street view

New Street View imagery in Bangladesh

February 9, 2015

The last major addition of Street View imagery to a new location was the addition of Argentina and an expansion of the Malaysian imagery in September last year.

Now Google has added Street View to Bangladesh. Thank you to GEB reader Martin for letting us know about this. The coverage is currently only in two cities, Chittagong and Dhaka. They are, however, Bangladesh’s two largest cities. According to Wikipedia Dhaka has a population of over 12 million people and is the 9th largest city in the world.

Bangladesh Street View coverage.

Some pretty impressive electrical wiring in Dhaka.See it in Street View here.

There have not been many other additions to Street View since September last year. We took a screen shot of the Street View map on September 26th, 2014 and have compared it to a screen shot from February 6th, 2015 and found both additions to Street View and apparently subtractions, too!

Additions to Street View (red areas).

Some Street View appears to have been been removed (red areas), but we suspect it is just variation in how Google displays street view coverage at that zoom level.

Street View progress in 2014

January 1, 2015

2014 saw several new countries added to Street View, including Greece in June, Serbia in July, Indonesia and Cambodia in August, and Argentina in September. For a comprehensive timeline of Street View coverage see the Wikipedia page.

2014 also saw expansion of Street View coverage within countries, and greatly increased use of the Street View Trekker, with coverage of landmarks like the Pyramids of Egypt, national parks, beaches, coastal areas captured by boat, underwater locations, and buildings. For a tour of iconic places where the trekker has been used, see here.

A map of Street View coverage can be found here. Thank you to GEB reader Lynne for letting us know about this.

The most significant development in Street View, however, was the introduction of the ‘Historical Street View’ feature in April. This feature is only available in the Google Maps version of Street View and not in Google Earth.

Also of great importance are the contributions to Street view by individuals via Photosphere, as this provides coverage in places where Google has not yet sent its cars or trekker, or of events, such as the protests in Hong Kong.

Shirito Falls, Mt.Fuji, Japan. Captured with the Street View Trekker.

Gombe National Park, Tanzania. Captured with the Street View Trekker.

New 3D causing Street View crash in New York and San Francisco

December 15, 2014

Last week Google released new improved 3D for New York City and the San Francisco Bay Area, which they announced on Google+. We had a look at the New York update and GEB reader Piotrek noted that when you enter Street View in New York using Google Earth, the application crashes. We tested it and found that the same problem also occurs in San Francisco. It doesn’t occur everywhere there is new imagery, but seems to be confined to areas with lots of sky scrapers.

With all this new imagery, let’s look around and see what we can see.

The old San Francisco Oakland bridge is being demolished, yet there is quite a lot of traffic on the bridge.

This isn’t an earth quake, it is 3D imagery from different dates.

This building is under construction.

Zoom out a bit, and the building is complete!

To see the locations featured above, download this KML file

Street View

November 25, 2014

Street View coverage continues to expand. There haven’t been any major countries added to the list recently, but within countries the coverage is continuously expanding, and in many places, being refreshed.

The most notable additions to Street View are being provided by the Street View Trekker, which was introduced back in 2012. It is used for capturing Street View inside buildings, such as the Burj Khalifa, off road areas, such as the Grand Canyon, and it can also be mounted on a boat such as was done for Venice and the Amazon. Google even created an underwater version of the Trekker, which is used to capture Street View under the oceans. Some of the most notable locations the Trekker has been used can be seen here. NBC have a short video showing how the trekker is used that you can watch here.

Yesterday’s post about Google Earth imagery updates got me thinking that there is no equivalent map for Street View. There is a map here that shows current coverage, and of course, in Google Maps and Google Earth you can hover the little yellow man above the map and it will highlight coverage areas. However, what would be really nice to have is a map showing the ages of the street view coverage. It could, for example, have a layer for each year since Street View started.

Street View taken from a boat off the coast of Japan.

The Underwater Museum of Isla Mujeres, Mexico.

Will Google update imagery upon request?

October 2, 2014

Google get their imagery from a wide variety of sources, and due to there being so many factors involved, it is impossible to predict when and where they will do updates. We have covered this a number of times on our blog, most recently in April. But before we start talking about imagery updates, it is important to realize that the satellite imagery displayed in Google Earth by default is often not the most recent imagery available. Why this is the case is explained here. So always be sure to check Historical Imagery to make sure that there isn’t already something more recent available. Instructions on how to use the Historical Imagery feature in Google Earth can be found here. It is important to note that the dates displayed on the imagery are not always accurate. The reasons for this are explained here.

Satellite or aerial imagery

If you are a city, state or country that has collected aerial imagery at your own expense, you own the rights to the imagery, and would like Google to put it into Google Earth, there is a pretty good chance that asking Google to do so will meet with a positive response. This is provided that the imagery is of good quality, is properly georeferenced etc. But for the rest of us, if we want more recent satellite or aerial imagery we typically just have to wait until either a satellite gets a good image of our area or some commercial project takes aerial imagery of our area, and Google either purchases it or enters some agreement whereby they can use the imagery. Capturing aerial imagery is still very expensive and such projects are typically done on a city-sized area or larger. Hopefully, the advances in drone technology will soon mean that the costs of capturing aerial imagery will come down dramatically.

If what you want is a satellite or aerial image of a given location and you are willing to pay for it, then it may be possible for you to purchase the imagery or even contract a company to capture imagery. Satellite imagery providers will often have imagery that is more recent than that found in Google Earth, but be warned that it will typically contain partial cloud cover. If you want satellite imagery, a list of suppliers for Digital Globe imagery can be found here. Another satellite imagery company is Airbus Defense and Space. And then there is Skybox Imaging, which is owned by Google.

The availability of aerial imagery providers will depend on your location, so if aerial imagery is required, we recommend an internet search for providers in your area. The resolution of aerial imagery is typically better than that of satellite imagery and is less likely to have problems with cloud cover, as the aircraft can either fly below the clouds or pick a day with clear skies. However, contracting someone to capture aerial imagery is typically significantly more expensive than satellite imagery.

What about Street View?

Street View imagery is gradually being expanded to much of the globe, and for many places, existing coverage is being continuously updated. They do give some information as to where they will are currently driving, which can be found here.

If you want Street View where you are, you have a number of options available. If you are a small to medium sized business, you can get Business View and hire a photographer from Google’s network of trusted photographers to come and photograph your business and have it uploaded into Street View. For large venues, such as a university, stadium, mall, or park, you can actually request a visit from the Street View team, and if you are lucky, they will come and photograph your venue for you. If you’re a tourism board, non-profit, university, research organization or other third party who can gain access and help collect imagery of hard to reach places, you can apply to borrow the Trekker via the Trekker Loan Program.

If all you want is a few panoramas, then you can take them yourself and upload them via Google Views. The easiest way to capture imagery for Google Views is using the smart phone app PhotoSphere, available for both Android and iOS. When you capture Photo Spheres they become part of Street View and are actually given preference by Google over images taken by their Street View vehicles.

A Photo Sphere taken by GEB writer Mickey Mellen is now part of Street View. To read more about when and where he captured it, see his post here