Bring the Google Trike to Fresno

UPDATE!: Google is taking suggestions until October 28th for locations the Google Street View trike should visit in the United States.  There are six categories: Theme Parks & Zoos, Trails, Landmarks, Sports Venues, Universities, Pedestrian Malls.  I’d say Fresno has a pretty good shot with the Fulton Mall in the Pedestrian Malls category.  Google will compile the top vote getters in each category and then it’ll be up to the public to vote for the winners.  So click here and suggest the Fulton Mall, and spread the word!

ORIGINAL POST (07/24/09) “Fresno Foto Friday #11”
I like Google Street View. I use it a lot, especially when talking to friends and other folks about downtown revitalization. I like to show what I’m referring to, and Street View is a convenient way to do that. Unfortunately, we have a big piece of downtown that is inaccessible to cars: the Fulton Mall, which is the DCRD‘s priority for next 18 months until the area’s specific plan is complete.

So I started searching and discovered that in addition to their fleet of camera cars, Google also has camera tricycles. The trikes are being used to document certain university campuses and national parks in the US. One can only hope that Fulton Mall will be photographed at some point, but I decided not to wait. While researching keyhole markup language (the stuff that runs Google Maps), panoramic images and photo overlays, I discovered a web site called RealPlaces.com. This site allows you to create your own simple “street views,” using only still images. It doesn’t use panoramic images, and it’s lacking in certain features, but it’s very easy to use. So on Wednesday I went out to Fulton Mall and took around 250 photos from different angles.

Check out the results by clicking here. It’s not perfect (got a little dark toward the end), but hopefully it will be useful for now! Soon I’m going to try and create a real panoramic tour using Google Earth and KML.