The District of Squamish recently hosted a two person crew from Goggle Maps to capture images of Squamish's scenic trails by using the Google Street View Trike. The Street View Car and Trike were in Squamish over two days filming trails, parks, the Squamish Spit, Brennan Park Recreation Centre and the Squamish Adventure Centre. The images captured will be used with the Google Street View program giving people an opportunity to not only virtually explore our town, but now also our trails.
"The Google Street View partner program will provide worldwide exposure for our parks and trails. Anyone interested in Squamish will be able to explore our unique beauty virtually," said Mayor Greg Gardner. "The Street View imagery will integrate directly with the District's new GIS Map Viewer. It will provide staff and residents with another level of valuable mapping information at no cost," continued Gardner.
The District learned that Google Maps was filming in BC and District staff took the initiative to send a letter inviting the crew to include Squamish on their tour. Google Maps responded enthusiastically and added Squamish to their schedule.
Google Maps with Street View lets users explore Squamish through 360-degree street-level imagery. Typically a car is used to film and capture the imagery, but to visit places that are not car accessible Google designed other imagery collection platforms: the Trike,Car,Trolly and snowmobile.
Once the images are collected a lot of behind the scenes work needs to be done to create the 360-degree street-level imagery. The anticipated timeline for Squamish Trails to be available is summer 2012.
