When creating a GSV Tour, it is vital that you have set up your photos to know the direction of true north. Without a proper north point for each photo, then your photos will not make their connections properly and will appear incorrect when viewed on a map. This can lead to incorrect connections between photos.
Setting north point is a required step when building a CloudPano tour - it should ask you to set the north point for each new photo you connect. If something looks off on your published tour, you can quickly make sure you set your north points correctly using the examples in this article.
The easiest way to double-check your north point is to compare your photosphere view to the "GSV Yellow Man" direction. The "GSV Yellow Man" will look North, South, East, or West while you observe a photosphere.
You can compare your knowledge of the real world ("The entrance to my GSV Tour should be East facing the street") with the "GSV Yellow Man" ("But my GSV Yellow Man shows he is facing south when I look at the entrance. Oops!").
View your tour and click the map in the bottom left corner.
Below are two examples of tours with incorrect north points and how to observe them.
Note a landmark in your tour, and compare the position of this landmark to the "Yellow GSV Man's" direction on maps. They should line up.
In the below example, the Street View user is viewing the ocean. However, if we observe the map for this photosphere, we see that the "Yellow GSV Man" is facing away from the ocean. This is an indication the north point may not be properly configured for this photosphere.
In fact, the map with the "Yellow GSV Man" indicates that he is looking at another photosphere (Northwest of his current position). This means that if the GSV User were to click ahead on the ocean, they would be clicking on the ocean but landing in a photosphere that is actually on land!
Similar to the ocean example, when viewing the tour on Google Maps it is important to find a landmark and compare it to your "Yellow GSV Man" position.
In this example, we believe the front door should be facing the street. On the map, we observe the street is to the east of the building. However, if we view the direction of "Yellow GSV Man" we see he is facing south. The incorrect north point for this photo will affect all connections for this tour. For example, if the user were to click the front door, he would land in the photosphere directly south - but the user would expect to land in the street.
Understanding the importance of north points is key to creating a GSV Tour. If it doesn't make sense right away - you are not alone. Study this article a moment more and it should click. As always, feel free to connect with our support staff at support@cloudpano.com or explore GSV with our community at our facebook group: Virtual Tour Profit.
