Street View is one of the most innovative and useful products from Google and the company has announced a new feature that's certain to draw more users. According to Google, users will now be able to post their own Street View maps of any location. Using a DSLR camera and Google's Photo Sphere technology, anybody can now create Street Views of their favorite locations.
This new feature is particularly useful for people who travel a lot and feel the need to share what they see on their travels to friends or family. While people have been posting photos online for years now, the new and improved Street View will allow your friends to actually see what you are seeing. While Street view has been around for several years, users could only see Street View maps that Google posts. However, now, anyone can upload Street Views and assign them to specific locations on Google Maps.
According to an official blog post from Google, users can upload their photo spheres directly to the Views page. The post states, "Using a new feature in our Views community, you can easily connect your photo spheres to create 360 degree virtual tours of the places you love, then share them with the world on Google Maps."
To upload and create the photo spheres, users simply need to take photos showing a 360 degree view using a DSLR or Android phone and after the photos are taken, they can simply share them on Views. Users can then utilize Google's new tool to stitch the images together into one seamless photo sphere. After the photo sphere is complete, they can then be shared to family and friends on Google + of any other site. Check out a sample here.
Many netizens are now creating Street Views of their favorite locales and tourist spots. This is especially important for locations that are difficult to reach such as backcountry areas and forests. While Google may not bother to map these difficult-to-access locations itself, adventurous Google users can now fill in the blanks, so to speak. This will also be good news for people living in developing countries where many have been complaining about the lack of Street View images for years now.
