Behind the Scenes

Written by Matt Williams, Street View Operations Program Manager

• In the Beginning
• What are the Vehicles?
• Where Do We Collect Imagery?
• Turning Photos Into Street View
• Who is Pegman?

In the Beginning

Street View was launched in May 2007 to allow our users to explore the world through images. At the time, coverage was limited to just five U.S. cities.

The feature provides users 360° horizontal and 290° vertical panoramic street level views within Google Maps. Google collects these images using special cameras and equipment that capture and match images to a specific location using GPS devices. Once the images are captured, they are "sewn" together to create a 360° panorama. Faces and license plates are blurred before the panorama images are served and become viewable in Google Maps.

What are the Vehicles?

When Street View first launched, the platform used to capture images was a van.

Since our launch in 2007, Street View has expanded to include more cities, streets, national parks and even some biking trails. Currently, Street View is available for almost a dozen countries around the world in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. Scaling the project to this level required more lightweight and high-quality technology.

The van was replaced by a car. We have used different vehicles in different regions around the world to collect tens of millions of images.

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  Google mechanical engineers assemble cameras atop the original Street View van

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  A first generation Street View van

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  A Street View car drives through the countryside

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  Mechanical engineer Dan Ratner rides the Trike just outside the Googleplex

Most recently we've added a new vehicle to our fleet that we call the "Trike." We basically took the same technology in our Street View cars and towed them behind a 3-wheeled tricycle in a device reminiscent of an ice cream cart. The Trike lets us reach areas not accessible by car, such as hiking trails, biking trails and college campuses, just to name a few.

Our current platforms include nine directional cameras for the 360° views, a GPS unit for positioning and laser range scanners. We design and engineer the Street View platforms to be simple and require minimal manufacturing resources. This approach facilitates the ability to be up and running in a short period of time and allows us to quickly scale and get our vehicles on the road around the world.

Where Do We Collect Imagery?

Street View imagery is limited to public streets. Ultimately we'd love to drive every public road available, but there is no guarantee that we can cover every location completely. For example, we might face circumstances that are out of our control such as roadwork and construction. You can see a list of the countries and, where available, regions and cities we are driving here. If you find imagery collected from a private road please let us know by clicking on the "Report a problem" link within Street View.

In some cases, Google receives permission from the owner of private attractions to include images in Street View. For example, you can see imagery that we collected in a special drive of Disneyland Paris.

If you are an owner of a property and would like to have Street View imagery collected, please check out our Street View Partner Program.

It can take several months to collect imagery for an individual city, and even longer for an entire country. The time it takes to cover a particular area depends on a number of factors - e.g. the weather, geography and population. We also provide an easy-to-use tool that allows users to request for images of themselves, their car, their family, or their houses to be removed from Street View once the product has been launched for a specific area.

Turning Photos Into Street View

Once the photographs have been taken by our vehicles they go through computer processing to make them ready for showing on Google Maps. We take all the individual photos that have been collected by the cameras and "sew" them together to make the 360° panorama photo that you see on Google Maps.

We then apply cutting-edge face blurring technology, which helps make sure that passers-by in the photographs can't be identified. We will also blur legible license plates. Check out the Privacy page for more details on how we protect your privacy.

Who is Pegman?

Pegman is your guide through Street View - pick him up and drag him to a street to enter Street View imagery. When not in use, Pegman sits atop your zoom toolbar on the left of the Google Maps window. If he's lit up yellow, that means that Street View imagery is available for viewing within your current map view. His name comes from the fact that he is shaped like a clothes peg.

Pegman is also personified as a life-sized character that has appeared in many of our demo videos, helpfully explaining how to use new features of Street View. He has also appeared at other Google events, such as our launch of Google Transit in New York City in 2008.

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  Pegman takes you around cities of the world

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  Original drawings of the life-sized Pegman costume (Courtesy of J&M Costumers)

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  Pegman makes some new friends in Grand Central Station