My latest addition to the google-maps-api-addon
library is the PanoMarker, a marker which is able to remain at a
fixed position inside of a custom StreetView panorama. It can be used to
annotate points of interest (POI) inside a particular panorama regardless of the
user's viewing direction. The difficulty in creating a marker that remains at a
fixed position lies in the projection from a spherical panorama to a
two-dimensional viewport. POIs are adressed in terms of heading and pitch angles
with respect to the panorama's center. The viewport uses good old pixels for
positioning elements. In this article I will elaborate on how to find the pixel
coordinates on the viewport given heading and pitch angles of a POI.
One thing I was working on during my internship at Google was a beautiful new look for Checkins. The extension I now made* takes map images shown in such Checkins and replaces them by an actual map which you can zoom and drag around!
You may remember the SimpleMarker class I made about a year ago. Recently, I started working with the Maps API quite a lot again since I'm currently writing a Google+ extension with which you can get a map of your circles. During development, I realized that an update of my marker class was long overdue. Not anymore ;-)
During this summer, I have improved the firmware of my GPS-Logger more than ever. Most important, the firmware as well as the RawRead-tool is now completely available on GitHub. By that, everyone can participate in making them even better. Here's what I have changed during the past weeks.
During a moment of boredom I decided to build an IR remote for my Nikon camera. Turned out it is a very simple and cheap project, perfect for a day with nothing else to do. The remote operates easily on distances of about 15 - 20 meters. It may be even more, but I haven't tested it yet.
Basically the remote contains a microcontroller which is powered by pressing the button. The controller then toggles an infrared LED at a frequency of about 38kHz and by that transmits the correct pattern to the camera. The remote is equivalent to Nikon's ML-L3 remote and works with a wide range of their cameras.
