Thursday, August 11, 2011

Planning a vacation without leaving home with Google Street View

The Google Street View tool can help us planning our holiday as it allows us to view the exact location of our destination with just a couple of clicks.
In 2007 Google introduced Google Street View, a tool that has changed the way we see our streets on Internet.

What is the tool Google Maps Street View?

Street View is a tool that allows users to view, through real images, the streets of many cities around the World.

Basically several cameras installed on a vehicle was taking pictures of our streets. After that, pictures were uploaded in panoramic format, 360º Vertical and 290º Horizontal, after deleting the car number plates and the faces of the people who were at that time in the streets.

First country where it was released was in USA, than followed by many others, being present nowadays in 24 countries plus Antarctica, out of which 16 are from Europe. The Frech were the first Europeans presented with this service, arriving in Spain only at the end of 2008. The last update was on the 2nd of July 2011.

In our country, images were taken already in most of the cities and a large number of main and secondary streets.

How does this works?

Using this software is very easy and handy.

One of the main advantages is that the users do not have to download anything, they just need to have an internet connection and enter in Google Maps.

Google Street View is also available as free app for Android Mobiles.

To visualize the images as if you where there in that place, the user will have to click and take the small orange man at the point of the map that he wants to see. The streets with Street View images are marked with a blue colour (1).







To rotate the view you can use whether the wheel from the control panel, or the arrows of the keyboard or with the mouse dragging over the image (2).

For the movement along the street we have to click on the white arrows overlaid the street or using the arrows of the keyboard (3).

To enlarge the image of a certain point we should go with the arrow where we will see a rectangle or a circle. If there is a lens within that rectangle than we can enlarche the image (4).

How can Street View help me?

Allows me to explore places around the world that I always wanted to visit but had no chance to do it yet.

For the travel agencies, Street View has been a revolution. If we wish to go on holidays to a specific destination and the travel agency give us the exact address we can view all the area, the views, distance to the sea, services… This can be a very important factor whyle making the final decision.

You can show your friends or family the exact place where you live or work, the gym where you are going or you favourite restaurant.

If you are searching for a house to rent or buy, with Street View you will save many useless visits. It allows you to see the location of the property, how the building looks like aso. without even moving from the sofa.

Street View can be very useful for education, being an excellent tool to help those difficult classes of geography or history.

Can you think of another original application for Google Street View?

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