Warning: You need to be logged into your Google account to generate a key for Google Maps Javascript API.

Before you can set this browser key in your Tour Manager, you’ll need to generate it. This tutorial will show you how to do that.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• Generate a new API key
• View your existing API keys
• Secure your existing API keys
• Add API key to the Tour Manager

 

Generate a new API key

If you do not have a Maps JavaScript API key or need to create a new one, please follow the steps below. If you already have a Maps JavaScript API key, you can add it to the plugin with the steps here.

• Go to the Google Maps Platform
• Click ‘Get Started’
• Check ‘Maps’, and ‘Places’
  
• Click ‘Continue’
• If you want to use an existing project, please select it from the list. Otherwise, select ‘Create a new project’ and enter a project name.
• Click ‘Next’ to continue
• Click ‘Next’ to enable the APIs for the project
• Copy the generated API key from the popup, you’ll need this to set your key later.

View your existing API keys

• Go to the Google Maps Platform
• If the side menu is not visible, click the three line (hamburger) menu icon
• Click ‘APIs & Services’ (API icon)
• Click ‘ Credentials’ (key icon)

Secure your existing API keys

To prevent quota theft, secure your API key following these best practices.

• Restrict your API keys to be used by only the IP addresses, referrer URLs, and mobile apps that need them: By restricting the IP addresses, referrer URLs, and mobile apps that can use each key, you can reduce the impact of a compromised API key. You can specify the hosts and apps that can use each key from the GCP Console Credentials page and then create a new API key with the settings you want, or edit the settings of an existing API key.
• Restrict your API keys to be usable only for certain APIs: If you have multiple APIs enabled in your project and your API key should only be used with some of them, restrict usage of that key to those APIs. You can specify the allowed APIs for each key from the GCP Console Credentials page and then create a new API key with the settings you want, or edit the settings of an existing API key.
• Delete unneeded API keys: To minimize your exposure to attack, delete any API keys that you no longer need.
• Regenerate your API keys periodically: You can regenerate API keys from the GCP Console Credentials page by clicking Regenerate key for each key. Then, update your applications to use the newly-generated keys. Your old keys will continue to work for 24 hours after you generate replacement keys.

We use the following APIs:

• Street View API
• Maps JavaScript API
• Places Api

Add API key in your Tour Manager

• Copy the API key you created from the Google Maps Platform.
• Log in to your PanoWalks account. When you’re logged in, open your tour manager.
• Click on ‘Settings’.
  
• Paste the API key you copied in step 1 into the ‘Google Maps API key’ field.
• Click Save Changes.

If you have trouble displaying Google maps on your site, please verify that the Google Maps Javascript API is enabled in the Google Maps API Manager.

There are several possibilities to cover the black hole or tripod area at the bottom of your panorama after stitching. You can easily create a round disk in Adobe Photoshop that looks like a mirror ball and even add text or a logo. Another possibility is to remove the tripod when shooting your panorama and take an image of the nadir that you can later include when stitching in PTGui. This will however take considerable extra time and I will show you a quick and dirty method to achieve almost the same result in much less time.

An important tool and Swiss Army knife for every PanoWalker is KRPano Tools. This article shows how you can patch your nadir (Black hole or tripod area at the bottom) in a few seconds using KRPanoTools and Adobe Photoshop.

This method will work better if there is no significant pattern in your nadir area. So if you have a chance to move your tripod slightly to a more suitable spot it will make life a lot easier for you.

Here is an example image after stitching with PTGui which we will try to patch.

 

Download KRPano Tolls and unzip the archive to your Computer to a location of you choice.

Open the KRPano Folder and also open the folder with your spherical Image. Drop your spherical image onto the KRPano SPHEREtoCUBE Droplet.

 

Open the down view cube image with Adobe Photoshop and select the Patch Tool and draw a line around the unwanted area. Then select Edit and “Fill /content Aware” or press “Shift + F5”. Use the patch tool to remove any areas that are not properly patched. Add this point you can also add a small logo to your nadir area. Save your image, and close Photoshop.

 

Select All 6 Cube Images and drop them onto the CUBEtoSPHERE Droplet.

Voila, you nadir is perfectly patched without an extra image to shoot.

 

To check your 360 panorama drop your new spherical image onto the MAKE PANO droplet, or drop multiple images onto the MAKE VTOUR droplet and wait a second until your Virtual Tour is ready.

 

Now you could transfer the complete folder that is generated by KRPanoTools to your web server. But off course you want to upload your new images to Google Maps Street View to further process with PanoWalks.