Google Street View

Google Street View

Did you experience driving around an area you are not familiar with? You’ve almost spent an hour getting lost still trying to find the address you are looking for? With Google Street View, it’s easier for you to navigate around streets plus it gives you an idea of what the place looks like. It saves you gas, time, and energy.

What is Google Street View?

Google Street View is integrated into Google Maps, an online mapping platform developed by Google. Google Street View offers its users the convenience of planning their route whether on foot, public transit, bicycle, or car. Streets are viewed in 3D, 360°panoramic perspective.

It is also integrated into Google Earth, another freeware application developed by Google, which provides a three-dimensional perspective of the earth using satellite images. This application, available on iOS, Android, and online, provides more real life images of streets worldwide.

Google launched Google Street View in 2007 in the United States and has received a favorable response since then. Over the years, it has expanded across several continents. The virtual reality panoramic images are stitched together providing a 3D perspective to its users. Google Street View is a collection of images taken by the Google car, individual contributors on foot, on the boat, and even under the water.

Google Street view is constantly undergoing innovation to further develop this technology. Since its inception, various features were added making it more convenient to use and more precise in the information it provides. These innovations include face blurring for privacy purposes; smart navigation, user contributorship, business interior via Google Street View; integration of artificial intelligence to make the images look sharper and in high resolutions, dog perspective panoramic shots, individual’s video contribution to Google Street View. Through various innovations, Google Street View was shifted from Adobe Flash into JavaScript programming to keep up with the additional features. These developments also meant that partnerships across some companies were formed. Google Street view formed a partnership with Aclima, a company dedicated to monitoring environmental changes.

The mapping technology such as Google Street View makes research more convenient and faster. Students and researchers studying geography, archaeology, or environmental studies have used these innovations in their research fieldworks.

Street View’s Backstage

There are certain processes before an image can be added to the map. The first thing is the collection of data. This entails Google driving around the area or getting someone to walk around while a camera is mounted on his backpack. During data collection, there are several factors to be considered such as foot traffic, weather, and laws and regulations. The next step is to make sure that the images are aligned with the exact location on the map. This is where GPS comes in. The third step is to convert still images into interactive 360 photos. This is the part where photos are stitched together. And lastly, is the creation of a 3D model and making sure that you are shown the right image.

How extensive is the coverage of Google Street View?

According to an article published in CNET, Google Maps and Google Street View covered 10 million miles across 83 countries in 2017. This coverage has expanded extensively over the years. Not only streets are covered by Google Street View, but it also includes landmarks and well-known tourist attractions. But, there are still places that remain to be blurred out from the Google Map or Street View.

Keeping things Private

Faces of humans on Google Street View are automatically blurred out. But, in cases that you want your building or your business blurred out from Google Street View, you may do so. You just need to send a request to Google. If there are errors in the data upon looking into the Google Map and Google Street View, a person can raise the concern by sending feedback and suggesting an edit in the existing map.

You may also notice that there are still areas in Google Maps which are either blurred out or in low-resolution images. This is due to the sensitivity of the data, the government may have requested Google to blur out the military facility. If a company or a government has a large data set to share with Google and wants to make sure that it gets into the right hands, the Geo Data Upload tool can be utilized.

Google My Business

For business owners who want more visibility of their location, Google My Business (GMD) can be used. GMD was developed by Google to help business owners reach a wider audience. Some features include messaging, product description, and product inventory which are helpful tools for managing the customer-business relationship. You can also check out the Street view trusted program where you can hire professional photographers to take street view shots of your business. This is a great add-on for your business as Ipsos’s study showed that 44% of the time, maps are used by customers to search for a business.

How often does it get updated?

According to Ethan Russell, Google Product Manager, Google Maps are constantly updated. Images are kept up-to-date almost every second of every day. Sources of the new information could be coming satellite feeds, Google cars, and individual contributions. They are also constantly developing algorithms that can keep the data up to date and have a dedicated team whose primary work is to make sure that new data are fed into the system and old ones are moved or archived. Google is also using systems and machine learning libraries to keep up with a large amount of data they are receiving daily.

Equipment Used

There is various equipment used to capture the photos which will be stitched together. Some of the equipment includes a street view camera, a Google Street View trike, snowmobile, a trolley, a mounted camera on the back of a street view trekker across terrains or city streets, and a street view car. Google is known to be creative and continuously eager to develop solutions to a problem. When they had to create a Street view for Faroe Island, a solar-powered camera was attached to sheep to help capture images. Thus, the term ‘Sheep View’ was born.

The right positioning of this equipment is integral to make sure that all angles are captured. In addition, there are countries wherein the height of cameras needs to be positioned precisely in conjunction with the privacy laws implemented in the country.

Apart from images captured by Google Team, individuals are also encouraged to make their contribution to Google Maps. After contributor’s images are screened and approved they are added to the list of photos for all the contributors. According to Google, users of maps add 200 million pieces of data every day.