Google Street View ventures into Hamad International Airport
Google released 360-degree images of Doha's Hamad International Airport last week, making it the very first airport in the Middle East and North Africa readily available to see within Street View on Google Maps for everybody on mobile and desktop.
Street View is a feature of Google Maps that lets users explore places worldwide like landmarks, natural wonders, as well as culturally and traditionally considerable sites. Today, anyone with a mobile phone can explore the airport's 23-foot Lamp Bear sculpture and other attractions in the 600,000 square-metre building.
Google utilized the Street View trolley, a push-cart equipped with devices to pick up indoor images: a breathtaking cam to collect 360-degree views, lasers to capture ranges to walls, motion sensing units to track the Trolley's position, and a laptop to run the system.
Ulf Spitzer, Head of Street View, stated: "The Google Street View group continues to go to remarkable locations around the world due to the fact that we know that our users love to see them and experience these locations online. From Urs Fischer's Lamp Bear sculpture to the global brand names that line Hamad International Airport's duty free, travellers around the globe now have the airport's boarding gates, lounges, and much more at their fingertips."
Hamad International Airport is the most recent indoor Street View experience in the region and signs up with other structures such as Dubai's Burj Khalifa and Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque. It is also the most recent in a long list of the area's landmarks available for the world to explore online, including Petra in Jordan, the Pyramids of Giza, and the Liwa Desert in Abu Dhabi.
Google Maps' Street View feature started in 2007 and today covers thousands of cities around the world. The program consists of capturing 360 degree images of streets, amusement park, university schools, pedestrian shopping centers, landmarks and zoos.
Doha's world-renowned airport now signs up with other worldwide landmarks on Street View such as Big Ben and the Eiffel towers.
The images of the airport's interiors will now be available on Google Maps and can be seen on the Street View Gallery.
