Recently Google has launched Google street view in India. The fact is that it was there in India few years back and was banned due to some issues. Now it has been relaunched in India and you can use this unique feature while travelling in India.
Although, available in few cities, it is available partially in tier two cities and you can access the 360 degree pictures of the place even before visiting the exact street location. Over the period of ten years, Google has mapped these places in different parts of the world, including major cities across the world and with the help of high definition cameras, the data has been accumulated in the form of 360 degree photos of all streets within a particular city. These photos have also been contributed by individuals. Even you can also contribute photos of your area by logging into google street view website.
THE HISTORY OF GOOGLE STREET VIEW
Google Street View was launched in cities in United States in the year 2007 with the target to map whole of the World and digitise the locations at street level. In most of the advanced countries like USA it is functional since 2007 and has been extended to many parts of the world uphill now. The technology was the outcome of the google sponsored project with the Stanford University, USA in the year 2001 which submitted its report in the year 2006.
HOW ONE CAN USE GOOGLE STREET VIEW
One can simply open the google maps on any device and search for a particular location. As soon as the result appears on the screen you can locate yellow human figure label, the street view option and click it. The location map will show blue lines throughout the major roads and you can click any where on those blue line to see the street view of that place. You can watch the 360 degree photo of that particular street and it you are seeing blue dotted lines instead of blue line, you will find only normal photos of the street and the 360 degree photos not available for that particular location. At present, you will be able to access all locations in metro cities in India and also for popular tourist destinations across India. From the point of view of the security concerns, the sensitive areas like military and research establishments have not been covered and hence will not show in this feature.
HOW GOOGLE STREET VIEW IS USEFUL FOR TRAVELLERS
- The travellers can find the location and can see the street view to have an idea about the place
- One can know in advance the feasibility of visiting the place.
- One can have clear idea of the road condition of the place
- One can decide about the right mode of transport to be chosen to reach the place.
- One can know about the parking possibility for their vehicles.
IS GOOGLE STREET VIEW FREE?
The answer is Yes and No. You can access the application for upto 20 autocomplete queries free per day. Beyond that you need to have a pro version of the Google Street View. That means travellers like you and me can use this feature for the purpose of visiting a place free as 20 free queries are enough for a day if you are visiting couple of places in a day.
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