Google Street View .

Just been reading about the above . How there are places that don’t appear on it for opposite reasons . ” Hidden” mansions in certain cities and ” hidden” slums in other cities. 2 very different ends of the spectrum.

Anyway I looked our address up remembering the car we had at the time this linking it to when it was recorded. I was surprised to see that it’s been updated this Summer, our current car on the drive , drivers door and garage door open so I was in there scratching about . I can also see it was before we had our driveway redone so narrows it down even more , I’m guessing there’s a date on there somewhere.

My question is though why does that need to be updated at all ? It’s not as if the houses in our road are going anywhere anytime soon ?We still have the estate agents leaflet from 1982 , you could use that picture, apart from new windows and door nothings changed . It’s a single lane road there’s nowhere for any extra housing to go.

Can’t Google discount roads like that and just use their existing image?

Maybe this could be merged with the “Could we have a nice map of what’s on the ground” thread. 😉

My mate’s wife was very grateful Google Streetview was updated as you used to be able to see her in the bedroom window wearing a towel, apparently.

Lovely girl, but I never bothered checking that story.

It’s entirely up to Google what they update and when. How would they know nothing has changed without going there? And if they’ve driven there to take new images they may as well use them, they’re likely to be higher quality too.

If you ever feel the urge the old street view images are available!

Very useful tool for checking a sites recent history, and now looking into bathroom windows apparently…

What I would say is that it’s daft that Google, Apple and others have competing vehicles roaming around doing the same job. It would make far more sense for them to pool resources and share data. But I guess that’s not the tech bro way…

Why and when to update the view?

Not sure of Googles approach but the Ordnance Survey used ’20 house units of change’  within a given area. I don’t remember the measures and they were quite archaic from memory, measured in ‘chains’ or the distance a man could walk carrying a theodolite and tripod in a morning.

Basically the surveyors would look around the area and if there were 20 new houses, or perhaps 1 new roundabout, 5 houses and a road junction then they would do a proper survey and update that bit of the map.

Anything changes – houses, road markings, road signs, new roads. I love google street view – use it all the time for scoping stuff out if I’m driving somewhere (what are the roads like, access problems, speed bumps etc).

Isn’t it linked to Google Earth? You can change the map views by years, which I’m sure some people find a use for.

What I would say is that it’s daft that Google, Apple and others have competing vehicles roaming around doing the same job. It would make far more sense for them to pool resources and share data. But I guess that’s not the tech bro way…

This is not some new tech bro problem – throughout history cartographers have been very protective of their “content”.

Can’t Google discount roads like that and just use their existing image?

They must do that to an extent. Our road on streetview is from 2008. Apparently quiet suburban cul-de-sacs meet their criteria of not worth bothering with. Other roads around us are much more up to date. Unfortunately openreach seem to have the same approach with their fibre installations plans.

We still have the estate agents leaflet from 1982 , you could use that picture, apart from new windows and door nothings changed . It’s a single lane road there’s nowhere for any extra housing to go.

Can’t Google discount roads like that and just use their existing image?

how would Google determine which bits of their survey change frequently and which never change?  How do you know what the Google street view “customer” is interested in seeing? Is it quicker, easier and more robust to simply scan “everywhere” rather than try to work out your priority areas?

I started a thread about this a few weeks ago. I could pin my Streetview down to a particular day in 2022 as I was loading kids bikes up for a trip to the pump track. There were five of us going so you can see me loading up the rear bike carrier, which I hardly ever use. Then, randomly, a few weeks ago they reverted back to images taken in 2008.  It doesn’t bother me, it just seems odd to revert back to images that are so old.

A 3rd party contract  mapping vehicle went up my street this morning – noticeable as we get maybe 2 cars an hour up the street.

Be interesting to see if that’s the Google car.

Our street view has the previous owners cars. The 18ft apple tree was 4ft high and the extension hadn’t been built.

We have lived here 15 years

Also as it seems unknown. The date and the revisions are available at the bottom of the screen. Just press the address and it shows you the current image date and the previous images of the same location available to move to