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Non-Road Boards => Off-Topic => Topic started by: Poiponen13 on June 26, 2023, 08:22:49 AM

Title: Google Street View
Post by: Poiponen13 on June 26, 2023, 08:22:49 AM
Which cities and countries you would like to have better Street View coverage? At least Uzbekistan, Germany, Austria and Belarus in my opinion.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: hotdogPi on June 26, 2023, 08:24:45 AM
Dominican Republic
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Poiponen13 on June 26, 2023, 08:43:30 AM
Bishkek has a quite good coverage. But Bosnia and Herzegovina has poor coverga, as well as Cuba.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: GaryV on June 26, 2023, 09:06:36 AM
Sucky
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Poiponen13 on June 26, 2023, 09:09:27 AM
Quote from: GaryV on June 26, 2023, 09:06:36 AM
Sucky
Souky?
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: vdeane on June 26, 2023, 12:55:38 PM
Not a country, but Les ÃŽles-de-la-Madeleine.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: CNGL-Leudimin on June 26, 2023, 04:54:36 PM
Quote from: Poiponen13 on June 26, 2023, 08:22:49 AM
Which cities and countries you would like to have better Street View coverage? At least Uzbekistan, Germany, Austria and Belarus in my opinion.

Austria already got countrywide coverage a couple years ago, and Germany is set to finally get covered countrywide by mid July.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: zachary_amaryllis on July 06, 2023, 08:07:27 PM
Lower Wacker Drive, unless that's a problem specific to Earth. I can't seem to get into it from Street View.Or if I do get in, I go to move forward, and end up upstairs.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: LilianaUwU on July 06, 2023, 08:09:38 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 26, 2023, 12:55:38 PM
Not a country, but Les ÃŽles-de-la-Madeleine.
This. It's insane how GSV can go to Iqaluit but my hometown is off-limits.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: vdeane on July 06, 2023, 09:18:34 PM
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on July 06, 2023, 08:07:27 PM
Lower Wacker Drive, unless that's a problem specific to Earth. I can't seem to get into it from Street View.Or if I do get in, I go to move forward, and end up upstairs.
Well, what do you expect from a street named after the Alan of Quindaro? (Incidentally, I just Googled "Alan of Quindaro" to see what would pop up and the first result is some book called Annals of Quindaro by Alan W. Farley... you can't make this stuff up)

More seriously, street view has a huge issue when it comes to multiple roads at different elevations.  It wants to go to whatever it thinks "ground" level is, so bridges and tunnels in particular are difficult.  I use the arrow keys to navigate in such circumstances.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: jakeroot on July 07, 2023, 01:20:13 AM
Quote from: vdeane on July 06, 2023, 09:18:34 PM
More seriously, street view has a huge issue when it comes to multiple roads at different elevations.  It wants to go to whatever it thinks "ground" level is, so bridges and tunnels in particular are difficult.  I use the arrow keys to navigate in such circumstances.

I have this trouble a lot trying to get images of intersections in some parts of Japan. This is Tennoji Station in Osaka...

(https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/53028972758_c44faf950d_o.png)
Street View Around Tennoji Station (https://flic.kr/p/2oMZm6L) by Jacob Root (https://www.flickr.com/photos/62537709@N03/), on Flickr
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: zachary_amaryllis on July 07, 2023, 07:34:43 PM
Quote from: vdeane on July 06, 2023, 09:18:34 PM
Quote from: zachary_amaryllis on July 06, 2023, 08:07:27 PM
Lower Wacker Drive, unless that's a problem specific to Earth. I can't seem to get into it from Street View.Or if I do get in, I go to move forward, and end up upstairs.
Well, what do you expect from a street named after the Alan of Quindaro? (Incidentally, I just Googled "Alan of Quindaro" to see what would pop up and the first result is some book called Annals of Quindaro by Alan W. Farley... you can't make this stuff up)

More seriously, street view has a huge issue when it comes to multiple roads at different elevations.  It wants to go to whatever it thinks "ground" level is, so bridges and tunnels in particular are difficult.  I use the arrow keys to navigate in such circumstances.

*slaps forehead*
Of course. The arrow keys. In all realness, this literally never occurred to me. Use the arrow keys.

Today I learned.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Amaury on July 07, 2023, 07:50:13 PM
I just wish they would go through every area, say, every five years. They finally went through the Tonasket area last month: https://goo.gl/maps/9LjyRbwFQasMYCCw5 Before that, there were only images from 2007 (https://goo.gl/maps/TeKbviwE8RN51oZw8) and 2008 (https://goo.gl/maps/mtu2BTGWjP2irb3X7). Anything from 2009 and earlier was before that capture quality improved. Any area that still has captures from only those years with the terrible quality should be driven through again just for the sake of better quality so you can see what the area is like, especially from those who aren't from the area and are looking to visit the state or community.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: index on July 07, 2023, 08:52:46 PM
Quote from: LilianaUwU on July 06, 2023, 08:09:38 PM
Quote from: vdeane on June 26, 2023, 12:55:38 PM
Not a country, but Les ÃŽles-de-la-Madeleine.
This. It's insane how GSV can go to Iqaluit but my hometown is off-limits.

I find it kind of funny how Google has mapped the entire Dalton Highway and Prudhoe Bay on Street View *twice*, but can't even update the 2007-era VHS-quality street view on the hundreds-of-times more popular Ocracoke Island.

Why is the quality of Street View from that era so awful anyway? Google was still a massive company then and the technology to capture decent imagery and post it online had been around well before 2007.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: zachary_amaryllis on July 08, 2023, 08:40:54 AM
Quote from: Amaury on July 07, 2023, 07:50:13 PM
I just wish they would go through every area, say, every five years. They finally went through the Tonasket area last month: https://goo.gl/maps/9LjyRbwFQasMYCCw5 Before that, there were only images from 2007 (https://goo.gl/maps/TeKbviwE8RN51oZw8) and 2008 (https://goo.gl/maps/mtu2BTGWjP2irb3X7). Anything from 2009 and earlier was before that capture quality improved. Any area that still has captures from only those years with the terrible quality should be driven through again just for the sake of better quality so you can see what the area is like, especially from those who aren't from the area and are looking to visit the state or community.
The GSV of my own house, shows a decrepit car (OK it's mine), and has my father (blurred) outside in his bathrobe. Dad died in 2009.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Georgia Guardrail on August 10, 2023, 08:42:29 PM
Would like to see more of rural Kentucky mapped. 

Also think it would be cool if Google Street View could do railroads.  After all, you can follow some rivers on Google Maps believe it or not.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: formulanone on August 10, 2023, 09:45:09 PM
Quote from: index on July 07, 2023, 08:52:46 PM
Why is the quality of Street View from that era so awful anyway? Google was still a massive company then and the technology to capture decent imagery and post it online had been around well before 2007.

Here's a rundown of the many GSV cameras (https://www.trekview.org/blog/2019/history-of-google-street-view-cameras/) (post is from 2019, though).

In short, the technology to continuously take dozens of photos per minute was limited by the camera's abilities for the time. The "write speed" of the cameras' data was also a limiting factor at the time, and probably the massive array of storage for those images was also an early concern, so they probably used a lower image quality to compensate on all fronts. You can see there was a major improvement in imagery somewhere around 2011 and some of the stuff in the last five years is usually quite good, save the stitching errors and distortion.

The exposure triangle (https://photographylife.com/what-is-exposure-triangle) of cameras works like this: if you want a fast shutter speed (to prevent blurring), image sensor/film sensitivity (how grainy or noisy the image appears), and a sharp image (so a larger field of vision is in focus), there always has to be something in the equation that is reduced to achieve a balance. Couple that with the constant write-speed and storage limitations in a moving vehicle, and the sacrifices were probably balanced out not for detail, but just to show off that a road and some objects were there. It could also be that the earlier cameras degraded quicker over time due to wear-and-tear, or overheated, and that caused quality issues, too.

Google probably didn't throw all of their chips into that technology, probably as there wasn't an immediate return on investment, but also equipment which would deal with a lot of abuse. The quality was pretty much on par with cell phone photos at the time, and even high-end digital cameras had much more serious limitations 15-20 years ago compared to today. You can pick up what were industry-leading cameras that once retailed for $5000 for a few hundred dollars now, because almost all of the tech either improved greatly or trickled down to lower-end equipment to keep up with competition. Honestly, only camera collectors are into that sort of spending, or someone who just likes that exact model...most of those collectors are onto classic film cameras, anyhow.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Scott5114 on August 10, 2023, 10:38:43 PM
Of course these days you could brute-force the write speed issue by just having five SD cards and cycling the write operation between them...But solid-state storage was far more expensive back then, too.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: WillWeaverRVA on August 11, 2023, 08:21:57 AM
Alanland.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: andrepoiy on August 14, 2023, 11:54:13 PM
For some reason, some parts of Upstate NY have very little Streetview coverage, and I hope that gets rectified.

For example, Ogdensburg, NY only has a few streets covered at all, while across the river in Canada in Prescott ON, every nook and cranny of that town has been covered at least once, and many of the streets a few times. Ogdensburg is bigger than Prescott, mind you.

(https://i.imgur.com/B5nB9Go.png)
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: jakeroot on August 15, 2023, 12:32:20 AM
Quote from: andrepoiy on August 14, 2023, 11:54:13 PM
For some reason, some parts of Upstate NY have very little Streetview coverage, and I hope that gets rectified.

For example, Ogdensburg, NY only has a few streets covered at all, while across the river in Canada in Prescott ON, every nook and cranny of that town has been covered at least once, and many of the streets a few times. Ogdensburg is bigger than Prescott, mind you.

(https://i.imgur.com/B5nB9Go.png)

Quite a telling image.

I remember back in the "early" days of Street View just how much better Street View coverage was in BC's Lower Mainland, compared to across the border in Northwest WA. Especially the farm roads, rural areas, etc., many streets had missing coverage in WA, whereas in BC it seemed like every road was covered. Really high quality too, as all Canadian imagery is 2009-onward.

In Blaine (https://www.google.com/maps/@48.9990916,-122.7517299,15.61z?entry=ttu) (Whatcom County, WA, just across from White Rock, BC), many major roads are still missing imagery, whereas across the border in White Rock, there is no apparent missing coverage except very minor roads, mostly driveways. The on-ramp to I-5 Northbound as it leads into the Peace Arch crossing still has no imagery whatsoever, even though the border itself is covered by Street View.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Max Rockatansky on August 15, 2023, 08:06:58 AM
Quote from: WillWeaverRVA on August 11, 2023, 08:21:57 AM
Alanland.

New GSV coverage in Quindaro and Pittsburgh Oblast are quite lacking. 
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: vdeane on August 15, 2023, 12:57:30 PM
Northern NY has a lot of sparse street view coverage.  Massena is interesting.  A couple of shopping plazas have full coverage, but the streets are similar to Ogdensburg.  And NY 12 hasn't gotten new imagery between Chippewa Bay and Morristown since 2008.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: CoreySamson on August 15, 2023, 06:27:41 PM
Quote from: Max Rockatansky on August 15, 2023, 08:06:58 AM
Quote from: WillWeaverRVA on August 11, 2023, 08:21:57 AM
Alanland.

New GSV coverage in Quindaro and Pittsburgh Oblast are quite lacking.
The real travesty is how much blurry 2008-era coverage is still the newest coverage in much of Camargo Oblast. It makes T-Mobile's 5G coverage of Nebraska look plentiful.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Poiponen13 on August 21, 2023, 03:08:40 PM
In Finland, coverage is mostly good, except in the north. And other countries I would like to see in Street View are Bosnia-Herzegovina, Moldova, Afghanistan, China and Somalia.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: KeithE4Phx on August 21, 2023, 06:35:27 PM
How about a complete redo of rural America?  Much of it hasn't been done since 2010 or earlier, and even some roads that were done back then have been removed.  I find it hard to believe that Google doesn't have the money to do this.  Yes, it would be time-consuming and expensive.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Bruce on August 21, 2023, 06:37:25 PM
Quote from: KeithE4Phx on August 21, 2023, 06:35:27 PM
How about a complete redo of rural America?  Much of it hasn't been done since 2010 or earlier, and even some roads that were done back then have been removed.  I find it hard to believe that Google doesn't have the money to do this.  Yes, it would be time-consuming and expensive.

Probably a low cost-benefit ratio. There's not that much demand for most places outside of cities, natural wonders, and a few odd places.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Poiponen13 on September 08, 2023, 08:43:33 AM
South Korea still has large unphotographed areas. Most minor cities and major freeways are not photographed entirely. What could it be?
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: andrepoiy on September 08, 2023, 11:36:16 AM
Quote from: Poiponen13 on September 08, 2023, 08:43:33 AM
South Korea still has large unphotographed areas. Most minor cities and major freeways are not photographed entirely. What could it be?

I would assume due to national security laws. South Korea's maps have certain regulations that must be met. That's why Google Maps didn't use a vector-based map in South Korea for a good while.

But of course this is just speculation, I have no good answer.
Title: Re: Google Street View
Post by: Poiponen13 on September 08, 2023, 03:35:12 PM
The new Route 1 freeway in Prince Edward Island has not yet been photographed. And there are large gaps in western Iceland, compared to other parts of the country.