the PHP API client seems to have scant documentation for SV Publishing. Connecting photos is also tricky with that many images.

We ideally need a desktop uploader (like the backup tool), or a way to directly import from folders in Google Drive. The first seems discontinued, and there's no data on the second.

Can anyone explain or elucidate on the best practice for this kind of volume upload with the Street View publishing service?

user9937299
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Since you are only capturing 4K images, it will be much simpler to use video mode, depending on if your camera supports it at the desired framerate. You may check this documentation for more information.

Additional information:

You may also check out some of the desktop utilities at the bottom of the Street View website which may be able to help.

You may want to consider one of the Street View ready cameras (also listed on the above webpage) that is capable of recording and uploading 360 videos to Street View. Upon publication, the 360 photo frames are extracted from the video and used to create an automatically connected Street View experience on Google Maps.

Check these pages to learn more about this option:

abielita
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  • Unfortunately it does - we've had to downgrade from the Insta360 to a Samsung 360. Means time-lapse and manually GPS-syncing of the extracted frames. – user9937299 Jun 14 '18 at 17:07
  • I've updated my answer. Hope this additional information helps! – abielita Jun 15 '18 at 13:23
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    It does somewhat, and thank you! We started out with an auto-ready camera (Insta 360 Pro) doing just that. What we found was: a) too difficult to elevate it above the car roof (top heavy even on a professional film grip setup in 30mph with wind drag), b) too susceptible to damage or theft in poor or badly-tarmac'd areas (not replaceable without waiting 4-8 weeks with customs), c) mobile control app unusable (poor range, buggy firmware), d) unable to extract images and GPS data separately. – user9937299 Jun 16 '18 at 13:51
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    Samsung 360 was a compromise - 4k time lapse is cheap and replaceable at reasonable quality, easy in wind with tripod through a Sun roof, discrete, reliable app, long battery life, 1 image per sec (every 30ft). Downside = needs parallel GPS logging and manual sync. – user9937299 Jun 16 '18 at 13:59