Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps that provides the panoramic views from various streets of the world. It was launched on May 25, 2007 by Google in several cities in the United States, since then it has expanded to many cities and areas of the world. Till today, Google Street View is launched in about 80 countries of the world.
Google Street View displays panoramas of the images. For this, Google uses the cars on which high resolution 360 degree cameras are mounted and these cars travels in whole cities and take up photographs of the streets and monuments.
Then, these photographs are uploaded by Google for Street View. On these cars 12 cameras are fixed to take up photographs from different angles and sides. These photographs are upgraded from time to time.
As cars are not capable to travel at all places, Google also uses trekker, tricycle, walking mans, boat, snow cart, and underwater boats to take up the panoramic shots.
We can also upload some panoramic shots of the place on the Google Street View using gadgets. Google highlights user-contributed shots with blue circles on the Maps.
Businesses like shops, cafes, malls can pay a photographer to take panoramic shots of the interiors which are included in Google Street View with orange circles.
Along with high resolution cameras, Google also uses laser beams for depth mapping to calculate the length and width of the streets and passages. And all these data is also as Artificial Intelligence in self-driving cars for better performance.