![]() Google Street View images show the construction of the Freedom Tower in New York City from September 2007 to August 2013. The tool serves as an interactive visual archive that to date has only been available manually by sifting through old digital images, film strips and negatives.īefore releasing the tool, Shet and his team did some exploring of their own with what the technology could offer. Some of the most common scenes to be viewed with the tool are ever-changing urban skylines around the world, including the rise of landmark buildings like the World Cup stadium in Rio de Janiero, the World Trade Center’s Freedom Tower in New York City, and the Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore. On some level the tool is similar to time-lapse videos, but it's not the same. ![]() “In two years time 2007 will be vintage, so we hope that as time goes by this tool becomes more and more valuable to our users,” Shet says. Users can travel back in time wherever street view is available around the world, and the project will continue to add to its collection of image data as years pass. Other photos submitted by Google Maps users (single current images, not historical) run along the bottom. The window with the clock icon in the upper right-hand corner shows the same street in October of 2007. It marks the latest in a recent string of expansions in what users can see in street view, from the ruins of Angkor Wat to the Colorado River.Ī screen shot shows the reconstruction of New Orleans' 9th Ward after Hurricane Katrina. The project pulls together years of Google Street View imagery, some of it previously unreleased, and took several months to complete. By selecting "street view" and clicking on a clock icon at the top of the screen, users can explore an area’s evolution as far back as Google’s photo-documentation can reach. ![]() The new time-travel function draws on image data captured by a fleet of Google Street View SUVs, snowmobiles, tricycles, and even a backpack, which for seven years have trekked across the globe with video cameras and GPS units to capture busy intersections and rolling hillsides across all seven continents. “Our mission in maps is to build a map that’s accurate, useful and comprehensive, and I think that being able to expose historic images that we’ve collected in the past helps us be able to meet this comprehensiveness aspect,” says Vinay Shet, the product manager of Google Street View. Since it was released in 2007, Google Street View has allowed users to explore a given area from the perspective of walking along a sidewalk, but with the new tool, they’ll actually be able to see how the street and its surroundings have changed. That’s the premise behind Google Maps’ newest time-lapse tool, launched today. “If you’re a kid today, 50 years from now you’ll be able to walk through the memories of your old neighbourhood,” Google senior vice president of infrastructure Urs Holzle said of the “cool new feature” in a post at Google+ social network.A lot can change in seven years: buildings rise and landscapes change. Whether you’re standing near the ocean in Japan or in the middle of Times Square, your view will likely be quite different in less than a decade. Historical images from Street View archives dating back to 2007 can be explored at Google Maps on desktop computers in what Shet depicted as a “digital time capsule of the world”.Įxamples displayed included the 2014 World Cup Stadium taking shape in Brazil and reconstruction in Japan after a devastating earthquake and tsunami in 2011. “If you’ve ever dreamt of being a time traveller like Doc Brown, now is your chance,” Street View product manager Vinay Shet said in a blog post, referring to a character from the 1985 comic fiction film “Back to the Future.” The technology titan began letting people turn back the clock on Street View images to show how places have changed over the seven years it has been collecting pictures for its free online map service. SAN FRANCISCO – Google on Wednesday added virtual time travel to its Internet offerings.
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