If you were still on campus from 17 to 19 December at the end of 2014, you might have seen someone walking around with an unusual device strapped to his back. This device is called the Google Trekker camera and is used to photograph the environment for Google Street View.

Thanks to a collaboration between IT, Facilities Management and Google, various locations on our own Stellenbosch campus have now been mapped and are available on Google Street View.

“Google Street View is a technology featured in Google Maps and Google Earth that provides panoramic views from positions along many streets in the world. It was launched in 2007 in several cities in the United States, and has since expanded to include cities and rural areas worldwide. 

Google Street View displays panoramas of stitched images. Most photography is done by car, but some are done by trekker, tricycle, walking, boat, snowmobile, and underwater apparatus.  A Trike (tricycle) was developed to record pedestrian routes including Stonehenge, and other UNESCO World Heritage sites.

In 2010 a snowmobile-based system captured the 2010 Winter Olympics sites. Trolleys have been used to shoot the insides of museums, and in Venice the narrow roads were photographed with backpack-mounted cameras, and canals were photographed from boats.”(www.wikipedia.org.za)

On 8 March a mzansi experience was launched on Google Maps. Together with the launch, our university street view images were also made public. The images can be accessed on phone and desktop.

Streets with Street View imagery available are shown as blue lines on Google Maps. When you hover over the mini-map in the left-hand corner, you will see where street map is available on campus.

You can now see the Rooi Plein, Botanical Gardens and Coetzenburg on Street View, as well as Jonkershoek. View the rest here and you can also click on the shortcuts at the bottom of your Street View to take you to various other locations on campus. 

More on the Mzansi experience.