What is Street View ?
Street View as being the last zoom layer on the map - when you've zoomed all the way in you find yourself virtually standing on the street. But the most exciting thing about Street View is all the amazing uses that our users and partners find for it.
Personal Uses
- Explore the world
- On the go with your mobile device
- Check parking availability and disabled access
- Show your parents and friends where you live
- Preview your vacation accommodation
Business Uses
- Promote your business
- Show real estate listings
- Conduct virtual field trips
- Show the location of a news story
- Scout event locations
How else can I use Street View?
You can view street-level imagery with driving or walking directions. Once you have obtained directions, click the camera icons beside each step in the left panel.
Where is Street View available?
Explore the Google map of the world to see where Street View is currently available. Each placemark gives you the option to view sample panoramas from each major city.
For India
How Street View is creating?
In the Beginning
Street View was launched in May 2007 to allow our users to explore the world through images. At the time, coverage was limited to just five U.S.
The feature provides users 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street level views within Google Maps. Google collects these images using special cameras and equipment that capture and match images to a specific location using GPS devices. Once the images are captured, they are "sewn" together to create a 360° panorama. Faces and license plates are blurred before the panorama images are served and become viewable in Google Maps.
What are the Vehicles?
When Street View first launched, the platform used to capture images was a van.
Since our launch in 2007, Street View has expanded to include more cities, streets, national parks and even some biking trails. Currently, Street View is available for almost a dozen countries around the world in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Scaling the project to this level required more lightweight and high-quality technology.
The van was replaced by a car. We have used different vehicles in different regions around the world to collect tens of millions of images.
Most recently we've added a new vehicle to our fleet that we call the "Trike." We basically took the same technology in our Street View cars and towed them behind a 3-wheeled tricycle in a device reminiscent of an ice cream cart. The Trike lets us reach areas not accessible by car, such as hiking trails, biking trails and college campuses, just to name a few.
Our current platforms include nine directional cameras for the 360° views, a GPS unit for positioning and laser range scanners. We design and engineer the Street View platforms to be simple and require minimal manufacturing resources. This approach facilitates the ability to be up and running in a short period of time and allows us to quickly scale and get our vehicles on the road around the world.
Where Do Google Collect Imagery?
Street View imagery is limited to public streets. Ultimately we'd love to drive every public road available, but there is no guarantee that we can cover every location completely. For example, we might face circumstances that are out of our control such as roadwork and construction. You can see a list of the countries and, where available, regions and cities we are driving here. If you find imagery collected from a private road please let us know by clicking on the "Report a problem" link within Street View.
In some cases, Google receives permission from the owner of private attractions to include images in Street View. For example, you can see imagery that we collected in a special drive of Disneyland Paris.
If you are an owner of a property and would like to have Street View imagery collected, please check out our Street View Partner Program.
It can take several months to collect imagery for an individual city, and even longer for an entire country. The time it takes to cover a particular area depends on a number of factors - e.g. the weather, geography and population. We also provide an easy-to-use tool that allows users to request for images of themselves, their car, their family, or their houses to be removed from Street View once the product has been launched for a specific area.
Turning Photos Into Street View
Once the photographs have been taken by our vehicles they go through computer processing to make them ready for showing on Google Maps. We take all the individual photos that have been collected by the cameras and "sew" them together to make the 360° panorama photo that you see on Google Maps.
We then apply cutting-edge face blurring technology, which helps make sure that passers-by in the photographs can't be identified. We will also blur legible license plates. Check out the Privacy page for more details on how we protect your privacy.
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In a nutshell,
Yes, It is really very very helpful. Generally, I walk around many places virtually in street-view just before I drive there. As usual Google rocks :)
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