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Google Maps "Street View"

» 4 Jun 2007, 3:16pm in technology, photography - 0 comments

Google has added another new feature to its Maps application: Street View. In five U.S. cities (New York, Miami, San Francisco, Las Vegas, and Denver) you can now switch to a street-level panoramic photo view of wherever you click on the map. Very impressive.

My guess is that they roof-mounted eight (judging by the seams in the panoramas) digital cameras in a circular formation on a vehicle and drove the streets (nearly all of them!). They trigger the shutters in the camera array every ten meters or so (perhaps the array is linked to the vehicle's odometer or wheel somehow to ensure even spacing). Of course, since the field of view of the lens is known, a computer can stitch the resulting image sets into 360 degree panoramas automatically, and via GPS coordinates (stored at the time of shutter release), can place the panoramas on the map. Voila!

I thought it wise to check in on the folks who created this new function down in sunny Mountain View, California and what do you know, it seems they've planted a little easter egg for us: the joyous geeks can be found posing on the lawn in front of the Googleplex carrying an odd assortment of shovels, rakes, flags, balloons and more.

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