Have you ever seen the Google Streetview car?

 

... as seen by another Google Streetview car. On the salt flats, west of Salt Lake City, UT:

40.74037,-113.94575

[ Oops, gone! Looks like Google replaced this section with imagery from March, 2012. I guess the "streets" didn't change much, but they got rid of an interesting view of the other car. crying ]

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Garmin Drivesmart 61, Nuvi 52, Nuvi 1390
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Bob.Sedona wrote:

... as seen by another Google Streetview car. On the salt flats, west of Salt Lake City, UT:

40.74037,-113.94575

Thanks for posting that! Here's a link to Google Maps Street View:

http://goo.gl/maps/wsARJ

Google map car.

The google map car drove down my street last May while I was mowing. I assumed it was photographing at the time as it was going quite slowly and turning up each side street court. The street view pictures have not shown up on the maps so far tho.

The car I saw did not look like the one in your post. It was painted up a lot more and clearly marked as Google. Also the camera was more ball shaped ... looked more like this one: http://jpgmag.com/news/2011/04/spotted-the-new-google-maps-c...

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Alan - Android Auto, DriveLuxe 51LMT-S, DriveLuxe 50LMTHD, Nuvi 3597LMTHD, Oregon 550T, Nuvi 855, Nuvi 755T, Lowrance Endura Sierra, Bosch Nyon

2009 vs 2011

alandb wrote:

...
The car I saw did not look like the one in your post. It was painted up a lot more and clearly marked as Google. Also the camera was more ball shaped ... looked more like this one: http://jpgmag.com/news/2011/04/spotted-the-new-google-maps-camera-car.html

A lot can happen between March 2009 and April 2011.

Yes

and got my picture taken sort of
43.963073,-78.152042

I'm in the white Escape when you pan to the left and look between the street signs.

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All the worlds indeed a stage and we are merely players. Rush

I followed one over the

I followed one over the harbor bridge in Corpus Christi. I let him slowly pass me and pull ahead and stayed within picture range for at least 2 miles, but I don't think I made the cut. I need to go look again.

Yes I Have

As I was returning from a shopping trip I saw a weird looking car with a tower on top with a device that looked like a rotating camera.
As I passed it I realized it was a Google Earth car taking photographs of my neighborhood.

Google

Do they actual drive by Google employee or third party contractor? I thought they only use hybrid vehicle for this purpose, would have save them some gas.

Grand Canyon street view

Now you can see the grand Canyon view: http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/10/trekking-grand-canyon-... ....and their process. One more tool for the trekking lovers.

This you can see better: https://www.google.com/maps?ll=36.065096,-112.137107&spn=0.2...

All the time...

But that's a part of living and working in Silicon Valley.

Often I catch that sense of motion in my peripheral vision, and turn to see a Google car with the twirly on top of it. You see them on surface streets in the area as well as on the freeways in the area.

You also see different variations on the sensor gear, evidently trying out different approaches.

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Nuvi 2460, 680, DATUM Tymserve 2100, Trimble Thunderbolt, Ham radio, Macintosh, Linux, Windows

Pedestrians

I've seen the vehicle in town a couple of times, and they were different cars each time.

I wonder what time of day they work because there usually aren't a lot of pedestrians in the Street View pictures. Even when they take pictures at tourist attractions there really aren't that many people - and it seems that faces are obscured.

Kaibob Trail

Icedog wrote:

Now you can see the grand Canyon view: http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/10/trekking-grand-canyon-... ....and their process. One more tool for the trekking lovers.

This you can see better: https://www.google.com/maps?ll=36.065096,-112.137107&spn=0.285295,0.528374&cbp=12,29.11,,0,2.98&layer=c&panoid=Fa-wHCWazJG6bn7ZjISQCA&t=m&z=12&cbll=36.065096,-112.137107

Here is one of my pics of the Bright Angel Trail
http://i139.photobucket.com/albums/q297/spokybob/IMG_0313d.j...

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1490LMT 1450LMT 295w

Never Saw One

I've never seen a Google Maps Streetview car.

I've also never seen a coelacanth.

I like the streetviews, but the tinfoil hatter in me fears it as well. grin

nope

nope

nope

nope

trade shows

NAVTEQ normally trots one of theirs to major trade shows along with an engineer that can explain how the car is used and all its functions. If you are into electronics and cartography, it is a 30 to 45 minutes well spent. The "sled" on the roof is well over a million dollars worth of electronics, and that doesn't cover the stuff inside which is another $3-400K.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Seen Google street car

My wife and I were at her parents farm and I was looking out to the road and seen it drive by,then a while later I checked on Google earth and we were both on camera,kind of neat.

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The Home of BLUMARU HOUNDS

My neighborhood has been done twice.

The first time they did my neighborhood, it was after dark. Since there are no streetlights, all you could see was the occasional light. They have since redid it. Since they manually censor their pictures, not sure why they ever used the original set.

Yes

I was waiting for my car to get serviced. The shop was right next to the freeway offramp. I was watching the cars go by and saw this car get off the freeway. Must not have been recording because I still don't see me in the street view.

They could use drone instead

Do they actually have to drive around to capture the street view? Why not use drone? I read article on
Time magazine that many people using drone for capture real estate photo/video, hunting animal, surveillance.....

No, but

I can tell when they came by my house. It was a Monday morning because our empty trash bin is sitting by the curb.

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Anytime you have a 50-50 chance of getting something right, there's a 90% probability you'll get it wrong.

Why not use a drone?

Maybe it is because Streetview captures the scene from the street. If you wanted a view from the the air you could call it Birdseye view. Or wait, that is what Bing already calls it.

Trail well travelled

That is a nice photo, for those who can`t not venture that way!
Thanks.

Drone?

stevennguyen wrote:

Do they actually have to drive around to capture the street view? Why not use drone?

Traffic is bad enough without unmanned drones flying 2-3 metres above street level...

...unless you meant drone cars, in which case Google is already working on that.

I have seen it passing by

I have seen it passing by before. The one situation is with me within our Jeep at our old apartment.

Yes,

I see the google car.

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Val - Nuvi 785t and Streetpilot C340

probably not just Street view

k6rtm wrote:

You also see different variations on the sensor gear, evidently trying out different approaches.

The Google self driving car currently requires quite elaborate "documentation" of any streets to be driven. (well beyond just pictures) My guess is that you may have been seeing mostly Google cars undertaking that mission. This might help account for your much higher rate of sighting than the rest of us see.

Driving about 6000 miles a year here in New Mexico, mostly within Albuquerque, I believe I saw a Street View car just once.

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personal GPS user since 1992

Never Seen It

I've never seen the Street View car at all here in the Washington, DC area.

Caught in the Summer of 2011

I spotted the Google StreetView car two summers ago as it drove by me while I was parked in a cul-de-sac.

Checking Google Maps, I see that I now have my 15 minutes of StreetView fame -- http://goo.gl/4Jsvh -- at least until the next update wink

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Nüvi 2595LMT

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WAASup wrote:

I spotted the Google StreetView car two summers ago as it drove by me while I was parked in a cul-de-sac.

Checking Google Maps, I see that I now have my 15 minutes of StreetView fame -- http://goo.gl/4Jsvh -- at least until the next update wink

Caught "on film" loitering in Mississauga. Ouch! wink

Oregon I-5 / 15 minutes...

I saw the Google car in December while passing through Southern Oregon. It was heading north on the I-5 freeway. I don't know if it was active or just on it's way to another area.

While using Streetview, I've notice other cars that seem to keep pace with the Streetview car as it rolls down the roadway. I imagine this is partly out of curiosity or the normal flow of traffic; but perhaps also an interest in maximizing their "15 minutes".

It's not much of a problem when it's a small car, but I've seen some big truck trailers that block the side view for quite a while; and that can be a little frustrating when you're trying to get a look at something that's on the other side. wink

JM

one way

JM wrote:

I saw the Google car in December while passing through Southern Oregon. It was heading north on the I-5 freeway. I don't know if it was active or just on it's way to another area.

JM

One way to tell if one is active is to notice if the equipment on the roof is "up" or "down." Extended these things are about 15 feet high.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Nope

Never, but my brother says he sees it quite often. I guess it depends on where you live.

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><> Glenn <>< Garmin nüvi 2598

saw it

I did see one in my neighborhood during the summer of 2012 in NW Ohio.
It was white, had some bright graphics/lettering on it and had a red ball on the roof.

Odd looking thing, and it took me a while to realize what it was.

Once

Once

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Nuvi 3790LMT, Nuvi 760 Lifetime map, Lifetime NavTraffic, Garmin E-Trex Legend Just because "Everyone" drives badly does not mean you have to.

I see those things much more

I see those things much more frequently now then ever. I can only imagine how many they have out on the road.

Yes

There were a couple of them together.

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When you are dead, you don’t know that you are dead. It is only difficult for the others. It is the same when you are stupid.

several times

I've seen it several times in the Philly, PA area, managed to get a photo of it in South Philly one day.

https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-ash2/24391...

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. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

Never

Never saw the car but the house is there in this rural area so they have been around

I've seen one 3-4 times,

I've seen one 3-4 times, even managed to get myself on Streetview.

Not Yet

Living in a rural part of the world (Darke County, OH), I have yet to see a Google Streetview car or even hear of anyone around here seeing one.

I would love..

To have a job driving one of those around..

--
Bobkz - Garmin Nuvi 3597LMTHD/2455LMT/C530/C580- "Pain Is Fear Leaving The Body - Semper Fidelis"

me too, sort of

NachoB wrote:

I've seen one 3-4 times, even managed to get myself on Streetview.

The photo I linked above, the truck I was in is on the street view of that spot.

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. 2 Garmin DriveSmart 61 LMT-S, Nuvi 2689, 2 Nuvi 2460, Zumo 550, Zumo 450, Uniden R3 radar detector with GPS built in, includes RLC info. Uconnect 430N Garmin based, built into my Jeep. .

and after

bobkz wrote:

To have a job driving one of those around..

a week you would be totally bored. If they are used for mapping like Navteq's you would drive through an intersection once for each direction of travel and once for each lane. That's 8 times for a junction of 2 2 lane roads just to be certain all the measurements were correct and the intersection was fully captured on video and LIDAR.

Talked to a NAVTEQ engineer at a trade show I did 2 years ago where they had one of their cars. The equipment on the roof raises to between 14 and 16 feet above the road and is worth over 3/4 of a million. The other $250K is in the computer systems and storage units in the back.

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Illiterate? Write for free help.

Google street car

I have seen it twice also my wife and i were caught on camera at the in-laws,and in front of my house.

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The Home of BLUMARU HOUNDS

They've Gone Past My House...

CraigW wrote:

A lot can happen between March 2009 and April 2011.

Quite true. When they first started doing this I wondered if they would ever go along side streets where I live.

Just recently I checked and saw my house cool which is in a small country sub-division.

Nuvi1300WTGPS

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I'm not really lost.... just temporarily misplaced!

some streets nearby have photos

ndimmick wrote:

Living in a rural part of the world (Darke County, OH), I have yet to see a Google Streetview car or even hear of anyone around here seeing one.

I can't address seeing the car, but a quick look in Google Earth shows there to be Streetview coverage on Daly Road between Union City Road and the Greeneville-Nashville Road, pretty much the full street grid in Greeneville, etc.

The pics I happened to look at were pretty high-resolution, so probably taken within not very many years ago.

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personal GPS user since 1992

Yes ...

... saw it a couple times the last time it was in town about eleven months ago ... razz

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it's the dog's fault

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Garmin DriveSmart 5 My other toys: IMac quad-core i3, Mac Mini M1. MacOS: Ventura 13.3.1 The dog's name is Ginger.

One time, but...

he had the camera covered. I followed him for a while on I-85 through the Raleigh-Durham area a few months back, and managed to get a shot of him.

http://moose135.smugmug.com/PhotoADay/Photo-A-Day-2013/i-HJR...

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The Moose Is Loose! nuvi 760

Yes...

last summer driving down my street...the street view map for my area just showed up a month or so ago...man, I am glad the grass was cut and the beds mulched smile

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"You can't get there from here"

Now and then

In my travels over the past few years, I've spotted one now and then. They are a little hard to miss with the bright graphics and the ball perched on the roof. I have to assume they congregate at a motel once it starts getting dark but have never seen that. The one's I've seen have always been solo, but in some of their photos when they are in a remote area such as the haul road in Alaska, you can spot a 2nd car as they run in pairs (presumably to cover vehicle and equipment malfunction).

They sometimes merge the photos from different trips. On more than one occasion when I was looking for an address using Street View and was stepping down the street, the photos would alternate between seasons!

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"There's no substitute for local knowledge" nüvi 750, nüvi 3597
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