Import 360° Panos From a SLAM Equipped Mobile Device or Drone

Modified on Mon, 31 Mar at 2:05 PM

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Use Case
Prerequisites
For Panos with Heading Only
For Panos with 3 Axis Rotation
Transform Angles to Quaternions
Import 360 Panos to Cintoo

Use Case

To import 360° panoramic images to Cintoo independent from any 3D data (i.e. point cloud) also captured by the SLAM equipped mobile device or drone.

For importing panos along with the point cloud, see Uploading a generic E57 file with its camera path in CSV format

Prerequisites

360° panoramic images captured by a SLAM equipped mobile device or a drone/UAV

Panoramic image files must be in JPG or PNG format only.
Panoramic image files must be spherical images (see example below)

It is a must to have, or to be able to extract/generate a file (typically in TXT or CSV format) with all of the following information for each panoramic image captured:

File name for each panoramic image along with its file extension (.jpg or .png)
X,Y,Z coordinates expressed in Meters
- If the point cloud is georeferenced , it is mandatory that X,Y,Z coordinates for the panos are transformed in the same coordinate system and origin as the point cloud.
Rotation angles in Degrees (i.e. Heading or Yaw-Z axis, Pitch-Y Axis, Roll-X axis)
- If angles are in Radian, convert them to Degrees.

For Panos with Heading Only

If other angles (e.g. Pitch, Yaw, etc.) are present, they should be equal to 0. If they are not equal to 0 then skip to Panos with 3 Axis Rotation section below.

1. Open the file (generally a TXT or a CSV file) with one text editor.

2. Keep only the relevant Columns, in the following order: Filename, X, Y, Z, Heading

3. Save the file as CSV and place it in the same folder with panoramic image files.

4. Open the CSV with a text editor and ensure that:

Point “.” is the decimal separator
Comma “,” is the value separator
If not, edit/replace to match this convention, and save.

For Panos with 3 Axis Rotation

Normally in the original file, the should be 3 angles Roll, Pitch and Heading or Yaw with angles' values not at 0 (or rarely). If only Heading/Yaw are present, or all Roll and Pitch are equal to 0 then use steps from For Panos with Heading Only section above.

1. Open the file (generally a TXT or a CSV file) with one text editor.

2. Keep only the relevant Columns, in the following order (Yaw or Heading):
Filename, X, Y, Z, Roll(x), Pitch(y), Yaw(z)
and add qx, qy, qy, qz in the header line.
3. Save the file as text file.

Transform Angles to Quaternions

a) Using manual process (for each pano, line in the file), open the following website:
3D rotation converter.

Fill in the values:

1. Ensure to select correct Unit for Angle input (normally Degrees, but it's possible that the data is in Radians).
2. Make sure to select correct Unit for Angle Output (Degrees).
3. Go down to Euler angles, Select ZYX.
4. Copy paste the Values for X (Roll), Y(Pitch), Z(Yaw) angles from the text file.
5. Now, just copy/paste to the text file the result shown in Quaternion (without brackets [ / ] and spaces).

6. In the text file, delete the columns Roll(x), Pitch(y), Yaw(z).

7. Save the file as CSV and place it in the same folder of the panoramic image files.

8. Open the CSV with a text editor and ensure that:

Point “.” is the decimal separator
Comma “,” is the value separator
If not, edit/replace to match this convention, and save.

b) Using Automatic Calculation in Excel (contact support@cintoo.com):

Open the file Cintoo Quaternions calculation.xlsx.
Ensure in Excel to use the correct Decimal separator (“.” Or “,” depending on regional settings).
Copy/Paste file data in the first tab (RAW-CLEANED).
Delete the unnecessary lines (depending on the existing inputs).
Go to the second tab (QUATERNIONS), and depending on the inputs: Either delete the unnecessary lines or copy/stretch down the lines (with formulas) up to the input lines (same number of lines as the first tab inputs).
Finally, got to the last/third tab (Cintoo CSV): repeat the operation of unnecessary lines or additional lines as previous step. Stay in the last tab, and Save as the file as CSV format (say OK to the 2 warning messages), place it in the same folder as panoramic images files.
Close Excel (without saving).
Open the CSV with a text editor and ensure that:
- Point “.” is the decimal separator
- Comma “,” is the value separator
- If not, edit/replace to match this convention, and save.

Import 360 Panos to Cintoo

Follow the steps described in this article Import 360 Images to import panos to Cintoo.

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