As expected, after the rumors started last week, Google has pushed out Street View imagery in Spain. The available cities are: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Sevilla. Thanks to GEB reader Laurent for being the first to send me the tip that it was live.
Just to whet your appetite, here is a Street View of the Palacio de Comunicaciones in Madrid:
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You can view Street View in either Google Maps, or in Google Earth. Here are some tips on seeing the full 3D Street View imagery in Google Earth. You can now view Street View in the US, Australia, Japan, France, and Spain.
I’ve been traveling today – and am currently in Key Largo, Florida for a technology demonstration I’ll be writing about sometime soon. It’s not directly Google Earth related, so don’t expect too much in that direction. But, it is related to my sailing trip.
About Frank Taylor
Frank Taylor started the Google Earth Blog in July, 2005 shortly after Google Earth was first released. He has worked with 3D computer graphics and VR for many years and was very impressed with this exciting product. Frank completed a 5.5 year circumnavigation of the earth by sailboat in June 2015 which you can read about at Tahina Expedition, and is a licensed pilot, backpacker, diver, and photographer.
Congratulations on yet another breath taking achievement. However, a couple of immediate simple improvements would be a great help.
1.The person Icon should be only positioned on the
correct side of the road (with traffic flow)
2. The Icon default view should buildings and other recognizeable objects that are in front, and not side views and not indistinct tarmac.
3. Move the Street Map away from the bottom right corner where it becomes entangled with the Task Bar,perhaps centrally but to the right.
4. Make the Street Viewer draggable, so that it can be repositioned away from obscuring the map below it.
Comments are with the weaker sets in mind.
Best Regards George Comerford
Re:October28,2008…Wow! did I get those comments wrong. When I tried street view the next day it was a totally different animal. The speed and overall performance, and the clarity of the 360ยบ panos leaves the excellent alternative Seety.co.uk quite some way behind.What will they think of next?
Best Regards.
Frank:
I hope you can do some investigative work and answer a puzzling question for me: Why is the Street View imagery in the US so poor?
Just look at Paris to see how I’d expected ALL Street View imagery to be: sharp, detailed, zoomable. Even the newest imagery in the US (as an example) looks like it was shot with a 1 megapixel camera. Even building signs 40 ft. from the camera can’t be read. So:
– why the disparity in resolution?
– will it be improved in the US (as an example)?
If you can track down answers, I’ll be able to put this puzzle to rest.
Thanks,
Ernie
If I was a cynic I would swear it’s Google’s intention to become the Masters of the World! It’s a short step from having all the worlds information at their fingertips to controlling access to that information. I find the whole Street View thing questionable…WHY do they want to do this? WHO is paying for it all? Its not just the big cities; I live in a village (pop. circa 1000) in southern Spain about 100kms from Malaga and yet one of their cars was doing a drive through of all the streets in the village this morning.
Just makes me wonder….
It didn’t work for me (for Sevilla). I have the same problems that I did outside the four cities given. I do wish that when they show us a photo someone took somewhere irrelevant in Spain that they would rotate them instead of showing the same two. At least it wouldn’t be boring as well as frustrating.