Every Building

Quick start

One short street from nothing to downloaded panels, in about ten steps.

This walks through the whole tool once with a short piece of street, so the capture stays small.

Open the tool

Plan a short path

  1. In the Library, press New path. Plan opens with a path called "Untitled path". It has two steps, Compose Road and Query Blocks, and the first one is open.
  2. Type a street name into Search streets... and pick a result. A long street comes in several pieces: each is lettered on the map and listed with its length. Tick one short piece, a few hundred metres, and press Add 1 chosen piece.
  3. The map now shows the road and the blocks beside it. The toolbar says how long the path is and roughly how many shots it needs, for example "0.31 km · 12 blocks · ≈ 14 shots".

The path saved itself as soon as it had a road. To give it a name, open the menu beside the name at the top of the path column and choose Rename.

Capture it

  1. Press New capture at the bottom of the path column.
  2. The first time, the tool asks for a Google Maps API key. Press Add API key, paste the key and press Save. See API key and cost for how to get one.
  3. Drag the shot slider under the toolbar to look at any shot before taking it. Leave the settings alone for now.
  4. Press Start capture. Keep the window visible and in front: the capture pauses when it is not, and continues by itself when it is again.

Stitch it

  1. When every shot is saved, the button at the bottom of the path column reads Stitch this capture. Press it.
  2. Press Run stitch. The panels appear in Preview as they are drawn; drag one sideways to move along it.
  3. Press Download panels + metadata to save the panels and a manifest.json as one ZIP.

Or start from a sample

Houston Street is a ready-made path plan for Manhattan. In the Library, press Import… and choose the file; it opens in Plan. It covers the whole street, about 6 km and roughly 250 shots at the default settings, so shorten it before capturing: open Compose Road, remove a street, and add back a single piece.