Over the past few years, we’ve seen Google use some great techniques to bring Street View imagery to unique places. They’ve taken some of their devices and captured imagery from a snowmobile, a railroad, hiking the Grand Canyon and even diving in the ocean. By loading their Street View “trekker” onto some of the famous gondolas in Venice, we get to experience those canals for ourself!
To show more about how this project came together, Google has put together a great behind-the-scenes series of pages to show what they’ve done, including this video:
For more, check out this post on the Official Google Blog to read more about this project, or you can check out this post of ours to learn how to use Street View inside of Google Earth.
About Mickey Mellen
Mickey has been using Google Earth since it was released in 2005, and has created a variety of geo-related sites including Google Earth Hacks. He runs a web design firm in Marietta, GA, where he lives with his wife and two kids.
This is amazing!
Great feature!
Great, but I wish they’d finish up the town I live in, Marinette, WI. They did one street and part of another in 2007, finished the second street and did a few more in 2009, and nothing since. Several other smaller cities are in a similar state. Mason, Williamston and the southern part of Menominee, MI, to name a few I know of.
I also don’t know what Google was thinking of when they modified their Where is Street View page. It used to be a handy way to both see where new coverage was added and where cars were driving all on the same page. The second function still works (although it requires another click), but the first doesn’t zoom in close enough to see street level.
Some of the best ‘street’ view anywhere. Great buildings, fascinating textures (but worrying signs of decay from rising water level), all the life of Venice all brought out by smoothly functioning quality imagery.
Tips – try the smaller canals and switch off the Panaramio and 360Cities icons which litter Venice … but a lot of the imagery is taken from a flat decked motor barge, not a gondola.
Going under the bridges produces some weird artifacts, but that’s been true of street view in general. In Venice, the bridges are part of the attraction, so it’s unfortunate.
Going under bridges has so far produced no significant (imagery) artefacts, and the ‘360’ degree views of tall buildings, as well as the undersides of bridges, in the narrow canals are remarkably good. And, with all due respect, in a global product it is understandable why Google prioritise places like Venice over our home towns.
New San Francisco-Oakland bay bridge now on street view
amazing feature