Google Launches Street View Maps
Not to be left behind, Google announced their own bit of mapping news at O'Reilly's Where 2.0 conference today: the debut of 'Street View' maps. The new maps are essentially a 360 panoramic image taken from a specific point on the street (see an example here).
The Street View maps are developed in partnership with Immersive Media, which according to the O'Reilly Radar blog is "a company that has an eleven lens camera capable of taking full, high-res video while driving along city streets." What that means is that these Street View maps, because they are extracted from video shot while driving, are not just static images at random points around the city. They can be advanced fluidly down the street.
Clicking the white arrows on the image, advances it down the street a few paces, and quickly loads a new panorama, and double clicking on any part of the image zooms you in (you can actually read license plates and see recognizable faces). This is a very cool technology that adds a great new dimension to Google's Maps.
In my post about EveryScape I compared that company to Amazon's old A9 Block View maps, and the comparison is probably even more relevant here. But these blow A9's old maps out of the water since they are not static images, but clear, and very well stitched 360 degree panoramas taken every few feet. They offer a very complete and dynamic, block-by-block view of a city street.
I would be remiss, however, if I didn't compare this technology to EveryScape. It seems like Google really stole the show today, with Street View, but don't count EveryScape out completely. Their panoramas offer a wider range of motion (Google's are fixed, 360 degree left to right -- no up and down), and they offer one feature that Google cannot with this specific technology: indoor panoramas. Remember, Google's new Street View maps are shot from the top of a car, and you obviously can't drive a car into a hotel.
It seems the two companies have opposite aims. Google wants to create better, more useful maps by providing photographic, street-level views of entire cities, while EveryScape hopes to entice business owners with the ability to offer virtual tours of their business within interactive virtual tours of neighborhoods.
According to Greg Sadetsky, Google has rolled out Street View in Denver, Las Vegas, Miami, New York and San Francisco.
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Immersive Media takes cameras into buildings everyday. See some of our demos at
http://demos.immersivemedia.com
The inability to look up and down is a limitation of Flash
viewer and its performance constraints. If the demos
you can look up/down/everywhere!
You can also see the full extent of our GeoImmersive database at http://demos.immersivemedia.com/onlinecities/
The example link provided above doesn't offer us Street View. Is there a problem?
Hmm, Kim, it works for me. If the Street View doesn't immediately pop up, look for the little orange man icon and click on it.
Dustin: Cool stuff. Does Google have any plans to use your technology to create panoramas of indoor locales?
I'm in Europe, maybe that's why - but there is no Street View in my browser (both IE and FF)..
is this the first time G has used flash in a product? that might be the real news here. maybe they can send some of their PhDs over to craptromedia to make their VM work right in 64bit mode..
A few years ago I interviewed with a startup in Boulder that was doing something to that effect already. They're called Churchill Navigation. I believe that neither MS nor Google outdo them yet. Their software can render a drive through Mt Rainier with amazing acuracy. My guess is that they're doing mostly DOD work but I could be wrong ...
I can't say what Google is doing nor do I know, but we are certainly doing stuff indoors. The mapping aspect is a critical features and we have a number of approaches that we are working on. If I had to do an indoor video panorama, I would definitely be using our camera for parallax and stitching reasons. You should contact one of our customer relations folks (About us page) for more forward looking statements.
Can't view the demo under Netscape 7.2 and XP Professional SP2 patched as says need to upgrade the flash. Download the upgrade and it is still too old. Another case of technology not working.
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Thanks again.
Btw, the demo works perfect for firefox 2.0.3. If require plugins, just allow them and install.
Wow, that's cool. Can't wait until they expand the locations where this is available.
BTW, you can drive by the site of the World Trade Center.
Had to happen -- did not take long: streetviewvoyeur.com
Check out this huge list of cool StreetView finds:
http://www.laudontech.com/StreetView/streetview.html
Hi Josh,
Microsoft also has a mapping-with-photos site on their Live Local Tech Preview site. Street View is (clearly) better because you can pan the images fluidly. Never saw A9's maps...
I've also started a site to capture cool pictures from Street View. You can search the pictures by category... Check it out if you'd like. I'm always looking for more submissions. ;) Street Reviewer.com
Thanks,
Walter
I added all the best "Google Street View" here : http://www.geo-trotter.com/cat-street-view.php.
Here is another site that has a large selection of StreetView finds:
http://www.mapmole.com