Stationary Cycling through Google Street View

[lgk422]

Awww man I thought about this, but I was too naive in thinking noone had made it yet. Great work!

[TheChokeoutartist]

The zooming will end up givin you a seizure

[FPChris]

How are you telling Google to turn?

[lazurm]

This system would be great if a few things are added to it.The big ones are higher forward movement resolution.Note that Google Street View simulates forward motion by magnifying the view prior to switching to the next frame & this can, for now, be tied to the simulated higher resolution AND if one can tie the speed and angle of approach to a magnetic resistance on the bicycle trainer so that it can simulate the resistance of forward motion to speed (& weight) while going forward.

[lazurm]

@lazurm Note, when I refer to resistance to forward motion, I mean including the angle of the hill with speed and weight taken into consideration for creating the wattage resistance in magnetic resistance bicycle trainers.

[MrDiscoHeaven]

So what would happen if you run into some one's house, what will display on the screen?

[fitzgerald95971]

very cool what language did you use to write this program?

[sxnoss40]

does anybody know if the tracking on these is compatible with arma 2?

[ammubhave]

i would like to suggest that i can see that about two turns are required to make an update to the view, so after 1 turn, zoom the image to the appropriate levels and then after second turn skip to the next camera, this will make it more real, also you can fit two or four magnets to the bike's wheels and reduce the distance sensor's weight age to half or quarter i.e. 4 passes of the magnet means one turn and therefore at each pass zoom into the image appropriately.

Hope you find this useful :):)

[vaticinus]

google has to come with a realtime velocity and turn-by-turn app/site themselves. Imagine going for a bike ride in china in the morning and then another ride in paris later in the day all in your garage

[arias223]

Or you can go out and ride. Cool set up.

[mstews]

Dude lives in Vancouver, chances are it's pouring rain out, not much fun.

[arias223]

@mstews

You're right, I'd be on a trainer too, or on the lazy boy.

[lazurm]

I had been thinking of using Google Street View for precisely the same purpose. In addition to the above, it would be nice to incorporate street angle/speed to resistance settings on a magnetic trainer, the ability to turn onto GSV roads and, finally, to have GSV be finer tuned so that the user doesn't move through a series of intermittant leaps. When hooked to a treadmill or exercycle the product potential may be significant...eventually, eh? :)

[steveoc64]

Duh! .. found the link, my bad.

[steveoc64]

Thank you - veryl cool and well polished hack ! Big thanks for GPL'ing this too. Can you provide the URL to the website please - I cannot see it anywhere.

What sort of CPU load are you pulling whilst this is running ? Im guessing that an original eeePC with linux would be up for the job of running this .. as I am keen to try this out.

Also, details on the bill of materials and where the parts can be found online would be a big bonus.

[confique]

nice of you using ubuntu for this one :)

Btw, do you have FPS issue or it's just bad video?

[confique]

I didn't say that idea is fantastic. Reading the link you provided... ;)

[timothy22597]

This is incredible, but would be even better if somehow it went forward in realtime instead of zooming forward when it hit the edge of the picture.

[Shizka]

This is kind of awesome :D

Nicely done

[armoredmex116]

Awsome... good job.

[travisketcheson]

That's perfect for the weather we've been having here the last week eh?

[ashendabblederbezed]

Good grief yes... though, shock-and-awe it's sunny right now! I need better gloves though, fingers are ready to snap off.

[papax3]

that's really cool lol.

[stockingbutton]

Wow!

[neolexington]

awesome you need to make this a complete package and sell it!!!!

[ashendabblederbezed]

I'm actually hoping some other people pick up the idea and run with it. All the work that I've done has been released as GPL =) I'll basically work on it till it handles my needs which hopefully will be enough. The really hard work was already done by the Google Street View team in getting the photos and views in place... and they've released that work for free.

[perotsuu]

OR you can actually just go cycling outdoor...

[RightBrainProds]

@perotsuu: The guy lives in Canada. Cycling outdoor in the wintertime is not viable.

Also, unless you drive out of town, you just cover the same ground every time.

[ashendabblederbezed]

Exactly. Specifically, Vancouver, which is probably like Seattle. Mostly it's the hassle: I'm still riding but there are times where I just don't want to ride through the rain when it's dark, both ways. Shoes get soaked right through and I haven't figured out a good way of drying my clothing at work that doesn't get in people's ways. Last time, I had a portable heater setup/clothes line in the conference room (I'm surprised they didn't kill me from the smell! ;)

[bewnet]

awesome!!!!!

[roidimitrisxan]

Man you are genius!!!!!!!!!

[PiAir]

Amazing!

[jamylmamri]

Genius!!

[somey0utuber]

This is great! You should include the steering somehow...

[ashendabblederbezed]

It exists! I totally forgot to mention it. Basically, when I get to an intersection, I look down the road I want to turn. Then the trajectory changes. When I do turn down the road, it corrects the "virtual bike" so I look forward again as I go. It's a bit clunky right now since it's not very smooth so I'm thinking of using buttons regardless or some sort of planned route so I don't have to remember which turns to take.

[1lalaland]

i think ud get a head each after a while

[skratneem]

genius! as others have asked, can you turn? or only go straight?

[ashendabblederbezed]

I totally forgot to mention it. Basically, when I get to an intersection, I look down the road I want to turn. Then the trajectory changes. When I do turn down the road, it corrects the "virtual bike" so I look forward again as I go. It's a bit clunky right now since it's not very smooth so I'm thinking of using buttons and some sort of planned route so I don't have to remember which turns to take.

[mikeanddanica]

We adore you and your giant brain Aki!!

[ryebug2000]

You are a genius!

Please sell those to the public!

Also with my choppy connection, a way to pre-cache my route would be helpful.

[ashendabblederbezed]

I've been thinking about that too... I may be able to make the system behave like a SOCKS5 proxy and have a route loader that the night before just loads everything into a cache that gets played back when it's time to go live. The unfortunate part is that I will have to preplan all the routes.

Although... now that I think about it, perhaps I can preload before I go down the route.

I need to think :} early. brain. not. working...

[24065894]

Really cool, but doesnt the google picture morph make you feel sick after a while?

[DeadBatteryVideos]

Wow... That's brilliant. If it could turn, I'd probably never stop using it (if I had one of course). I already spend hours wandering the streets of Japan on Street View; it'd be epic on this setup.

[xXShadowAsasNXx]

So would I! I want to visit Japan SOOOO bad.

[diakonos1984]

can you turn corners?

[aaron87a]

mate you should consider selling kits so people can do this at home. I would definately buy one as I dont have good enough technical knowledge to do this myself.

Have you made a software application that you could just install on your laptop and run that you can download from somewhere?

[ashendabblederbezed]

I'm useless in windows unfortunately and currently there is code that's available but it's very tied to linux. However in terms of implementation, it actually should be much easier in windows since the drivers for the HMD and tools for development exist. Maybe now that the idea's out someone will throw one together (at least that's my hope... I'm just the idea guy! whee!)

[samyboy11]

This is absolutely awesome.

[theS70RM]

i meant "seamless" there obviously ;)

[theS70RM]

nice one dude, you should make it slowly zoom on the image when you're looking forward to make the transition between frames more seemless

[zandbJ]

Great work!

With a fan in front you'll have headwind...

[darkfader]

a nicer transition between positions would be nice

[ashendabblederbezed]

thanks! turning out that I need to work in some patches for planned routes. I keep wandering too much. 0:)

[mzn1991]

i was totally thinking about doing this kind of set up but in a car so my street view would update automatically to my cars location but turns out the new google navigation i just got on my g1 can do that

[ashendabblederbezed]

I am jealous, that app looks great =) (I'm using a WinMo phone)

[mzn1991]

im jealous your vr set up is awesomee

[thecityspiders]

Good job

would love to see this implemented in it's entirety on an ITX MOBO and a custom box mounted to the bike trainer.{for a more compact and less accident prone CPU}

I love the idea of using Google maps and a VR HUD.

surprises me that Google has not marketed this themselves

[ashendabblederbezed]

I was thinking I could the beagleboard later on, I think it has enough power to support this... :) Currently, the only thing that stays on the bike is the sensor though, everything else I can just bring down and easily plug in.

I'm not convinced there's a huge market for something like this. The displays, as really cool as they are, are still somewhat uncomfortable and very low res (VGA) for the price point. :( (Though it's still absolutely amazing technology)