Thursday, October 8, 2009

As seen on Google StreetView...

It's official Google StreetView has come to Vancouver.

I recalled spotting one of those Google cars trolling around my neighbourhood last May (as I noted in this earlier blog post) so of course when I heard that things were up and running, I flipped open my laptop and went looking for my house. Then I remembered the Google car passing me around Fraser and 10th and went looking for that.  Well what do you know.


I guess I'll have to get an "As Seen On Google StreetView" sticker for my bike now.


And one weird note; as the car passed me I was too close to it for my entire bike to be clearly photographed.  There is this weird blurred out circular area at the bottom of all of the shots.  I'm assuming this is to hide any details of the Google car... but if you get caught in it look out -- or it's off with your head!


Ouch!!

I've embedded the actual StreetView link below so you can tour around my hood.


2 comments:

  1. Neat stuff. About your head getting cut off when the car was next to you, a friend and myself were discussing this:

    The Street View camera car has eight cameras pointing straight out in a circle. There's no other cameras to capture the view above or below their line of sight. What they seem to do is interpolate pictures from before and after the current spot to create the "bottom" and "top" areas.

    Thus when it's showing your head cut off, that's your head in the current location, and your bike as photographed a few metres before or after.

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  2. Yikes, it's like not quite making it through in the transporter. Parts of me from different times. I also noticed that my face wasn't really blurred out in that side view shot and the front shot looks like I have some kind of strange skin disease. I was looking around and noticed that quite a few faces didn't get the blur as well as some license plate.

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