When Google introduced the Satellite View feature into its sprawling Maps program, many idle workers found a new productivity-sapping pastime. Satellite View opened up a world that had hitherto been reserved for traffic-chopper pilots, hang-gliders and wealthy penthouse-owners. Its close-up bird's-eye views of places like Manhattan, Miami Beach and even Yellowstone provided endless hours of enjoyment for everyday Americans.
With its breathtakingly realistic representations of streets, houses and rural roadsides, Google's Street View feature engendered a similar revolution. Now that the program has broadened its reach to virtually every city and hamlet in the country, it's appropriate to take a moment to assign credit to the hardware that makes it possible. After all, this eye-opening perspective wouldn't exist without the contributions of the high-performance industrial vision cameras that Google mounts on its growing fleet of Street View cars.
In order to record the still images that it amalgamates to form its street-level views, Google mounts sturdy machine vision cameras on the roofs of each vehicle in its Street View fleet. It's important to note that these devices aren't the run-of-the-mill digital cameras that can be found on mass-market consumer-goods websites. To put it bluntly, these high-end cameras operate on a far higher plane than the machines that most regular folks use. They're also mounted on sturdy, specialized pieces of equipment and controlled by finely-calibrated pieces of hardware.
Each Google Street View vehicle is equipped with 15 of these robotic vision cameras. This eliminates blind spots or "holes" in the pictures that the cars transmit and increases the speed and efficiency with which they can work. Their efficacy is further enhanced by the accessories and add-ons that Google purchases from these cameras' distributors. In order to capture perfect shots on the first try, machine vision cameras require customer-tailored lenses, light sources and frame grabbers. The most trusted industrial vision camera distributors in the country are willing to work with their customers to provide customized accessory choices for virtually every situation and need.
In fact, Google and other end-users prefer to work with vertically-integrated machine vision camera distributors that offer a full range of camera accessories. Since this technology is constantly being adapted to new uses, vertically-integrated distributors are able to respond quickly and effectively to the needs of their valued clients.
Thanks to the tireless efforts of high-tech camera manufacturers, the machine vision camera technology on which Google relies has steadily improved since Street View's introduction. Today, the quality of the program's in-town images mirrors that of the high-definition cameras that record major-league sporting events. Thanks to the vertically-integrated distributors of these essential devices, the average American worker can look forward to spending his or her downtime exploring increasingly life-like recreations of the places that he or she has always wanted to visit.