Knowing how to use Street View on Google Maps will let you visualize places using your computer, phone or tablet. This is super useful if you're planning a trip and want to get a feel of the surroundings before you go there. It's also great if you want to show somebody a place, or if you're simply nosy.
Learning how to use Street View on Google Maps is incredibly easy, whether you're using a computer or mobile device. The steps are slightly different for computers and mobile devices though, and different for iPhone/iPad and Android. We'll cover them all in this guide.
6. By default, you'll see a map in the bottom window showing you where you can go. The places you can navigate and view in Street View are denoted by blue lines and blue dots.
If you'd like more Google Maps tutorials, make sure you read out guides on how to share location on Google Maps and how to measure distance on Google Maps. We also have tutorials for other software too. Why not check out our guide on how to use ChatGPT.
Peter is Reviews Editor at Tom's Guide. As a writer, he covers topics including tech, photography, gaming, hardware, motoring and food & drink. Outside of work, he's an avid photographer, specialising in architectural and portrait photography. When he's not snapping away on his beloved Fujifilm camera, he can usually be found telling everyone about his greyhounds, riding his motorcycle, squeezing as many FPS as possible out of PC games, and perfecting his espresso shots. "}), " -0-9/js/authorBio.js"); } else console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); Peter WolinskiSocial Links NavigationReviews EditorPeter is Reviews Editor at Tom's Guide. As a writer, he covers topics including tech, photography, gaming, hardware, motoring and food & drink. Outside of work, he's an avid photographer, specialising in architectural and portrait photography. When he's not snapping away on his beloved Fujifilm camera, he can usually be found telling everyone about his greyhounds, riding his motorcycle, squeezing as many FPS as possible out of PC games, and perfecting his espresso shots.
Google Street View provides panoramic 360 degree views from designated roads throughout its coverage area. Street View's API coverage is the same as that for the Google Maps application ( ). The list of currently supported cities for Street View is available at the Google Maps website.
Although Street View can be used within a standalone DOM element, it is most useful when indicating a location on a map. By default, Street View is enabled on a map, and a Street View Pegman control appears integrated within the navigation (zoom and pan) controls. You may hide this control within the map's MapOptions by setting streetViewControl to false. You may also change the default position of the Street View control by setting the Map's streetViewControlOptions.position property to a new ControlPosition.
The Street View Pegman control allows you to view Street View panoramas directly within the map. When the user clicks and holds the Pegman, the map updates to show blue outlines around Street View-enabled streets, offering a user experience similar to the Google Maps app.
Street View images are supported through use of the StreetViewPanorama object, which provides an API interface to a Street View "viewer." Each map contains a default Street View panorama, which you can retrieve by calling the map's getStreetView() method. When you add a Street View control to the map by setting its streetViewControl option to true, you automatically connect the Pegman control to this default Street View panorama.
You may also create your own StreetViewPanorama object and set the map to use that instead of the default, by setting the map's streetView property explicitly to that constructed object. You may wish to override the default panorama if you want to modify default behavior, such as the automatic sharing of overlays between the map and the panorama. (See Overlays within Street View below.)
You may instead wish to display a StreetViewPanorama within a separate DOM element, often a element. Simply pass the DOM element within the StreetViewPanorama's constructor. For optimum display of images, we recommend a minimum size of 200 pixels by 200 pixels.
The StreetViewPanorama constructor also allows you to set the Street View location and point of view using the StreetViewOptions parameter. You may call setPosition() and setPov() on the object after construction to change its location and POV.
The Street View location defines the placement of the camera focus for an image, but it does not define the orientation of the camera for that image. For that purpose, the StreetViewPov object defines two properties:
On devices that support device orientation events, the API offers users the ability to change the Street View point of view based on the movement of the device. Users can look around by moving their devices. This is called motion tracking or device rotation tracking.
As app developer, you can change the default behavior as follows:
The default StreetViewPanorama object supports the native display of map overlays. Overlays generally appear at "street level" anchored at LatLng positions. (Markers will appear with their tails anchored to the location's horizontal plane within the Street View panorama for example.)
Currently, the types of overlays which are supported on Street View panoramas are limited to Markers, InfoWindows and custom OverlayViews. Overlays which you display on a map may be displayed on a Street View panorama by treating the panorama as a substitute for the Map object, calling setMap() and passing the StreetViewPanorama as an argument instead of a map. Info windows similarly may be opened within a Street View panorama by calling open(), passing the StreetViewPanorama() instead of a map.
Additionally, when creating a map with a default StreetViewPanorama, any markers created on a map are shared automatically with the map's associated Street View panorama, provided that panorama is visible. To retrieve the default Street View panorama, call getStreetView() on the Map object. Note that if you explicitly set the map's streetView property to a StreetViewPanorama of your own construction, you will override the default panorama.
The following example shows markers denoting various locations around Astor Place, New York City. Toggle the display to Street View to show the shared markers displaying within the StreetViewPanorama.
When displaying a StreetViewPanorama, a variety of controls appear on the panorama by default. You can enable or disable these controls by setting their appropriate fields within the StreetViewPanoramaOptions to true or false:
You may wish to programmatically determine the availability of Street View data, or return information about particular panoramas, without requiring direct manipulation of a map/panorama. You may do so using the StreetViewService object, which provides an interface to the data stored in Google's Street View service.
Accessing the Street View service is asynchronous, since the Google Maps API needs to make a call to an external server. For that reason, you need to pass a callback method to execute upon completion of the request. This callback method processes the result.
A request using StreetViewPanoRequest returns panoramadata given a reference ID which uniquely identifies the panorama. Note thatthese reference IDs are only stable for the lifetime of the imagery of thatpanorama.
The function getPanorama() needs a callback function to execute upon retrieval of a result from the Street View service. This callback function returns a set of panorama data within a StreetViewPanoramaData object and a StreetViewStatus code denoting the status of the request, in that order.
Note that this data object is not a StreetViewPanorama object itself. To create a Street View object using this data, you would need to create a StreetViewPanorama and call setPano(), passing it the ID as noted in the returned location.pano field.
The following code creates a StreetViewService that responds to user clicks on a map by creating markers which, when clicked, display a StreetViewPanorama of that location. The code uses the contents of StreetViewPanoramaData returned from the service.
The Maps JavaScript API supports the display of custom panoramas within the StreetViewPanorama object. Using custom panoramas, you can display the interior of buildings, views from scenic locations, or anything from your imagination. You can even link these custom panoramas to Google's existing Street View panoramas.
Each Street View panorama is an image or set of images that provides a full 360 degree view from a single location. The StreetViewPanorama object uses images that conform to the equirectangular (Plate Carre) projection. Such a projection contains 360 degrees of horizontal view (a full wrap-around) and 180 degrees of vertical view (from straight up to straight down). These fields of view result in an image with an aspect ratio of 2:1. A full wrap-around panorama is shown below.
Panorama images are generally obtained by taking multiple photos from one position and stitching them together using panorama software. (See Wikipedia's Comparison of photo stitching applications for more information.) Such images should share a single "camera" locus, from which each of the panorama images are taken. The resulting 360 degree panorama can then define a projection on a sphere with the image wrapped to the two-dimensional surface of the sphere.
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