Re: Paneramia photos on Google Earth

A few of my Yosemite photos from last June have finally posted as blue squares on Google Earth three months afer approval instead of the one month indicated. A couple of them are behind Lembert Dome. One is of a deer in the meadow in front of Pothole Dome. One is at the last footbridge on the Mirror Lake loop. One is down low on the north side of Sentinel Dome and another on the trail on the south side. Onother is at Taft Point, all under the name of Starmaster. You really have to zoom in quite a bit to make them show up. If I recall I had some control over how large the blue squares would appear but apparently under-did it a bit because I wanted to avoid overly large squares that might step on top of other photos.

Jim



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/07/2009 08:01AM by tomdisco.

Google Earth tries to be consistent in what it accepts from Panoramio. They seem to keep an eye on repetitiveness, which is good, especially in Yosemite NP. I try to put up on Panoramio stuff that a lot of people don't go to, much better chance of having your photos picked up. For instance, type into Google Earth "Seven Troughs, NV" and see how many photos come up...they're all mine.

Kinda fun to see what GE will take and what it won't. If they don't accept your pix, well, you still have your own anyway and can overlay your own kml's or kmz's all you want.

Vince,

Thanks, I'll try the GE Seven Troughs, NV.

Of my few photos only one of them was really repetitious of somebody else's before I realized it but they accepted it anyway. It shows the south view of Sentinel Dome. For the most part I chose photos that did not duplicate others. In July I expect to take hundreds of new photos and eventually post a lot of them on GE via Panoramio, with emphasis on trail areas and vistas poorly covered on GE. A good example is the nicknamed Dolly Parton Canyon from Long Meadow down to Echo Valley. I expect this is rather attractive canyon but nobody has posted any photos of it. Same could be said of lower Lewis Creek trail and the eastern portion of the Ireland Creek trail. There's also virtually nothing covering trail sites between Glen Aulin and May Lake.

Jim

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tomdisco
GE via Panoramio, with emphasis on trail areas and vistas poorly covered on GE. A good example is the nicknamed Dolly Parton Canyon from Long Meadow down to Echo Valley. I expect this is rather attractive canyon but nobody has posted any photos of it. Same could be said of lower Lewis Creek trail and the eastern portion of the Ireland Creek trail. There's also virtually nothing covering trail sites between Glen Aulin and May Lake.
Jim

This is pretty pathetic IMO. Although I've berated Google EarF Photos... I dunno who the heck is verifying them but a ridonkulous number
are not in the right location! (I dunno about you but... yes, you CAN see Mt. Dana from Echo Creek! Wow!) I love GE.
Maybe I'll open an account and post some photos there. I've got thousands... But to not have any photos in those areas is wierd
since that is the High Sierra Route (on the path of the 6 camps).

Anywho... for your enjoyment here are the domes I called the "Dolly Domes" from Cathedral Fork of Echo Creek.

Dale,

Thank you for the Dolly Domes photo. Much appreciated.

Jim

Billy apologizes. There are only five High Sierra Camps.

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Old Dude

Can you provide a link to your original photos, on Panorama rather than Google Earth?

Bob,

I don't beleive so. Panoramio requires a User ID and password to access specific photos.

Jim

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tomdisco
Bob,

I don't beleive so. Panoramio requires a User ID and password to access specific photos.

Jim

Actually, if you just provide your user number or user name, a person can either go to Panoramio and use the site, or they can do a Google Search for images under Panoramio and your user name and that will bring up your photos and gallery. My own is Bruce da Moose and user # is 1314131, for example, and search for these will bring up a mess of photos and access to the gallery. Warning - Panoramio is not the most user-friendly photo sharing site, as it is not really for photo sharing, and it works poorly with Internet Explorer. It works much better with Firefox, Google Chrome, etc...

I will do a search for your photos, Jim (tomdisco)... :-) What is your user number?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2009 08:27AM by bpnjensen.

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bpnjensen

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tomdisco
Bob,

I don't beleive so. Panoramio requires a User ID and password to access specific photos.

Jim

Actually, if you just provide your user number or user name, a person can either go to Panoramio and use the site, or they can do a Google Search for images under Panoramio and your user name and that will bring up your photos and gallery. My own is Bruce da Moose and user # is 1314131, for example, and search for these will bring up a mess of photos and access to the gallery. Warning - Panoramio is not the most user-friendly photo sharing site, as it is not really for photo sharing, and it works poorly with Internet Explorer. It works much better with Firefox, Google Chrome, etc...

I will do a search for your photos, Jim (tomdisco)... :-) What is your user number?

Bruce,

My Panoramio user name is starmaster. I don't have a clue what my user number might be. Just went to their site and could find no reference to user numbers.

Jim

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tomdisco

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bpnjensen

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tomdisco
Bob,

I don't beleive so. Panoramio requires a User ID and password to access specific photos.

Jim

Actually, if you just provide your user number or user name, a person can either go to Panoramio and use the site, or they can do a Google Search for images under Panoramio and your user name and that will bring up your photos and gallery. My own is Bruce da Moose and user # is 1314131, for example, and search for these will bring up a mess of photos and access to the gallery. Warning - Panoramio is not the most user-friendly photo sharing site, as it is not really for photo sharing, and it works poorly with Internet Explorer. It works much better with Firefox, Google Chrome, etc...

I will do a search for your photos, Jim (tomdisco)... :-) What is your user number?

Bruce,

My Panoramio user name is starmaster. I don't have a clue what my user number might be. Just went to their site and could find no reference to user numbers.

Jim

Jim, if you look at the URL when you are on your panoramio homepage, your user ID number is the multidigit number at the end of the string. That is the best way to let others know how to get to your gallery

Bruce,

Go to http://www.panoramio.com/user/2142775 . There are only seven photos there. That's all I felt were worthy of posting on GE.

Jim

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tomdisco
Bruce,

Go to http://www.panoramio.com/user/2142775 . There are only seven photos there. That's all I felt were worthy of posting on GE.

Jim

Thanks, Jim - nice gallery! I'll be by to visit soon :-)

A few notes -

I use Panoramio quite a lot to post photos for Google Earth (GE). Some of them are in Yosemite. In my experience, the Panoramio admins do not at any time check new photos against what has been posted before, but simply check for acceptable quality photos and give them a pass. Popular sites can often have huge numbers of photos, good and bad, per square acre/hectare of land. The sheer number in one place can become stumbling blocks to good viewing on GE. You think Yosemite Valley is bad? Top of Half Dome? Check out the Eiffel Tower!

Places that are "on the way" to destinations often get shortchanged. I am guilty of this myself at times, although I try to be conscious of this problem and take a few along the way. If there are no photos of the scenery or trail along the way from Scenic Wonder A to Amazing Waterfall B, it is because many people are goal-oriented and not just allowing the scenery to flow around them and fill their souls. When one is scrambling to reach a mountaintop, perhaps this is forgiveable.

Many people are not "serious" amateur photographers, and as luck would have it, are also geographically and cartographically challenged. No matter, Panoramio trusts these folks too, and will accept their photos even if they are mediocre or misplaced. If a picture's location is wrong, it can be challenged on Panoramio by another party *one time* at the picture's own gallery page - then it is up to the owner to accept or reject the change. If the owner accepts or does nothing, the photo location will be fixed on GE at the next update (which is not the same as an upload). If the owner rejects the change, then Panoramio assumes that the owner knows where the photo is and trusts him forever, or until the owner relocates the photo himself. I have had three photo locations challenged - one was off by about 500 feet, so I accepted the suggestion. The other two were spot-on, and so I rejected the suggestions and explained why (I didn't need to, but I thought it polite).

Lately, the Panoramio admins have been going through a time-consuming and labor-intensive switchover to Google servers, and so uploads and updates have been a little late and sporadic; but they are happening, and will get done. This situation should rectify itself and become more regular in late summer. Also, remember that the admins have about a million new photos a month to review, and with only a half-dozen or so reviewers (maybe a dozen now) that can take quite awhile. Unfortunately a lot of junk slips by, but what can you do?

Panoramio admins that review the photos for GE are basically looking for photos that are not:

1 - Blurry
2 - Posed 'people pictures'
3 - Claustrophobic, that is, are scenes that are theoretically too small to be identified in the field - this goes for city, rural or wilderness
4 - Machines and vehicles (they seem to make exceptions for steam trains on RR tracks and ships at dock where the locale is portrayed)
5 - Interiors of ordinary buildings - big churches and landmark buildings are usually OK, although they did not accept my Old Faithful Inn interiors
6 - Animals not in wild settings
7 - Sea pictures with no substantial land involved
8 - Pornographic shots

Most other photos are generally acceptable for GE.

I am going up to Yosemite next week - I promise to take a few "along the way" for GE :-)

Bruce



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2009 08:24AM by bpnjensen.

I agree with Dale and others about this. I like seeing the little blue squares, and then viewing a really nice photo, but man...8 or 9 times out of 10, they are either in the wrong place, or they are terrible photos! I'm no Ansel Adams but by anyone's opinion, a lot of these photos are just not good. And so many are waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay off on location. The big problem I see is that people seem to be confused as to whether they are supposed to place the photo of WHAT they shot, rather than WHERE they shot it from. For long-distance landscape shots, that can be a big misplace. Also, I agree that there are too many from certain spots. We don't need 100 photos from the top of HD.

I like the concept, and sometimes I am rewarded with nice photos from remote places that have no other coverage, it just needst to extend to the popular places.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/08/2009 09:07AM by cthenn.

cthenn,

I also think some people just are not very good at interpreting and working the map to the correct spot. It requires a bit of playing around with different zoom levels once you have the general area and you first have to get the colored tear drop marker reasonably close before zooming in for fine tuning. I too am frustrated with misplaced photos, particularly Mt. Dana and Vernal Fall. I've submitted requests for correction and even provided correct LAT-LON coordinates, usually to no avail. I did successfully get one of the Mt. Dana photos removed from the Rafferty Creek trail because it was clearly a photo of Mono Lake taken from the summit of Mt. Dana!

Jim

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tomdisco
cthenn,

I also think some people just are not very good at interpreting and working the map to the correct spot. It requires a bit of playing around with different zoom levels once you have the general area and you first have to get the colored tear drop marker reasonably close before zooming in for fine tuning. I too am frustrated with misplaced photos, particularly Mt. Dana and Vernal Fall. I've submitted requests for correction and even provided correct LAT-LON coordinates, usually to no avail. I did successfully get one of the Mt. Dana photos removed from the Rafferty Creek trail because it was clearly a photo of Mono Lake taken from the summit of Mt. Dana!

Jim

And what's really annoying is that photos have to apparently undergo a "screening" process (I don't use that site). It shows a lack of care and poor site management if they are letting so many of these photos go through without being in the right spot. I know they can't double check every photo's location, and they can't verify every location on backcountry trails, but a photo of Half Dome should not be sitting in Tuolumne Meadows...

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cthenn

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tomdisco
cthenn,

I also think some people just are not very good at interpreting and working the map to the correct spot. It requires a bit of playing around with different zoom levels once you have the general area and you first have to get the colored tear drop marker reasonably close before zooming in for fine tuning. I too am frustrated with misplaced photos, particularly Mt. Dana and Vernal Fall. I've submitted requests for correction and even provided correct LAT-LON coordinates, usually to no avail. I did successfully get one of the Mt. Dana photos removed from the Rafferty Creek trail because it was clearly a photo of Mono Lake taken from the summit of Mt. Dana!

Jim

And what's really annoying is that photos have to apparently undergo a "screening" process (I don't use that site). It shows a lack of care and poor site management if they are letting so many of these photos go through without being in the right spot. I know they can't double check every photo's location, and they can't verify every location on backcountry trails, but a photo of Half Dome should not be sitting in Tuolumne Meadows...

As I mentioned above, the reviewers do not check the locations - period. Not a single one. This is a fact. The reviewers are actually in Europe, most have not been to North America, and I'd bet that none of them know Yosemite well enough to place the park in California, let alone place a picture at the proper photo spot. They are physically incapable of reviewing for location. With only a dozen reviewers and millions of photos from around the world, it must always be thus. All we can do is challenge a badly misplaced photo when we see it, and hope the challenge is either accepted or ignored...in which case our corrected location will take hold.

The screening process, as I mentioned, is primarily as to appropriateness for Google Earth. This is even done very quickly, at the large thumbnail level, so many poor photos get through.

I work very hard to select my own GE photos with some care, and place them within at most a hundred feet or so of the correct photo location, in most cases within one meter - but the average camera-phone tourist who goes kookie uploading every screwball shot they took through their windshield is not going to be able to do any better than about a 5-10 mile accuracy when mapping their shots. That is the sorry truth.

So - if we don't like a photo of Half Dome taken at Glacier Point located instead at Mono Lake, then we have to take the initiative and suggestively remap it.

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tomdisco
cthenn,

I also think some people just are not very good at interpreting and working the map to the correct spot. It requires a bit of playing around with different zoom levels once you have the general area and you first have to get the colored tear drop marker reasonably close before zooming in for fine tuning. I too am frustrated with misplaced photos, particularly Mt. Dana and Vernal Fall. I've submitted requests for correction and even provided correct LAT-LON coordinates, usually to no avail. I did successfully get one of the Mt. Dana photos removed from the Rafferty Creek trail because it was clearly a photo of Mono Lake taken from the summit of Mt. Dana!

Jim

You understand, Jim, that the correct method for location on Panoramio is at the point where the photo was taken? Just making sure...

Bruce,

Yes, I'm well aware the photo needs to be placed where it was shot from.

Jim

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tomdisco
Bruce,

Yes, I'm well aware the photo needs to be placed where it was shot from.

Jim

I realize the rationale for this manuver, but it is an intrinsically confusing issue when "near" photos, like of wildlife, flowers, or close geographical items are placed along side pictures of objects that are far away. Half Dome on top of Glacier Point just seems wrong.

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

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Frank Furter

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tomdisco
Bruce,

Yes, I'm well aware the photo needs to be placed where it was shot from.

Jim

I realize the rationale for this manuver, but it is an intrinsically confusing issue when "near" photos, like of wildlife, flowers, or close geographical items are placed along side pictures of objects that are far away. Half Dome on top of Glacier Point just seems wrong.

Perhaps - but if you consider that the objective of Panoramio and Google Earth is not to identify specific objects shown in the photos, but the views of those objects shown in the photos, then it becomes much more sensible. From Glacier Point, here is what (a) Half Dome (b) Yosemite Fall (c) Penstemmon (d) Nevada Fall (e) Mt. Hoffman looks like - that's pretty sensible. In fact, the larger and more "macro" the individual object is, the more sense it makes. For Google Earth, "micro" things like flowers and squirrels and knotholes on trees are not supposed to be accepted, thereby eliminating - in theory - that possible incongruity.

However, this discussion becomes really critical when the landscape taken does not have a specific highlight. If you take a picture of the Sierra Crest from the Summit of Half Dome or from Glacier Point, where do you put it? How about a panoramic view from Inspiration Point? If not at the places where they were taken, then what spot would be appropriate? It would be impossible to select a single spot from the Sierra Crest photo, whether it be Hoffman, Tenaya Peak, Dana or Lyell, Red Peak, Merced Peak, or whatever summit your chose - none of them would make more than about 2% sense. However, the point of photo is common to all of them, and truly is the point of view. Same with Inspiration Point - you can't definitively say that El Cap, Cathedral Rocks, Bridaveil Fall, Sentinel Dome, Cloud's Rest or Half Dome is the subject, but you can identify the POV.

~ Bruce

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tomdisco
Bruce,

Yes, I'm well aware the photo needs to be placed where it was shot from.

Jim

I thought you did ; there is however a significant minority of folks on Pano who do not follow this convention, ostensibly because they did not get the rules in time.

I think part of the problem with icons in the wrong location is that people aren't savvy on coordinates. They might put in decimal degrees, or degrees minutes.decimal minutes (which is most GPS gadgets), or degrees.minutes.seconds when it should've been in decimal degrees.

And then there are those annoying youtube icons of some music video, you're flying around some dry lake in Nevada and there's a youtube video in the middle of the lake that has nothing to do with anything at all (which is most music). I have that layer turned off...

Billy still contends that the forecountry Tuolumne "Lodge" is but a ruse for
THE Tuolumne Meadows High Sierra Camp.

Look up lodge and camp in the dictionary. TM HSC - The Missing 6th HSC!

I guess I'll post the PM.

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Old Dude

See map High Sierra Camps from DNC. Technically I think Toulumne is a HSC.
http://www.yosemitepark.com/Accomodations_HighSierraCamps.aspx

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

Frank, Frank, Frank,

It's the Tuolumne LODGE but the lodge does work with the High Sierra CAMPS. (emPHAsis for Billie's sake)

This horse is dead.

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Old Dude

Joe, where you been buddy?

I think everyone would agree that if it looks like a HSC it probably is a HSC.

We should take a vote.

Dude. Isn't a lodge a building?

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joe_schmo
Dude. Isn't a lodge a building?

Or not:

3. A collection of objects lodged together.

Or something embedded:

"He had a burrito lodged in his esophagus."

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The cure for a fallacious argument is a better argument, not the suppression of ideas.
-- Carl Sagan

Yeah, Like Joe's four brain cells.

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Old Dude