Google Holodeck: StreetView In 360 Degrees.

May 27, 2009 - Google StreetView images are pretty cool, in how you can virtually spin around and see what’s on a street in all directions. But far cooler is a Google StreetView “Holodeck” simulator that Google has at its Mountain View campus. Climb into this, and you get StreetView scenes animated, projected on screens all around you, as if you were inside the camera itself.

I first saw Holodeck back in October, and it’s been kept pretty quiet within the company since. But now Google has brought it out as part of its Google I/O conference today.

Think of it as CircleVision For Streetview, CircleVision being the popular Disneyland and Disneyworld rides where cameras were used to film in 360 degrees. Images were then projected on the walls all around the audience and could produce such a sense of montion that people used handrails to keep themselves stable at times.[more]