For enthusiasts Google Maps users, which is great for sightseeing, but with the Google camera car is confined to thoroughfares, it becomes difficult to get up close to landmarks on the service. But Google has just blended the Street View service with a cool new feature — Smart Navigation and the option to browse user-contributed photos in Google Maps, so you can zoom straight from Street View to your own shots.
Google has incorporating photographs from Panoramio, a travel photo sharing site, to assist with Street View zoom. If a users has posted a zoom-up images, which is indicated by a small set of the zoom polygons are shown at the top of the photo viewer.
So, if a user attached their own photos with zoom-in images of a particular landmark, thus others can steer through the layers of this photos giving a zoom-in functionality to Google Street View for landmarks and important tourists spots.
For example, if you wish to check out the Eiffel Tower in Street View from Avenue de la Motte Picquet. To access the new feature, click the user photos box in the top right corner.
The new Google Street View feature is activated by syncing up with Panoramio, Google’s geo-location photo sharing service to pull all the snaps in and slap them down, polygon for polygon. The service is free to try out, and live right now.
Take a quick video tour of this new Google Maps Street View feature: