Ground level mapping
This is very cool. Using home-grown technology, a Chinese firm has upstaged the likes of Google and Microsoft with a mapping service featuring 360-degree street-level imaging of extraordinarily high resolution.
The service, which is similar to features found on Google’s and Microsoft’s online mapping sites, presently covers eight Chinese cities - including the capital Beijing and Shanghai. I can only imagine the advertising oportunities eg overlaying messages onto billboards etc
The company behind the technology, Shanghai-based Easypano Holdings, is working on expanding the coverage of its City8 website to another 12 cities by the end of the year.
It’s part of a trend in online mapping towards providing users with ground-level shots to complement the satellite and aerial imaging that is already widely available.
The City8 imaging was captured by special multi-lensed cameras mounted on cars which cruise the streets - and even some of the back alleys - of major Chinese cities capturing million of images.
The process is almost identical to the one used by Google, which has been using technology licensed from Canada-based Immersive Media.
These photographs are stitched together using software developed by Easypano and the result is a near seamless tapestry of ground-level images which can be zoomed, panned 180 degrees vertically and 360 degrees on the horizontal.
Great technology indeed… and worldwide trend for sure… Streetview is definitely going to get more and more popular everyday!
http://www.streetview.ch