Stunning undersea panoramas now on Google Street View
27 September 2012
Heather Kelly
CNN Tech
Google Street View is a feature
that Google Maps coined in 2007. It
allows the users to view a panoramic virtual street view as if one was walking
down the street. Not only are roads and highways
available to view with this feature, but it also allowed users to look at the
icebergs of Antarctica at an eye level, virtually travel down the Amazon River,
and go into some of our nation’s most famous museums and monuments. Currently, Google Street View has obtained
over 20 petabytes of data from 48 different countries.
As of Wednesday the 26th
of September, there are panoramic views from under water accessible for any web
users. These “street views” from
underwater include images from Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, waters near the
Apo Islands off the coast of the Philippines, and sea-life from the coastal
waters of Hawaii. The pictures capture
coral reefs, plant-life, turtles, sea-rays, and many different types of fish.
Not only are these photos useful
for the general public to see things that many will probably never be able to
see in their lives, but they are also an aid to many research projects about
climate change. One in particular is the
Caitlin Seaview Survey; this project is aiming to create high-resolution images
for the world’s reefs. These images will
allow scientists to assess the damages to the reefs due to temperature changes
and acidity. Richard Vever’s is the
project director for the Caitlin Seaview Survey, and when developing their
ideas for funding the project the first company they thought of was Google
since they have the monopoly for the virtual street viewing. Currently, the project has taken 15,000
panoramic underwater images, and they plan to have between 50,000 and 100,000
by the end of 2013. The sites that the
project plan’s to document in the upcoming year include Bermuda, the Caribbean,
and the Indian Ocean.
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