Google Maps Introduces ‘Photo Tours’ Of 15,000 Popular Landmark Around The World

Posted on Apr 26 2012 - 7:09am by Editorial Staff

Giving a new and fresh approach to millions of people around the world who love to visit and travel far most the landmarks all over the world. Google’s Maps team has introduced a new feature that guides you through a 3D photo scene. Photo tours are available for more than 15,000 popular sites around the world, from famous landmarks such as St. Mark’s Basilica in Italy to scenic treasures like Half Dome in Yosemite.

In order to initiate them, there are two options: first, when you search for a place, such as Trevi Fountain, the results in the left panel will indicate if there is a photo tour available: click either the thumbnail image or the link to start the tour and second if you’re browsing the map and click on the label for a particular landmark, the info window that appears will indicate if a photo tour is available.

Explaining how the company produce these photo tours, it stated that they use advanced computer vision techniques to create a 3D experience from public, user-contributed Picasa and Panaromio photos. Google Maps then selects a path through the best images, and adds 3D transitions to seamlessly guide you from photo to photo as if you’re literally flying around the landmark and viewing it from different perspectives.

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