Starting today, locating your way around town will be easier than ever: Google on Tuesday has reinforced the driving directions feature of its Maps service by adding photographic images of intersections and other key points along the route.
“By merging the features, Google said users can now obtain a better picture of their route alongside turn by turn information.”
Ever since its introduction in May of last year Google’s Street View maps have significantly extended from the original 5 cities to 44 regions. Driving directions and Street View are two distinct features of the search engine’s Google Maps site.
“By screening Street View images alongside directions, drivers have visual background for intersections and action points along their route, enabling them to be aware of landmarks and other factors such as tolls, speed limits, size of the road, and the availability of parking at their destination,” Google said in a statement.
Street View on the whole has been seen as a “fun” tool – The best images captured comes’ from Google Maps Street View feature, and were taken from car-mounted cameras so the visual aspect is very close to that seen through the windscreen.
Perhaps the finest use for Street View up to now has been as a means of discovering places you have never been. While the street numberings are fairly accurate, Street View can possibly be used to explore what someone’s apartment building or office looks like before you visit — making it easier to find in the real world. But the process is tiresome and demands manually clicking down a street until you find the portion you want.
Street View was at first launched in May of 2007 in 5 cities, since that time the 360-degree street-level imagery is available in 44 regions across the country. The company is likely to send out more of its special image-capturing vans out this year to cover more of the country.
By combining Street View with driving directions, Google has enormously simplified the process of using its street level panoramas to find specific locations. Incorporating Street View and directions provides those living in or traveling to these regions with another powerful, useful tool to help them easily navigate their surroundings.
In the areas across the country wherever Google Maps Street View imagery is available, users will see camera icons next to each step of their directions, which will open a Street View image of the location, along with an arrow showing the action to be taken. Users can simply click on the icon to launch a Street View window, and the get photos of the route along with an arrow showing which way to go. Street View furthermore offers previous and next links to move back and forth along the route.
As an added bonus, Google provides an API so Web 2.0 developers can incorporate Street View to their own software and services, as the company recently made its Google Maps API available to the software community.
The Street View service has been criticized on privacy grounds. Legal action has been brought in the US against Google for entering private land to take photographs used in Street View.
Street View is accessible in 44 regions of the US, and Google has been photographing Australian cities in preparation for an extension to the service. A Google spokesperson has said the company is working on ways to ensure that faces and license plates are not identifiable in its Australian images.