Im sure you have been reading about the Galileo from Motrr all over the web, its a amazing system. putting it simply, its a 2 axis camera motion system. it is controlled from a bluetooth enabled phone or tablet, however the coolest trick so far, is being able to mount a iPhone on the base and let the iphone control the base while taking a panorama, another app enable the iphone user to program a time-lapse shot. CLICK THROUGH FOR MORE DETAILS.
The Motrr Galileo is unique in a lot of ways, it have a potential and will probably inspire a lot of content creators to a degree rarely seen.
Open the box and you will quickly realize that the Galileo is a hardware solution. Because the first thing you are likely to load after pulling the Galileo out of the box is probably the Motrr official app, two clicks later you will find out that.. it don't do anything.. well not much at least. it will update your Galileo to the latest firmware, and second it provide a list of Galileo compattible app's.
I got the bluetooth Galileo, about a year and a half later than promissed, but so did everybody else also. So guess I will get over it.
Having pulled the Galileo out of the box, its absolutely beautiful and very very well thought out. so big credit to the designers. but it still don't do anything without app's.
WHAT CAN IT DO?
Wellll, the Galileo is two servos controlled by bluetooth, what it do is entirely dependent on how creative the thirdparty app designers are.
Right now seem to be three categories of app's for the Galileo.
1. Panorama cature
2. Time Lapse with the ability to set the camera motion speed in X and Y
3. Remote camera operator for live recording using iphones
(maybe not a obvious choice for studio cameras but...)
4. Security app, or rather a remove operating app for viewing security camera.
There is several panorama app's, but most of them only work with the 10pin version of the Galileo, I already have the SPHERE app, and thankfully that app work with the bluetooth Galileo.
First of all.. AMAZING. it is incredible easy to setup and use, once the Galileo connects, you simply press START and it capture a panorama which then can be uploaded to the server, and embedded on the web, I have put two test panoramas below in this blog post. To be perfectly honest, while the technology impresses, its amazing to see the camera turn by itself camturing a multilevel set of images for a spherical panorama. the result is a bit of a letdown, simply because even the guys at SPHERE can't really overcome the enormous nodal-point error.
Time Lapse videos seems to be huge on YouTube, so the second category might be quite successful. at the moment the only app currently released is a bit short on features, and basically let you set a pan and a tilt speed, along with a time-compression setting for the video, then press start and it will go for the time defined, taking pictures at the interval defined and in the end converting those to a video.. you need to positioin the camera in the correct start position. I think that setup need a much cooler and easier way of setting the pan start end, maybe point the phone to the start postion and then to the end position. then tell the app how long to do this move and let the app sort out the turn rate. And why not multiple points along the way.?
I have not tried the remote camera operator or the security camera app, I've never really believed in using a $400 iphone as a security camera, as thats likely to be the first thing stolen.
GoPro video, my favorite little camera is the black GoPro. I love that thing. so obviously the first thing I did was to print a Galileo adapter for my GoPro. Wohooo. I feel better already. but hey, its still not particularly cool, because until there are some more Galileo app's its hard to move the camera. I used the TimeLapse app, to move the Galileo with the GoPro mounted, i would simply edit the PAN and TILT values and click TEST to start the move.
What I want to see is a app that let me do smooth moves by simply panning and tilting my iphone.
Second I REALLY want a simple app with keyframes, let me set my start and end positions by moving my iphone, then define the time between these positions and if the path should be smooth or hard point through the keyframes.. the system probably can't go to the start because with the GoPro mounted to the Galileo, the iphone don't likely know where the galileo is facing, so you would have to move the camera to the start point manually. but then the software likely can "RTH" return to home by reversing the movement. once back you can edit the movement to improve the take.. I can imagine that app doing a cool flip around video move in a car. stopping at details and moving on.
On the topic of Panoramas.
There is issues with the offset of the camera-lens when stuffing a iphone into the Galileo, as the lens is 3-4 inches to the right of the nodal-point.. anyone who have ever stitched a panorama knows this is a huge problem.. sure thing, the Sphere app can't do a perfectly clean panorama..
So I did a little 3D print, a adapter with the shape of the iphone in the one end and a clip for the iphone on the other end, it stuffs into the Galileo, and now its possible to mount the iphone reverse, with the lens virtually perfectly centered on the nodalpoint.
Here is two samples, the first is shot with the Sphere app, iphone mounted exactly as its supposed to. reaonably good but with some big stitching flaws. ALSO notice how sphere have chosen to blur almost everything down wards, thats because the base of the Galileo gets in the pano..
The second is photographed with the reverse-mounted iphone. lens is now in nodal point (close at least) and notice the big stitching flaws have dissapeared, there are still some real flaws, but overall its pretty presentable. and because the lens is a little higher than nodal, it litterally look OVER the edge of the base, so its possible to get a quite good down angle on the panorama as well. this is a much better camera position.
How did I do that.? well, turns out the SPHERE app will not work when mounted reverse, I think the app use the iphone gyro to "drive" the Galileo, thats cool, but it goes nuts when mounted the wrong way around. so after messing with it a little, I tried instead mounting a iphone running the 360app which will automatically take a shot everytime the phone have moved enough. bingo.. that worked.. I operated the Galileo from my iphone remotely, the phone have to be put on the table somewhere leaning against something to hold it PERFECTLY straight up horisontally.. then it works, Im guessing when it do not get sensor feed-back it defaults to drive step moves instead.. at leasts it worked.
Galileo reverse mount first prototype, I got the lens hole wrong so had to cut it out with a knife, second version is prettier. I also cut some more holes to remove more material to make it cheaper on ShapeWays.
Link to the reverse mount, it works well with the iphone5 and is ok with the 4 but not as good. Reverse iphone mount on ShapeWays
Right now its safe to say.. I would NOT use the Sphere app with the Galileo for a real-estate panorama.. it might work with the 360hack..
If Sphere could make a option for reverse mount in the software it might be a really nice solution for people needing reasonable nice panoramas quickly. email sphere and ask them to support the cause. ;-)
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