Glimpse the streets of Baltimore with Google "Street View"
Never visited Charm City but want to check out our famed Inner Harbor? Curious about a Baltimore neighborhood and want to visit it virtually before taking a house-hunting drive? Traveling through Baltimore and want to see what the Harbor Tunnel looks like, from the inside?
Now you can sit at your computer and use Google's new-for-Baltimore feature in its mapping application, called "Street View." (The image above is a "Street View" of 501 N. Calvert Street, in front of The Baltimore Sun building.) Of course, like most offerings by Google, it's free to use.
The Google team has been rolling out the feature in other U.S. cities and countries for awhile. Why not visit France without spending a dime beyond the cost of your Internet connection? Google just introduced it in Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Seattle two days ago, according to its official map blog. (Thanks to Paul Capestany for noting Google's Baltimore update via his "Tweets" on Twitter.com.)
When you click on "Street View," most streets in Baltimore get painted in blue -- which indicates where you can see the street-level photos. There's some coverage of major roads in Baltimore County. In my own Northeast Baltimore neighborhood, "Street View" covers my alley, but not the main street in front of my house. Hopefully, Google will cover all the streets in the future.
To the northeast, you'll see the feature available in Wilmington, Del. Heading further south, you'll find "Street View" available in parts of Annapolis, Glen Burnie, and Bowie. Sadly, you can't get a "Street View" going over the Chesapeake Bay -- how cool would that be? Special request to Google: give us the view from the Bay Bridge! Heck, why not a "Bay View"?
You can get a view from the Francis Scott Key Bridge, though. Check out this link (for some reason, Google won't let me embed the image from the bridge. I wonder why. Hmmm.)
Already, this blogger, an apparent alum of Johns Hopkins University, used it to post images of the campus. I'd love to see how Baltimoreans start to use this feature and if anyone creates new applications with it for their Websites. Send us your links!
Comments
:-( My street is Hampden isn't included in street view (yet)
Posted by: Paul | November 6, 2008 9:54 AM
I am sad that the street I live on is not on the street view map. Then again, no one drives on my street unless they live there so I guess it's not that important. It will be interesting to see if Google fills in the gaps.
Also, I saw the Google street view car, with all the cameras on top, a few times when I was in Seattle last spring. It was really neat!
Posted by: aeb | November 6, 2008 10:35 AM
There are some high res cameras being used here just like the ones used in Europe. Take a look:
http://streetviewgallery.corank.com
Posted by: Mapper99 | November 6, 2008 10:46 AM
Interesting to note that when Street View came out yesterday, there wasn't the gaping hole in coverage downtown along North Charles that there is now. I wonder if they pulled that data on purpose, or if it's some random error, or what?
Posted by: Paul Capestany | November 6, 2008 11:11 AM
Curses! Gus, I've wasted an hour playing with this when I should be writing my Sunday column!
Posted by: dan thanh | November 6, 2008 11:33 AM
Hahaha! I swear the Google street view cameras got me in front of my house! If not me, definitely my car. The Canadians would be outraged.
Posted by: Liz Kay | November 6, 2008 11:55 AM
I'm glad for the high res imagery. The good quality photography gives me more of a "really there" feeling while navigating through the pictures, and it's that good quality that will be of more practical use to tour companies and real estate agents who want to sell people on a specific area. The resolution of so much of the early U.S. imagery has been degraded, apparently to blur faces and license plates. I hope Google replaces this imagery with better quality goods before too many years pass.
Posted by: Claudia | November 6, 2008 12:08 PM