Early days of Streetview: a memoir

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in google on (#3BJ)
Like it or hate it, Google's Streetview map interface exists and is used every day by all sorts of people. Getting to the point of a usable map interface wasn't easy. Here are some war stories from the trenches by Iain McClatchie, who participated in the effort.
We didn't know it at the time, but the problems we were having were essentially due to the high resolution we were trying to shoot. High resolution from a moving platform leads to short exposure times. Short exposure times require large relative apertures to get enough sensitivity. Compared to small format cameras, our focal lengths were fairly long (28 mm, IIRC), so that meant much larger apertures, much larger photocurrents, and thus the problems we were fighting. In hindsight, the two real solutions were lower resolution or CMOS sensors. Rather than try those, I tried to make the high resolution CCD work with shutters (the R3 camera) and choppers (R4).
It's a pretty amazing project and must have been an awesome time to be in on the fun.

History

2014-07-03 10:37
Early days of Streetview: a memoir
zafiro17@pipedot.org
Like it or hate it, Google's Streetview map interface exists and is used every day by all sorts of people. Getting to the point of a usable map interface wasn't easy. Here are some war stories from the trenches by Iain McClatchie, who participated in the effort.
We didn't know it at the time, but the problems we were having were essentially due to the high resolution we were trying to shoot. High resolution from a moving platform leads to short exposure times. Short exposure times require large relative apertures to get enough sensitivity. Compared to small format cameras, our focal lengths were fairly long (28 mm, IIRC), so that meant much larger apertures, much larger photocurrents, and thus the problems we were fighting. In hindsight, the two real solutions were lower resolution or CMOS sensors. Rather than try those, I tried to make the high resolution CCD work with shutters (the R3 camera) and choppers (R4).
It's a pretty amazing project and must have been an awesome time to be in on the fun.
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