The Maps team at Google has been hard at work making it possible for you to browse the globe at a street level, but it turns out strapping cameras to cars and people can only get you so far. To help, Google has provided users with the tools necessary to add Street View to your area.
Street View allows you to look at the place you’re going from the street level. As long as the pictures that have been recorded by the Street View cars are current enough, it makes things much easier to find if you’re going somewhere you’ve never been before. In some cases Street View can even be used to just explore cool places you’ve never been before, but those experiences are limited to the resources of the Google Maps team. Thanks to and update to the Views tool, all you need is a camera and a computer to add your world to Street View.
Many Android phones now come pre-loaded with the ability to take photospheres, which are total environment panoramas that allow you to see in every direction around you. If you’ve got a steady hand, you can take some amazing photospheres with the modern smartphone, but what you may not know is that Google actually provides users with the ability to use DSLR cameras to accomplish the same. This process is a little more complicated, but the end results are often outstanding. What Google is announcing today is the ability to ling photospheres together in a line, creating an effect that works just like Street View.
The Views project has made it easy for users to take photospheres and submit them to Google Maps in the past, but what you have now is the ability add multiple photo events in a line and place them on a map to add them to Street View. After Google approves a submission it gets added to Google Street View to help fill in the gaps.
There’s no limit on how many you can submit, so if taking photospheres is something you have fun doing and Google doesn’t have your area in Street View yet this could be a fun way to participate.
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