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Show HN: GIF Directions
- jack_riminton 6y agoThe problem I was trying to solve is the difficulty/speed of finding places relying on 2D tech of maps and GPS. For some scenarios (unmapped areas, indoors, congested environments, no address system) a gif makes finding a place much easier. Future improvements: multiple gifs for each place (for different approach directions), unique links for specific deliveries e.g. gif.direct/redhouse/123456 Its my first coding project I've shipped so any feedback greatly appreciated Stack: Rails, a bit of JS for maps (leaflet), python AWS Lambda for video processing (MoviePy, FFMpeg), S3
- detaro 6y agoSeems like an interesting idea, but I'm still not quite clear what it does exactly (other than speeding up an uploaded video). And only showing it in a video isn't great - IMHO you should expand on the text on the page, link a live example, ... I also can't replay the demo video without reloading the page. One of the few marketing uses of a pun where I'm not groaning immediately ;)
- jack_riminton 6y agoVery helpful feedback thanks
- jack_riminton 6y agoChanges made!
- CositaS 6y agoAt first I was assuming this was using streetview. I realise not everywhere is included on streetview, but when it is, it would be nice to have the option of using that instead of having to shoot your own video.
- jack_riminton 6y agoThat was one of my first thoughts too when making this. I'll have a go and see if I can hack something together :)
- dhosek 6y agoI would imagine that use of streetview imaging would not meet the api agreement for google maps. They have little incentive to allow it to be reused in something like this.
- cheeaun 6y agoThere used to be this cool demo(?) called Hyperlapse few years ago, basically stitching multiple street view images https://thenextweb.com/google/2013/04/09/hyperlapse-crazy-high-speed-timelapse-videos-made-using-google-streetview/ https://thenextweb.com/google/2013/04/09/hyperlapse-crazy-hi...
- kohtatsu 6y agoIt looks really good: the idea is cute, and your intro video is great. Would you be open in adding Sign in with Apple? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sign_in_with_apple https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sign_in_with_apple I don't have an active Google account, and with Apple's service in I can opt-out of giving my direct email away.
- njsubedi 6y agoAh, the problem. I have started using my custom domain and a random username for each service, derived from the service's domain. Pretty easy way to not give away your email.
- jack_riminton 6y agoThanks for the kind feedback! Yes I'm looking into a few of these options at the moment One I've just been given is metomic.io/alias which looks to solve that
- jamesrcole 6y agoSuggestion: allow the creator to control the play speed at specific places in the gif. Eg play it faster along a long stretch of straight road, but then slower when making turns. In first example on the site, I find it difficult to see where that last turn into the diveway happens because it happens so fast.
- jack_riminton 6y agoYeah great suggestion. My aim is to automate this using a simple computer vision algo that detects the lateral movement of objects in a frame and slows down those specific parts Until that point I'll have to persuade people to slow down the recording on those parts. Still, I think the sample video is understandable at least
- JadeNB 6y agoThanks for sharing this; it looks neat! The text currently says "Its free" (rather than "It's free").
- jack_riminton 6y agoThanks! changed :)
- blackboxlogic 6y agoWhen you get things polished, please display attribution for the map. See https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright https://www.openstreetmap.org/copyright
- jack_riminton 6y agoAh yes, couldn't have done without it, will add now
- jack_riminton 6y agoFixed! :) (e.g. https://www.gif.direct/pyongyang https://www.gif.direct/pyongyang)
- spuz 6y agoI'm honestly completely mystified what this service is. You say: "Upload a video" - upload a video of what? "Set a target location" - a target location of what? Then you give a sample gif which does nothing but confuse me more. Who is this for? What does it do? Why is it better than the alternative? Is the video generated automatically? If so, how? If not the why am do I need your service at all? From what I can tell, you upload a video and then create a link for it? Why not just upload the video to YouTube or streamable? It also displays a map with a pin. Why would I not just sent a link to Google maps? You also ask me for my location - why? I get that it's your first product but I really think you need to look at this from the point of view of someone who knows nothing about the service.
- jack_riminton 6y agoI hear your concerns and thanks for taking the time to respond. I will try to work on the messaging edited: flippancy
- tofof 6y agoYour reply is flippant. I came here to express almost the exact same list of concerns. Upload a video of what? I believe the answer is of the path between an easily located starting point and the actual final destination, but I'm not entirely clear. You mention unmapped or indoor areas in another reply, but your page needs to make this more clear. Set a target location of what? I'm actually puzzled by this one. If I'm correct on the first guess then it's presumably either the starting or ending point. However, neither of those makes particular sense. The starting point is easily reached, by definition, and the ending point can't be targeted on a map, by definition. Your page needs to actually answer the Who, What, Why, and How questions the unfamiliar user will be wondering. In particular, "we do video magic" is entirely uninformative and is the only explanation of what you're actually offering that might be new. I can already upload a video and provide a map with services I already use. Something that seems to be a main feature - "let the owner know you're on your way" is hidden in the 'sample' page and unmentioned on the first. From it, I deduce the problem you're solving is last-100-feet for deliveries or visitors. And why does the 'see a sample' page ask for my geolocation? Edit: I am actually curious - this might be interesting - and I hope you'll answer these questions here!
- dheera 6y agoHonest question here -- why would anyone want to use a GIF for this -- or anything really -- compared to H.264? I feel like even the cat GIFs would look so much better if they were using H.264. GIF is an 8-bit lossless format and it just seems to be that for any kind of photorealistic video content you probably want 24-bit and lossy.
- everfree 6y agoThe term "GIF" is used in a very broad sense nowadays. I'm sure the actual image encoding they're using is a proper video format, not the GIF format itself.
- jack_riminton 6y agoYou're correct, I'm using mp4s instead of actual GIFs. Much more compressed. I think most people understand GIF to mean a short, possibly sped up video
- egfx 6y agoWrong. A GIF is an image format. It literally means “graphical interchange format”. A gif displays single image frames in sequence with timings between each frame. When the frames of the gif end, the frames restart from the beginning and so they are often seen to loop. Technically a gif can play indefinitely. It’s just annoying to see people ascribe gif as basically video.
- wetmore 6y agoJust because short videos aren't all technically GIFs, doesn't mean that people don't commonly understand "gif" to mean short video.
- dheera 6y agoI think this is similar to how the public has mistakenly understood "HDR" to mean a software local contrast enhancement effect and dialing in highlights/shadows, whereas true HDR doesn't refer to software and requires either advanced sensor hardware or multiple exposures.
- yellowapple 6y agoThe sample is a 404
- jack_riminton 6y agoFixed :)
- vaibhavthevedi 6y agoYour demo is giving me a 404. Can you provide another one? Looks interesting.
- jack_riminton 6y agoFixed :)
- boffinism 6y agoSo this is for situations where 'normally' I would take a video of me walking from A to B and then send it to someone so that they know the way from A to B. The benefit this service offers in these situations is that it speeds up the video and allows me to put a map next to it. Do people actually use first person video to give directions?
- 082349872349872 6y agoYes. A friend rents a ski apartment, a few minutes walk away from the train station. He sends guests a short video clip of how to find both the unit and the keys.
- jack_riminton 6y agoI envisage it would primarily be used by people who live or work in a place that people have problems finding. This is normally a big deal for businesses who deal with a lot of deliveries. An especial problem for places that have specific entrances and possibly need forewarning that they're arriving Yeah this is a new idea, I've seen people upload directions on youtube though
- telesilla 6y agoI've been given directions to short term rental apartments with a series of photos. This would be much nicer as less chance of taking the wrong turn.
- TedDoesntTalk 6y ago> signup with Google You lost me there. I won't use 3rd party auth systems like Facebook, Google. There's no reason they should know i use your service and how frequent i use it.
- jack_riminton 6y agoThat's fair. Someone just pointed me to use metomic.io which protects a user's email so I'm currently looking into spinning that up
- LeonB 6y agoThis is nice. A lot of Airbnb places could use this.
- jack_riminton 6y agoThanks! yes they'd be great first B2C users Later I'll be creating an API and marketing it to delivery companies in a kind of B2B2C
- antoniuschan99 6y agoJapanese Airbnbs all have it like this. It’s very complicated and something like your solution could simplify it further. The hosts send these pdfs with pages of arrows to go left, right, straight with landmarks to get to your Airbnb. One issue is since the guest is in a new Country, they might not have Internet connectivity at that moment.
- jack_riminton 6y agoAh interesting, thanks Yes, connectivity is always a risk. Although perhaps mitigated by checking the gif before you depart. The one thing I've found by creating these gif directions is that they tend to leave quite an indelible impression and are fairly easy to remember
- Dicey84 6y agoJapan was an immediate thought when I saw this.. From past experience, Google maps can get you to the general vicinity pretty well, it's usually the last 80 meters of multi-storey electric mazes that confuse the hell out of you.
- samstave 6y agoI have a use case that might be interesting: Hikes. Showing people proper routes to get to a hiking spot, then the path to go down. Some times hiking trail-heads are obscure to find. So tagging a Gif-Dir with #hiking #hike-marin and such would be nice... This would be interesting in places like the Sequoias as sometimes you get lost on Endor trying to find that particular grove of redwoods that are desired. Hiking, biking, walking, running, beach going, even experiences like wine tasting....
- jack_riminton 6y agoI love it! hashtagging is a really interesting idea. One feature that I plan to do soon is to offer a search function, so as well as people being able to search by area perhaps I can add tags to these so that people could search by trail names etc.
- samstave 6y agoWhere are you based... i have something i have been working on which would dovetail nicely with your app
- jack_riminton 6y agoLondon
- samstave 6y agoContact info? Put an email in your profile?
- jack_riminton 6y agojack@gif.direct
- SquareWheel 6y agoIf the intention is to send it to phones, then gif downloads are going to explode your user's data caps. It also seriously limits the quality of the resulting video. I'd suggest relying on the <video> tag in browsers. It will be a lot easier to encode for your servers too (though may require some retooling).
- jack_riminton 6y agoGood suggestion, already on it ;) all 'gifs' are actually mp4s
- SquareWheel 6y agoI'm glad to hear it. Proper video formats will work significantly better.
- themantra514 6y agoWhy are people asking "what is it?" with next level passive-aggressive polite ranting? 1-Make a video from point A to point B. 2-It gets converted to a gif. It's about the clutter free experience for the user, the wonderful experience of "it shows you the way, nothing else, and it just works." Good work jack_riminton
- jack_riminton 6y agoThanks! I have tried to keep it as simple as possible, which means leaving stuff out. Some people don't get it, that's fine, they don't have to :)
- hriminton 6y agoThis would be really helpful in Sweden to find the many summer houses that are off main roads.
- jack_riminton 6y agoYes that would be perfect use of it
- hriminton 6y agoAlso in Sweden no flats have numbers (like the rest of the world) only the person surname on the flat door. Thus finding the correct flat in buildings with different parts and courtyards is difficult especially when people have the same surname
- hriminton 6y agoOne more also, I bumped into a food delivery guy at our building yesterday and he didn’t know where to leave the delivery… a simple system like this could help him to find the correct drop-off point especially in these times of social distancing