Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Uber Technologies, Inc.

Markus Unger

Blaise Aguera Y Arcas

Sudipta Narayan Sinha

Donald Allen Barnett

Eric Joel Stollnitz

Johannes P Kopf

David Maxwell Gedye

Konrad Karner

Timo Pekka Pylvaenaeinen

Konrad Kamer

Christopher Stephen Messer

One or more techniques and/or systems are provided for ordering images for panorama stitching and/or for providing a focal point indicator for image capture. For example, one or more images, which may be stitched together to create a panorama of a scene, may be stored within an image stack according to one or more ordering preferences, such as where manually captured images are stored within a first/higher priority region of the image stack as compared to automatically captured images. One or more images within the image stack may be stitched according to a stitching order to create the panorama, such as using images in the first region for a foreground of the panorama. Also, a current position of a camera may be tracked and compared with a focal point of a scene to generate a focal point indicator to assist with capturing a new/current image of the scene.

Image capture and ordering

Among other things, one or more techniques and/or systems are provided for mitigating redundant pixel texture contribution for texturing a geometry. That is, the geometry may represent a multidimensional surface of a scene, such as a city. The geometry may be textured using one or more texture images (e.g., an image comprising color values and/or depth values) depicting the scene from various view directions (e.g., a top-down view, an oblique view, etc.). Because more than one texture image may contribute to texturing a pixel of the geometry (e.g., due to overlapping views of the scene), redundant pixel texture contribution may arise. Accordingly, a redundant textured pixel within a texture image may be knocked out (e.g., in-painted) from the texture image to generate a modified texture image that may be relatively efficient to store and/or stream to a client due to enhanced compression of the modified texture image.

Redundant pixel mitigation

Among other things, one or more techniques and/or systems are provided for defining a view direction for a texture image used to texture a geometry. That is, a geometry may represent a multi-dimensional surface of a scene, such as a city. The geometry may be textured using one or more texture images depicting the scene from various view directions. Because more than one texture image may contribute to texturing portions of the geometry, a view direction for a texture image may be selectively defined based upon a coverage metric associated with an amount of non-textured geometry pixels that are textured by the texture image along the view direction. In an example, a texture image may be defined according to a customized configuration, such as a spherical configuration, a cylindrical configuration, etc. In this way, redundant texturing of the geometry may be mitigated based upon the selectively identified view direction(s).

View direction determination

Among other things, one or more techniques and/or systems are provided for defining transition zones for navigating a visualization. The visualization may be constructed from geometry of a scene and one or more texture images depicted the scene from various viewpoints. A transition zone may correspond to portions of the visualization that do not have a one-to-one correspondence with a single texture image, but are generated from textured geometry (e.g., a projection of texture imagery onto the geometry). Because a translated view may have visual error (e.g., a portion of the translated view is not correctly represented by the textured geometry), one or more transition zones, specifying translated view experiences (e.g., unrestricted view navigation, restricted view navigation, etc.), may be defined. For example, a snapback force may be applied when a current view corresponds to a transition zone having a relatively higher error.

Translated view navigation for visualizations

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Markus Unger