Explore caves from Google Earth?

halkyn

New member
Everyone is aware of Google's Street View, but is it technologically possible to use Google Earth and then zoom into or down a shaft or entrance, and then explore the system from within the passages?

This would presumably require the use of Google cameras to capture each route. However, I suspect that Google's Street View cameras require a GPS location for each image, in which case, it may create a problem. But could the location data be added later manually!

Any thoughts welcomed.


 

graham

New member
Doing this for some caves might have prevented people "needing" to pirate them.  ::)

That aside, no I don't think that specific technology is up for that task, as it does rely on GPS to locate and fix the images.
 

martinr

Active member
Fine if you can get one of these into the passage

810_12_6054---Google-Maps-Street-View-Camera_web.jpg
 

ChrisJC

Well-known member
I guess if Google Streetview can deal with a road tunnel with a different road crossing it on the surface, then I would say technically it could deal with caves. Of course you need to take the pictures for it.

Chris.
 

Les W

Active member
ChrisJC said:
I guess if Google Streetview can deal with a road tunnel with a different road crossing it on the surface, then I would say technically it could deal with caves. Of course you need to take the pictures for it.

Chris.
I just had a play with street view and the Brynglas Tunnels. Google doesn't deal with it at all. You need to click with care or you end up on the roads passing over the tunnels. The way it works is Google effectively leave it up to the user. It displays all the roads as lines and where you click determines whether you stay in the tunnel or are magically transported to the roads above.

I guess you could do something similar for the caves. As was mentioned above, you would still need to photograph the caves.
 

halkyn

New member
Thanks for the replies. Yes, the Lascaux Cave presentation is quite neat.

I think that cameras now exist that are very compact and that will do a similar job to Google's (360 degree panoramas, but maybe not up and down), so I guess it can be done. Must do some more research......
 

4bags

New member
I seem to recall a talk at Hidden Earth a few years ago that outlined how Video Capture Technology used in the movie industy could be adapted for cave surveying puropses (i.e. walk through a cave with a video camera mounted on your helmet, feed into the software and watch the survey appear)... is this the sort of thing you have in mind??
 

Ralf

New member
halkyn said:
is it technologically possible to use Google Earth and then zoom into or down a shaft or entrance, and then explore the system from within the passages?

Oh, did you mean something like this?

There's an article about 3D virtual diving (in a cave) in the latest Tech Diving Mag, free download at http://www.techdivingmag.com/ , pages 24 through 29.
 

TheBitterEnd

Well-known member
4bags said:
I seem to recall a talk at Hidden Earth a few years ago that outlined how Video Capture Technology used in the movie industy could be adapted for cave surveying puropses (i.e. walk through a cave with a video camera mounted on your helmet, feed into the software and watch the survey appear)... is this the sort of thing you have in mind??

Tried it with little success*, however the robots discussed in this thread http://ukcaving.com/board/index.php?topic=11765.msg152173#msg152173 use sonar in a similar way to the way that the video is processed which seems to overcome a lot of the issues with video processing.


*The technique works pretty well on high contrast images with well defined edges - for example I was getting less than 2% error in distance travelled on my patio (the edges of the paving slabs are sharp and regular) - but on limestone there wasn't enough to contrast and things like shadows would be a problem.
 

footleg

New member
It is possible to find examples of google street view underground. This one near the Hidden Earth venue for 2011:
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=monmouth&hl=en&ll=51.802757,-2.718558&spn=0.005699,0.016512&sll=51.582297,-0.534554&sspn=0.092162,0.264187&t=k&z=17&layer=c&cbll=51.802887,-2.718437&panoid=TNv4P9wB-cmNlOUq2etEiw&cbp=12,352.69,,0,4.39

It is possible to take the photographs underground too. Here is one of mine:
http://wscc.darkgem.com/footleg/pano/LosHoyos2.html

You can link these together into panoramic tours too. Here is an example I created while learning the techniques and software. Look for the entrance in the beautifully manicured National Trust Lawn:
http://wscc.darkgem.com/footleg/pano/

It would however be quite a challenge to completely document a trip this way. Each image has taken many, many hours of work to produce!
 

Scoff

New member
Footleg

Nice one, I love panoramas.

Dunno if this one has been posted before - the pix were hurriedly taken by Martin Smith (aka Billy Whizz) at the very end of the BPC Winch Meet, as we were waiting to start dismantling it all - but have a look at GG from the comfort of your armchair....

http://www.panoguide.com/gallery/315/view_pp/?w=800&h=566

It provides me with the necessary fix of nostalgia between winch meets.

Scoff
 

footleg

New member
Rob said:
Footleg, fantastic image! Must have been very difficult to acheive the lighting results.  (y)

Also, i don't believe it's really. I mean, where's all the conservation tape?!?

Let just say I made Steve Sharp do a lot of running around ;-)

The shot was lit with my P7 LED lamps (4 of them) plus some help from Steve's Scurion.

Conservation tape is pleasantly lacking from Matienzo because the caves get very little traffic and so it has not been needed. We did take our boots off for this shoot however.
 
Top