The New Google Inc Street View App Makes Creating 360-Degree Videos A Breeze

Google has finally launched a standalone Street View app that captures 360-degree panoramic photos, with the option of uploading these photos to Google Maps






Google took to the official Google Maps blog to announce its new Street View app. The app takes the place of Street View from Google Maps app on Android and the Photo Sphere Camera app on the iOS; with the iTunes and Google Play versions of the app available for download from today onwards. The app is the latest addition to Google Maps which allows users to snap their own 360-degree view of their surroundings, and even publish the captures of famous places onto Google Maps.

Google Inc (NASDAQ:GOOG) released the app to help boost its own Street View offering. Street View helps provide a more realistic, free-form view of the world for users to explore and immerse themselves in. Users can now submit contributions to Google Maps, uploading restaurant and hotel interiors and outdoor scenery around key landmarks in the area. The photo spheres are all assembled into Street View collections and users can explore the gallery of photo spheres and content from Google Maps.

Street View allows users to submit their own photo spheres from their iPhone or Android smartphone, while it can also connect to spherical cameras to port in the image from those cameras. Given that Google relaunched Map Maker and has been encouraging users to upload photographs on Google Maps, it comes as no surprise that the newest photography feature is not something that Google just came up with. The Wall Street Journal spoke to the Street View team, who said that even though Street View has been a part of Google Maps, the company has been looking at making it a standalone app for a while.

Users can shoot their photo spheres by clicking on the orange camera icon. An orange dot guides users on the direction in which they should point their phone. The dot should be aligned with the center of the shot, when a picture is snapped. The app directs the user from dot to dot in every direction until pictures covering all directions have been shot. The app then uses a photo-stitching software to stitch the pictures, which can then be saved on the phone, on the Google Photos account, or sent to the Street View team. The Street View team will review the submission, ensure that it adheres to Google guidelines, and will then make it public.

The company encourages submissions from users across the globe, which can be viewed in the Explore tab. The Collections tab categorizes these submissions based on interests, such as sports or museums. The Profile tab shows the images that users themselves have submitted to Google Maps, while a Private tab stores all the images that a user has not submitted to the mapping service. The app does not currently allow users to follow others who made public submissions to Google Maps.

All in all, the service can be extremely useful in providing individuals with an opportunity to see famous places around the globe and has the potential to create stunning 360-degree photographs that perfectly capture the shooter’s perspective. Nothing will replace real-life traveling, but viewing pictures snapped through this photography mode might just be as good as being there. Street View is available in over 65 countries, but has yet to roll out globally. When it does, the app has the potential to represent things such as popular tourist destinations all across the globe.