Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from various positions along many streets in the world. It was launched on May 25, 2007, originally only in several cities in the United States, and has since gradually expanded to include more cities and rural areas worldwide.[1]
Google Street View displays images taken from a fleet of specially adapted cars. Areas not accessible by car, like pedestrian areas, narrow streets, alleys and ski resorts, are sometimes covered by Google Trikes (tricycles) or asnowmobile.[2] On each of these vehicles there are nine directional cameras for 360° views at a height of about 2.5 meters,GPS units for positioning and three laser range scanners for the measuring of up to 50 meters 180° in the front of the vehicle. There are also 3G/GSM/Wi-Fi antennas for scanning 3G/GSM and Wi-Fi hotspots.[3] Recently, 'high quality' images are based on open source hardware cameras from Elphel.
Where available, street view images appear after zooming in beyond the highest zooming level in maps and satellite images, and also by dragging a "pegman" icon onto a location on a map. Using the keyboard or mouse the horizontal and vertical viewing direction and the zoom level can be selected. A solid or broken line in the photo shows the approximate path followed by the camera car, and arrows link to the next photo in each direction. At junctions and crossings of camera car routes, more arrows are shown.
On November 21, 2008, Street View was added to the Maps application installed on the Apple iPhone. On December 10, 2008, Street View was added to the Maps application for S60 3rd Edition. Street View has now also been added to theWindows Mobile and BlackBerry versions of Google Maps. All versions of Google Maps for the Android OS features Street View, and the digital compass can be used to look around the locations.
Google Street View was first introduced in the United States on May 25, 2007, and until November 26, 2008, featured camera icon markers, each representing at least one major city or area (such as a park), and usually the other nearby cities, towns, suburbs, and parks. Many areas that had coverage were not represented by icons.
- On May 12, 2008, Google announced that it was testing face-blurring technology on its photos of the busy streets of Manhattan.[4] The technology uses a computer algorithm to search Google's image database for faces and blurs them, according to John Hanke, director of Google Earth and Google Maps.[5]
- On April 16, 2008, Street View was fully integrated into Google Earth 4.3.
- On July 2, 2008, Google Street View was introduced in France and Italy, providing the first service outside the United States. On this day, 19 camera icons were added, mostly showing small towns and areas along the Tour de France route and part of north western Italy
- On August 4, 2008, 28 icons of major metropolitan areas of both Australia and Japan were added to Google Street View. Included in the update were approximately 40 new U.S. hub cities.
- On December 1, 2008, New Zealand was added to Google Street View. Faces were blurred upon recommendation by the New Zealand Privacy Commission, but vehicle registration plates were not obscured.
- Two other features included in the June 10, 2008, update were an effective mask of the "Google Car" and the application of face-blurring technology on all photos, which effectively lowered the resolution across all photos, even the formerly impressive high resolution images of San Francisco. Also, many nearby metro areas were included, but they did not receive their own camera icons. Google initially used images from spherical video company Immersive Media as well as their own vehicles. Since December 2007, Google has used imagery that belongs exclusively to Google.
- On November 26, 2008, the Street View button and all the camera icons were deleted. Instead of clicking the "Street View" button, this is now accessed using the "pegman" button in the left hand corner. When the "pegman" icon is dragged over the map blue polylines appear where Street View is available and a small window will show the current Street View. If this is dropped on the map the Street View opens and takes over the whole map window.
- On April 9, 2009, Street View became available with a full-screen option.
- On June 5, 2009, Smart Navigation was introduced which allows users to navigate around the panoramas by double-clicking with their cursor on any place or object they want to see.[6]
- On April 1, 2010, Street View in 3D was introduced, showing anaglyph images of the streets.[7]
- In mid-June 2010, Google added blue dots to its maps that display user-submitted images in all locations around the world, including land areas where Street View is not available and bodies of water. These images can be pulled up on the screen in the same manner as a Street View image with the pegman by dragging it onto the blue dot.
[edit]By location
Google Street View was first introduced in the United States on May 25, 2007, and only covered areas of the United States until July 2, 2008. Currently, images can be seen in at least nine countries (although parts of other countries can be seen from locations located near national borders; for example, large portions of Vatican City can be viewed from Rome's streetview). Introductions have generally occurred every 2 days to 100 days. Up until November 26, 2008, major cities (and early on, the only cities) were marked by camera icons, more of which were added each time. Then, all camera icons were discontinued in favor simply of "blue" coverage.
[edit]North America
The United States was the first country to have Street View images and was the only country with images for over a year following introduction. Early on, most locations had a limited number of views, usually constrained to the city limits and only including major streets, and they only showed the buildings up to a certain height. Few suburbs or other nearby cities were included.
After the first few sets of introductions, image collections from cities added were more detailed, often including every side street, especially in areas closer to the center of the city. More suburbs and other nearby cities were included.
The coverage of various cities has in many cases, subsequently been enlarged and improved, but not necessarily on the same date as new cities have been added. Improvements have included the additions of streets in neighborhoods where previously only main roads had been covered, expansions to more suburbs, and views to the sky where previously only views to a certain height were provided.
Initially when a group of cities were added, only those cities and their own suburbs would be a part of the image collection. But June 10, 2008 introductions also included cities in covered areas without camera icons and isolated from any other camera icons. Many more cities were added without icons on August 4, when the only U.S. city added with an icon was New Orleans.
On November 4, 2008, three more U.S. cities were added: Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Seattle. More parts of Seattle are available in high quality view (like Mercer Island and center of the city).
On December 9, 2008, extensive coverage of the United States was added. This included full coverage of all large and most medium-sized urban areas and most major highways and connecting arteries throughout the 48 contiguous states.
On March 18, 2009, extensive coverage of the United States was added including most of the coverage of Delaware, North Dakota, Rhode Island, and South Dakota. For a period of time some coverage was deleted (such as in northern Minnesota.)
In Canada, Google Street View cars had been spotted as early as September 2007, in Montreal.
In Mexico, first reports of sightings came in from Mexico City as early as April 2009 and now Google Street View cars are being spotted in many Mexican states.
On October 7, 2009, Street View was made available for several large Canadian cities, as well as Banff National Park and Whistler, British Columbia (one of the sites from the 2010 Winter Olympics); coverage of the United States was also further expanded, although some key areas have yet to be added. With the addition of Hawaii on November 9, 2009, all fifty states are now represented in Street View.[8]. At the same time, more locations in the USA in other areas were added.
On November 9, 2009, Street View was made available in the main cities of Mexico, including Mexico City, Guadalajara, Monterrey, Puebla, Cancún and Puerto Vallarta.[9]
On December 2, 2009, eight more Canadian cities were added, from east to west St. John's, Sherbrooke, Sudbury, London, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton and Victoria. At the same time, more landmarks in USA were added. By January 21, 2010, more American landmarks appeared on Street View, including San Diego Zoo and Sesame Place.
On February 10, 2010, many more areas of Canada (barring extremely northern and rural areas) were added. Of note, ski runs on Whistler Blackcomb Resort is also covered in this update. The update also added further coverage of Alaska in the US and some more cities in Mexico. Using Street View, it is now possible to "drive" almost to the shore of the Arctic Ocean in Alaska along the Dalton Highway; in Canada, the northernmost community currently imaged is Inuvik, Northwest Territories off the Dempster Highway.
On April 15, 2010, more areas of Mexico were uploaded. Although complete coverage has not yet occurred (in some cities only main streets are imaged), numerous locations including communities in Baja California and Ciudad Juárez now had extensive street-level coverage with this update.
On September 30, 2010, most of Alaska was replaced with high-resolution imagery, and more of Hawaii was added.
[edit]South America
In September 2010, the first cities from Brazil were added.[10] It's started with 51 cities, most from São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and greater metropolitan areas. Historic cities such as Ouro Preto, Diamantina and Tiradentes were also included. Google is expecting to cover 90% of brazilian streets in 2 years. [11]
[edit]Europe
The first views anywhere outside the United States were introduced on July 2, 2008, when the Tour de France route was added. Nineteen camera icons, each indicating part of a French city or town and Cuneo, Italy, were included.
On October 14, 2008, camera icons were introduced in six French cities, Lille, Lyon, Marseille, Nice, Paris and Toulouse. At the same time, all other icons that had been introduced in France on July 2, as well as the one of Cuneo, Italy, were removed, representing the first time in Street View's history that a camera icon that once marked a place was removed. But the amount of coverage that France had since July 2 was not diminished.
On October 27, 2008, four Spanish metropolitan areas were added to the list of growing street view locations in Europe: Madrid, Barcelona,Seville and Valencia.
On October 29, 2008, Italy received four camera icons for the localities of Florence, Milan, Rome and Lake Como.
On March 18, 2009, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands were added. In the case of Great Britain, only major centres were uploaded and even coverage of those city centers was incomplete. For example, Edinburgh was missing Street View images of two of its key thoroughfares:Princes Street and the Royal Mile (although portions of both were visible from adjoining streets that had been imaged). This was rectified with a later update.
In May 2009, Google Germany released a list of German cities that will be scanned or rescanned in May and June 2009.[12]
On August 18, 2009, Switzerland and Portugal were added.[13]
On October 7, 2009, the Czech Republic was added.
On November 9, 2009, more locations in the Netherlands and Spain were added.
On December 2, 2009, more locations in France and Italy were added as well as various tourist sites in England.
On January 20, 2010, Sweden and Denmark were added, as well as more locations in the United Kingdom, Italy (7 regions are full covered), Portugal, the Czech Republic (mostly Prague) and the Netherlands.
On February 9, 2010, Norway and Finland were added, with coverage of much of southern Norway and most of Finland. Imagery was updated for parts of the UK as well.
On March 11, 2010, 95% of the United Kingdom's roads, both rural and urban, covering a total of approximately 238,000 miles, were added. More locations in the Netherlands were added too.
On April 15, 2010, some major UK tourist attractions were added including Alton Towers, Thorpe Park, Chessington World of Adventures, Legoland Windsor and the Sea Life Centre inWeymouth.
In May 2010, Google Street View Cars and Trikes have been seen in Croatian places like Pula, Split, Dubrovnik, and the capital Zagreb.[citation needed]
In August 2010, Google Street View Cars have been photographing Jersey, Guernsey and Alderney as well as Slovakia.[14] Ten Street View cars have also been delivered to the Latvian capital Riga.[15]
In September 2010, the Republic of Ireland was added.
Asia
Japan was also introduced on August 4, 2008. Japan's coverage is currently concentrated in five areas with a total of 10 camera icons. The service has faced criticisms from bloggers in Japan of cultural insensitivity.[16]
Google Street View camera cars were spotted in the streets of Singapore in October 2008. On December 2, 2009 Street View imagery of Singapore was made available.
In early 2009, camera cars with the Google Street View labels were spotted in Hong Kong's streets. On August 18, 2009, Taipei, Taiwan was added. On October 7, and December 2, 2009, more locations in Japan were added. On January 21, 2010, more Taiwan locations are added. At the same time, more Japanese locations are added. Unusually, while Street View images are, at present, primarily collected during daylight hours, a number of Taipei streets were imaged at night.
On March 11, 2010, Google Street View for Hong Kong, Macau, and more locations in Japan were launched.
Oceania
On August 4, 2008, the long-anticipated image collection of Australia was introduced. At this time, 18 camera icons were added. Extensive mapping of New Zealand was included on December 1, 2008. On December 9, 2008, Darwin, Australia, and other locations were included. On October 30, 2009, Google Australia announced that they would be sending its fleet of cars back on the road from November 2009 to update Street View Australia with new images. Google has said that the imagery will be available online sometime during 2010, but has not provided a specific timetable.
Africa
On September 1, 2009, Google announced that it started collecting images in South Africa for Google Maps Street View. Google is currently driving around South Africa in Toyota Prius, taking photographs of locations in the cities of Johannesburg, Pretoria, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth, Durban and East London. Google Trikes are also being used for the first time to map popular tourist destinations, such as the scenic Chapman's Peak Drive and Table Mountain in Cape Town, Soccer City in Johannesburg, and the new Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban. Images of South Africa were made available on Google Street View on June 8, 2010.
Antarctica
In September 2010, the South Shetland Islands were added.
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