
Google Treks - ricg
http://www.google.com/maps/about/behind-the-scenes/streetview/treks/
======
nakedrobot2
There are some great images here. I like how Google has been striving to
document more beautiful places. The sheer amount of brainpower and processing
that Google is putting into Streetview is truly staggering and unprecedented.
Nobody else out there is doing it in this way.

On a more hand-made note, my company,
[http://360cities.net](http://360cities.net), has been publishing user-
generated 360º imagery since 2006. I have built a tour of my own city, Prague,
starting in 2004, which was before Google Maps or Streetview. We now have
hundreds of thousands of images, (all high-resolution, completely spherical
360º photos) from every country of the world, including some very remarkable
places in Antarctica, skydiving from an airplane, underwater, "remote" places
such as Havana, Iran, Tibet, Burma, Easter Island, and so on.

Our "editors' picks" are something I'm really proud of.
[https://www.360cities.net/search/@tags-
editorspicks](https://www.360cities.net/search/@tags-editorspicks)

here is our world map. zoomed out, you should see only "great" stuff:
[http://www.360cities.net/map](http://www.360cities.net/map)

Other services that are similar to 360cities include
[http://viewat.org](http://viewat.org),
[http://roundus.com](http://roundus.com),
[http://arounder.com](http://arounder.com),
[http://photosynth.net](http://photosynth.net).

Then there are the services for iphone/android 360º app, but these images are
far lower in quality overall:
[http://occipital.com/360/verse](http://occipital.com/360/verse) and
[http://dermandar.com/worldmap](http://dermandar.com/worldmap)

edit: made all links clickable

~~~
monsterix
Upvoted, bookmarked and thanks! Always in the look for alternatives to Google.

~~~
rattray
Why was this downvoted?

~~~
jessriedel
To expand on what themstheones said: upvotes and downvotes are for increasing
the visibility of a comment in proportion to how it contributes to a good
discussion. Downvotes aren't punishment.

------
wtvanhest
I can't believe I'm typing this, but after the new Google map changes, it runs
so slow on my home and office computer that I was forced to switch to bing. It
still works on my mobile, but its just unbearable on the other systems.

I hope they create a more streamlined version soon.

~~~
marcioaguiar
Definetly slower. Also, there's some features I miss from the old maps, like
navigation on the map while on StreetView and the measurement ruler (from
labs). But you don't need to switch to Bing as you can still change to the
classic google maps.

~~~
wtvanhest
I'm glad to hear I am not the only one with performance issues. That is a lot
more upvotes than I expected, especially considering how google heavy the user
base is here.

I love google's products and the fact that they all work together but
everything seems to be running slower than it ever has before.

Looking at the comments below, it is pretty clear that other people are also
having this issue.

It takes a lot for me to stop what I am doing, and move over to Bing so if I
am doing it, other people are doing it as well.

They should put making all of their applications less CPU intensive at the top
of their list, right away.

===Also, while I am complaining about Google products, the google news doesn't
let me easily search by time anymore which has also forced me over to bing.
Articles from 30 days ago are rarely useful.

------
benatkin
Google can't wait to usher in a future where people stay in their rooms and
eat Soylent while being entertained and exercised by their VR-enabled
computers.

~~~
nazgulnarsil
Check your bipedal privilege cis scum. No but seriously, every time you feel
the urge to make a luddite point remember that there are disabled people who
are getting a whole new lease on life via enabling technologies.

~~~
hvs
"Scum"? Trying to raise the level of discourse are we?

~~~
advicethrowaway
If you're wondering why you're being downvoted, google the phrase. It's a well
known joke.

~~~
hvs
My sarcasm meter must've been on the fritz at the time.

------
mynegation
Where do I apply and what is the hourly rate? I assume all travel expenses are
also paid.

On a serious note, in the footsteps of OpenStreetMap that could be a great
next community project: write the software for the infrastructure and the
camera gear, open the designs of data collecting hardware (for the 3D
printers) and let people upload their treks.

~~~
bibinou

      > Where do I apply
    

[http://www.google.com/maps/about/partners/streetview/trekker...](http://www.google.com/maps/about/partners/streetview/trekker/)

~~~
Thlom
One of the richest companies in the world are asking the public to help them
for free?

~~~
bibinou
You've just found Google's business model !

Seriously though, this is better done by locals who knows the place than by
some Google minions.

I think the business model will be selling it to famous landmarks and malls,
who have to do it for brand reasons (and then trickle down on the famous
scale). See the examples, Burj Khalifa (big ugly tower), Everest, Grand
Canyon, Venice, highly touristic places.

Expect Eiffel tower, Liberty Island, not beautiful "treks".

~~~
randomsearch
> You've just found Google's business model !

This is essentially correct. Google makes money via providing access to
content created by other's.

Try "Who Owns the Future" by Jaron Lanier. It's an interesting read.

------
dmazin
Here's what the non-car-mounted camera machines look like, if anyone's
wondering:

[http://i.imgur.com/BjHLoPh.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/BjHLoPh.jpg)

~~~
v33ra
The camera machine can be seen very clearly in this video:
[http://youtu.be/cn7AFhVEI5o?t=43s](http://youtu.be/cn7AFhVEI5o?t=43s)

------
davidw
Great, now when the f __* am I going to get terrain back on Maps for Android?!
Last summer, my phone provided some information about terrain difficulty for
light hikes (serious ones should involve a paper map so that you 're not
screwed if you lose battery/signal/whatever), bike rides and whatnot. This
summer, with a newer, fancier, Nexus 4, that information is gone. The world is
flat, indeed.

~~~
nakedrobot2
If you use the distance measurement button, it tells you the elevation of the
segment you are measuring, I believe. I know this is not the same thing, but
maybe it's helpful.

~~~
phireal
The distance measurement tool has been removed from more recent versions of
Maps. It's why I haven't upgraded to the latest version, as the elevation
profiles from the distance tool are really handy.

------
ohwp
This is a little unrelated but I notice that all Google services are getting
very slow. They eat up CPU and memory like it's nothing.

It's nice what can be done with Internet these days but I prefer the old quick
Google with almost the same features but less shine.

~~~
jeffjose
Yup. This surely is unrelated.

~~~
ohwp
Well in fact it wasn't that unrelated. I can barely watch the special Google
maps sites like this one: [http://www.google.com/maps/about/behind-the-
scenes/streetvie...](http://www.google.com/maps/about/behind-the-
scenes/streetview/treks/burj-khalifa/)

------
Breefield
I have heard Google plans to do street-view of Burning Man, but it has never
appeared. Perhaps this will be the venue if/when it finally does.

~~~
steve19
Probably not going to happen. The organizers require (or used to require) a
percentage of all revenue made from professionally taken photos [0]

[0]
[http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/burningman.html](http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/burningman.html)

~~~
voltagex_
That's crap.

Edit: damn, we need more people like jwz.

------
bytesmith
I hope they render some of these for the Oculus. Making View, a Norwegian
company with similar 360 degree camera technology has released a few Oculus
demo clips of people doing amazing things with their cameras.
[http://makingview.no/makingview.com/?page_id=1691](http://makingview.no/makingview.com/?page_id=1691)

------
dylangs1030
I would do this in a heartbeat, even for a substantially reduced salary.
Assuming travel expenses and meals/shelter are paid for (within reason) I'd
travel all over the world for an opportunity like this. Awesome. Google's been
coming under a lot of fire lately but between this and Google Loon[1] I think
Google's cooking up some really innovative, practically useful and genuinely
creative toys for the world to play with.

[1]:
[http://www.google.com/loon/#utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc...](http://www.google.com/loon/#utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=Global_semBK)

------
wooster
For anyone else confused, as I was, by the Everest trek photos: these were
taken with tripods and not with the new Trekker gear.

------
katmasteron
It would be nice to try something like this with Oculus Rift and video. Would
probably be a cool experience to view the trip down the Amazon Basin in a
video and thanks to 360 degree camera / video capture, one would be able to
move the head around and get an interactive experience out of it.

I would like to try something like this just to test what kind of "being
there" feeling would be achievable with the current tech.

~~~
bytesmith
See my link below for an Oculus demo using 360 degree cameras. It's doesn't
feel nearly as fluid or 3D as the other Oculus demos, but it's promising
nonetheless.

------
runn1ng
One less reason to go outside my basement, great!

------
leviathan
It's mind boggling how bad the arabic translation is at:
[http://www.google.com/maps/about/behind-the-
scenes/streetvie...](http://www.google.com/maps/about/behind-the-
scenes/streetview/treks/burj-khalifa/)

It's like they ran the text in google translate and never bothered to check
the results.

~~~
rayj
Never mind the actual window-washers and builders who made these buildings are
de-facto slaves to the Monarch of Dubai Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum. Then
in the next demo over they try to get all multicultural with the first nations
language "ᓱᑯᑦᑎᐊᓃᒃᑲᓗᐊᕐᖓᑦ ᐃᖃᓗᐃᑦ? "

[http://www.vice.com/vice-news/the-slaves-of-dubai](http://www.vice.com/vice-
news/the-slaves-of-dubai)

~~~
kamaal
Arabic is a bit like English. Just like how England is not the country with
majority of English speakers, In the same way 'Arabs' don't make up all the
Arabic speakers.

Arabic speakers exists in nearly every country where there are Muslims. Which
is what nearly 30% of the world population?

------
tocomment
It would be amazing if we could put these in the Oculus rift someday. Are
there any plans for that?

------
proex
For the times you want to go outside while sitting on your chair in front of
your computer ?

------
Stupendous
Stuff like this makes it really hard to stay angry at Google.. just beautiful.

------
pistoriusp
It's a shame that the page performs so `jaggy` on my computer.

------
lenage
Great images here and thanks google did this for the world

------
INSURGENCYmusic
I'm going to do one on Compton, CA.

~~~
VLM
I see you got downvoted, but ruins of all kinds have always been popular, and
a classic recent linkbait has been "pictures of the ruins of abandoned
Detroit", seems like every popular magazine / website has tried that one as
linkbait.

It seems both inevitable, interesting, and on topic.

Using census records I found the house some of my ancestors lived in about a
century ago. The neighborhood has gone, uh, dramatically downhill since then,
I wouldn't go there today without kevlar and a rifle, but it was interesting
to view the original mostly unmodified house on streetview.

There is also a whole "urban explorer" subculture out there and legally
obtained pix of ruins would be interesting.

~~~
INSURGENCYmusic
I actually wasn't even joking. I install a shit load of alarm systems down
there. Around 10 a month, in abandoned properties. Thought it would be an
interesting take on Trek.

------
jwheeler79
Did anyone else see the similarity between the examples and New York Times
Snowfall?

------
alohahacker
They should hook up with a buddy of mine eric! He's currently going to all 194
countries and having some amazing experiences. Seems like the perfect
partnership!

[http://gowitheric.com/](http://gowitheric.com/)

------
apunic
Just because it's from Google it must be special?

Don't want to sound too negative but wondering if Trek would get any attention
if done by some startup.

~~~
dylangs1030
I'm not sure you appreciate the engineering infrastructure at work here. This
isn't special because Google is doing it, it's special because it's _really_
hard to do. How would you go about attempting this project as effectively as
Google with the resources of a typical startup company?

~~~
toomuchtodo
Crawl the web for images, use the GPS EXIF data to find clusters, and use
image processing to stitch together 3D environments from the photos.

It would not be as good as streetview though.

~~~
mh-
Microsoft did this, effectively. Someone who remembers the project can provide
a link to the demo/talks (TED, if I recall) hopefully.

edit: believe it was related to
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynth](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photosynth)

------
jkl32
What a blatant PR attempt to put lipstick on a pig.

Do not forget who we're dealing with, Google gave the NSA unrestricted access
to every system without any legal challenge. No amount of pretty photos will
make up for that.

~~~
mason240
Google didn't "give" the NSA anything. The NSA forced their way in.

