Mountain View, California — Panoramic images are becoming increasingly popular, global search engine leader Google Earth’s ability to showcase a visually mesmerizing 360 degree panoramic view of the world’s terrain, cities, oceans, weather data, treks, and more never fail to amaze its users.
Now you can enjoy the sprawling views of the Great Wall of China or take a glimpse at the entirety of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge, all without leaving your living room with new panoramic images on Google Earth.
“Today, the Google Earth photo viewing experience just got better with the addition of panoramic images,” Wei Luo, Senior Geo Data Strategist at Google, wrote.
“People using Google Earth will find a new “Photos” layer that includes not only the existing 2D photos from the Panoramio community, but also panoramic photos contributed by users of 360cities.net,” said Luo, in a blog post. “These high-resolution panoramic photos are marked in Google earth as red square icons. When you click on one of these icons, an info bubble containing an image appears, and clicking on the image again will take you into our photo viewing mode,” he added.
Google Earth now consists of a Photo layer which will empowers users to find 2D photos taken from Panoramio (a photo community Google acquired in 2007), as well as panoramic photos accumulated from 360cities.net, which collects panoramic photography on the web. Google had previously integrated 360 Cities into Google Earth under the Gallery layer, but this appears to be a deeper integration of the photos into the viewing experience.
In Google Earth, the panoramic photos from 360 Cities, a community for showcasing 360 degree photos are marked with red square icons and the photos from Panoramio are indicated by a blue icon. Clicking on the square will bring up an info bubble with a preview of the photo and info about its author. You can then view full image by clicking on it.
From this mode you can drag your mouse in different directions on the photo to get 360-degree views of destinations across the globe. You can also ‘navigate’ inside the photo and move about to see the view from all the angles. Images included from Panoramio and 360cities.net are both from their user-generated catalogs of panoramic photos.
The images are now live in Google Earth for everyone. You can add your own photos by signing up and submitting them to 360 Cities.
“360 Cities has moved from the ‘Gallery’ layer in Google Earth to the new ‘Photos’ layer. This layer is new, and contains images by both Panoramio and 360 Cities. It is also switched on by default, which means that our images will be available to a larger audience than before!,” 360 Cities announced on its blog.
360 Cities has a pretty immense database of panoramic photos thanks to its vibrant community of photographers and travelers. The new photo layer not only allows you to get an impressive view of a city or landmark, but it could save you from buying a plane ticket as well.
Google has been adding more content sources to Earth. The search engine titan recently added a historical layer to Google Earth with the addition of images World War II. With this feature, users can get a better understanding of the total devastation caused by the conflict in cities like London and Paris. You can use it to see photos from as early as 1945 up to present day.
Furthermore, through an alliance with Slooh, Google Earth also has real-time images from space. Slooh has robotic telescopes in the Canary Islands, Chile, and Australia that provide live images of the heavens that can be seen within the program. It also provides broadcasts of events like lunar eclipses, so through this feature, you can explore space from your desk chair.