GOOGLE STREET VIEW COMES TO INDIA

 KNOW THE TECHNOLOGY BEHIND THE PROJECT 

Recently, Google Inc launched an initiative to take Street View of over 100 monuments India, including Taj Mahal and Humayun's Tomb.

Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched on May 25, 2007, in several cities in the United States, and has since expanded to include cities and rural areas worldwide. It has also photographed Dubai's iconic Burj Khalifa Towers, Mount Everest and Eiffel Tower.

In India, The Street View was introduced in October 2013, with Qutub Minar being the fast addition in the long list of cities and places of importance featured in The Google Street View.

The project started in the city of Bangalore, but hit rough weathers after city police objected the photography on grounds of security reasons.

So, how does Google manages to create a 360 degree panoramic view?

The technology behind Google Street View involves a long and tedious task of taking thousands of photographs of the place which is going to be a part of Google Street View. The photographs are taken via a specially designed camera mounted on the top of a car or strapped across the back of a person.

The camera is then made to travel along with the car/person around the intended location and simultaneously clicks thousands of pictures. These pictures are then sequenced together to create a 360 degree panoramic view of the place.

Google has used three types of car-mounted cameras to take Street View photographs. Generations 1–3 were used to take photographs in the United States. The first generation was superseded and images were replaced with images taken with 2nd and 3rd generation cameras. Second generation cameras were used to take photographs in Australia. The shadows caused by the 1st, 2nd and 3rd generation cameras are occasionally viewable in images taken in mornings and evenings. 

The new 4th generation cameras will be used to completely replace all images taken with earlier generation cameras. 4th generation cameras take near-HD images and deliver much better quality than earlier cameras. Even though 4th generation cameras were in use as early as April 2008, Google used older cameras for many areas as late as October 2009 for Street View and as late as September 2010 for Museum View.

In October 2008, Google introduced the Street View Trike, a pedal tricycle with a 4th generation camera mounted to take images where cars cannot reach, including footpaths and dirt tracks. The 250-pound, 9-foot long tricycles are piloted by athletes. All Street View images taken now will be taken with the 4th generation Street View cameras.

In February 2010, Google introduced the Street View Snowmobile, a snowmobile with a 4th generation camera mounted to take images on the Whistler Blackcomb Ski Slopes in preparation for the winter Olympics in Vancouver, Canada.

Google plans to use 4th generation cameras to re-shoot areas previously covered by earlier versions. Google uses the open-source cameras from Elphel for capturing Street View photos.