No doubt, Street Viewing  (for example, Google Street Viewing) introduced a new dimension to the way we represent and map places. Though movie mapping can be traced back to more than three decades ago. Flat maps, 3D models, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Google Static Street Viewing seriously coming into a confluence.

With the evolving power of computing and web technologies, these stuffs are becoming absolutely interesting and changing the way we perceive this subset of reality (the world).

Presently Street Viewing, for example Google street viewing  affords us to have some kind of  ability  to travel virtually over some areas from within your system on the web without being there physically, ”surrogate travel” in space. Historical views of some places are also possible, giving one the ability to compare the same scenes as they change over time.

However, current street views are static, as if there is a pause in time. I am ernestly looking forward to 4D  dynamic street views and video web maps. The system that presents to us, 3D geo-tagged  photos and Videos of places as the scenes change in time. We will not just be able to have some  sort of ”surrogate travel” in space, but also in time.

Looking at technologies such as CCTV, Augmented reality, smart phones that have the ability not only to submit photos and videos but also the ability to send live or near-realtime feeds of photos and videos of places and events, I guess this 4D street viewing is not far fetched.

The Guardian has an interesting article today in this perspective: Going places: A history of Google Maps with Street View