Google has launched Street View, a Google Maps feature, in India, offering users 360-degree panoramic street-level images. In 2011, Google began exploring Street View in India but soon after objections were raised and the company had to press pause, leaving the arena open for players like MapMyIndia.
The relaunch comes in the form of 360-degree interactive panorama view for 10 Indian cities to start with and the company has found local partners in Genesys International Corporation Limited and Tech Mahindra.
Google usually collects street-level imagery for the service itself using cars and bikes sporting cameras. But India’s new Geospatial Policy requires local entities acquire, collect, store and own the imagery data. And that is why the partnership makes sense.
Initially 10 cities — Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Mumbai, Hyderabad, Pune, Nashik, Vadodara, Ahmednagar and Amritsar — are part of the project which is expected to be expanded to more than 50 cities by the end of the year.
According to Genesys, the technology with them is now enabling capture almost 150,000 unique kilometers of street imaging data (Mumbai has 5,000 unique kilometers). Over the next 12 months Genesys is working to cover all of urban India street imaging.
Miriam Karthika Daniel, VP — Google maps experiences has said: “We believe the launch of Street View in India will be instrumental in delivering a more helpful user experience, from virtually visiting locations to getting a better sense of local businesses and establishments.”
Street View will also allow improvements on Google Maps as it can scan data on road conditions, which is not up to scratch in satellite imagery.