Map-like summary visualization of street-level distance data and panorama data

Abstract

Architecture that summarizes a large amount (e.g., thousands of miles) of street-level image/video data of different perspectives and types (e.g., continuous scan-type data and panorama-type data) into a single view that resembles aerial imagery. Polygons surfaces are generated from the scan patterns and the image data is projected onto the surfaces, and then rendered into the desired orthographic projection. The street-level data is processed using a distributed computing approach across cluster nodes. The collection is processed into image tiles on the separate cluster nodes representing an orthographic map projection that can be viewed at various levels of detail. Map features such as lower-level roads, that are at lower elevations than higher-level roads, and are hidden by higher-level overpassing roads, can be navigated in the map. With the summarized data, the maps can be navigated and zoomed efficiently.