So today I discovered I was totally out of the technology loop of Google Maps and that Google has street views of like every street in the country. I'm usually not out of the loop on things like this so I am embarrassed that everyone I have told already knew this (It came out in 2007), I guess I'm not as Internet savvy as I used to be. If you haven't seen it, you can get 360 degree camera views of pretty much any road in the US and some foreign countries.
So I do have a point here however, other than to point out my obvious lack of knowledge of this cool feature. How did they do it?
The Answer by driving around a lot... first they hired a company called Immersive Media, to drive around the streets of major cities in a van/or often VW Beetles with eleven high resolution cameras strapped to it taking pictures everywhere.
Kinda like this...
Except a lot more high tech
This seems like a monumental task that should be up there with some of the greatest accomplishments of the 2000's to me. Google Earth is awesome but that is done with satilite technology (much easier as they have been in orbit for 40+ years and have been taking pictures of the earth for just as long), the cartography work done by Google Maps combines to create one of the best maps ever made by man. The amount of work spent to assemble this seems mind boggling to me.
So I was scanning the pictures to see if there was any points in time that I or objects I own were snapped on Google Maps Street view, the answer is saddle no. I think it would be awesome to be featured captured in time on Google Maps. I remember before Google Earth updated last time you could see our family's old RV on the map sitting at the top of the lane. Nothing that interesting I could see on Street View though. However I found a web site featuring others infamously caught on Street View.
So sorry for the old news, this was just what caught my attention today, hopefully you find some of it informative.
No comments:
Post a Comment