Places: Cluster View

[red-avtovo]

Thank you very much for the project! I really enjoy using it.

I would like to notice, that it would be useful to group photos on a small scale which are very close to each other or let to open cluster view (similar as a moments view) and show the subset of photos from the place, clicked on. It is not very easy to navigate through the subset of the photos or share a group of them from a specific place

[shawnbarton]

I came here to make this exact suggestion. This is an important feature to me since without it the "Places" feature doesn't have any real use in a large library. Keep up the great work.

Edit: Attached is a more extreme example (low image quality intentional). In this example "places" still shows individual bubbles for thousands of images at a "street-level" zoom. As described above, I would like to, at some (maybe configurable) zoom level, be able to see an overview of all the images in that place.

[lastzero]

Thank you very much! It's true that we need to optimize this further. As you might have noticed, the maps already cluster automatically - but only up to a certain zoom level as you otherwise might not be able to see individual photos. It's more work to handle situations as this, e.g. by showing a "stack" that then opens in the photo viewer like stacks in regular search results.

[magnuznilzzon]

I suspect it is pretty common to have the situation that @shawnbarton has, especially people with families will have a ton of pictures centered on their home. I know I do, that is how I found this thread.

[el-tiuri]

Great idea! I like the way it’s implemented in iOS’ Photos app, and this would be pretty similar. The way it works on iOS is that it dynamically creates stacks of photos that are close together relative to the zoom level, and if you tap on a stack you get a grid of all the photos in that stack.

I especially like this because it enables you to easily see all the photos you took in a particular place (regardless of scale - could be a city, could be a continent) regardless of when you took it.

I think limiting the automatic clustering functionality to low zoom levels would be a bit limiting compared to the use it could have, and I don’t really see the benefit of it compared to enabling it on all zoom levels.

Let me know if you want me to share some screenshots of the iOS photos app, in case that’d be helpful.

[ohthehugemanatee]

I have the same issue. We in fact already have the dynamic stacks. Just when you click/tap on a circle with a number of photos, that should take you immediately to a pre-filled search results page. That would be plenty. Users can zoom in closer with the plus/minus keys and get more precise, smaller stacks.

[fivestones]

I agree with @ohthehugemanatee. Right now the circles with the number inside just zooms in when clicked. Instead, clicking on these circles should open a search results page with all those photos shown. Zooming in on the map is easily done other ways and doesn't need to be done by clicking on the circles that have numbers inside.

Without the ability to view a search result for a group of photos in a particular location, the maps view is not very useful. For example, it would be really great to be looking at a photo, and easily see all my other photos from the same location or that were taken nearby as a search result. Right now I can go to the location of a photo on the map, but can't just see other photos in the same location without zooming all the way in, and then the other photos are only visible as little circles until I click on each one individually. Another example use would be to just show all the photos taken in, for example, Africa. Or the Grand Canyon. Or Paris. Or my home street. Again, I can find these photos if I look on the map, but only by zooming all the way in to see individual photos and then clicking on each one. If I have a small circle over Africa that says "27", I should be able to just click it and see all those 27 photos taken in Africa in a search result.

[lastzero]

To see the photos in regular search results, you can also type the name of the location in the regular search field, for example "Africa". Changing the view type between map and cards / list view causes a lot of load in the front and backend. For this reason, you typically don't want to jump back and forth all the time.

[fivestones]

Being able to search for a location and see photos taken there is great. Thanks! I didn't know about that.

But as for the map view, what's the point if you can't click on a location and see all the photos in that location? I do this all the time on my iPhone--I'm looking for a particular photo, don't know quite when it was but I know where I was. Go to the map view in the photos app, zoom in until I'm only seeing photos in the area I know the photo was taken, tap on that indicator for a bunch of photos, and there I have all those photos to scroll through, just from that location. It's great, I can do it on a location as big as a continent or as small as my house, and it's very quick--takes make 10 seconds to find a specific photo this way.

It makes sense that a map view in a photos app would work this way, and then whatever load in the front and backend that it causes could be worked on.

[graciousgrey]

It makes sense that a map view in a photos app would work this way, and then whatever load in the front and backend that it causes could be worked on.

@fivestones We will find a nice solution when we find time to work on this :)

[alber70g]

I have an idea on how to do this:

We could split the circle in a upper and bottom half.
Upper half: shows a + that the user can tap/click and it'll zoom (current behaviour)
Lower half: shows the number of pictures in that area that the user can tap/click that takes the user to a album view of those pictures

[ttimasdf]

As for zooming, on desktop we can use mouse scrolls, on mobile device we can use two-finger gestures. Clicking on the circle could be used to browse all the photo inside the whole group. It's rather intuitive.

Here's a screen record from Huawei Gallery app, may be a good reference i think?

4158cfdd5453bcb689bf3cb9cfbce19d.mp4

[fivestones]

I agree, there is no need for any clicking/tapping on the numbers to be a zoom option. We can just zoom with two fingers or mouse scroll.
I'd love to see it look like in the above Huawei Gallery app.