Justin Baird
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Street View Trike: Taronga Zoo

Street View Trike: Taronga Zoo

Google's pedal-powered Street View tricycle came to Australia at Taronga Zoo in Sydney, the first site in the country and the first trike capture in the southern hemisphere, reaching places a car could never go.

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Helped bring the Google Street View tricycle to Australia, with Taronga Zoo in Sydney the first site in the country and the first location captured by the trike in the southern hemisphere.

In January 2010, Google's Street View tricycle arrived in Australia, and Taronga Zoo in Sydney became the first site in the country to be captured, and the first place mapped by the trike anywhere in the southern hemisphere. Bringing Street View to places a car could never reach was part of my work on Google's mapping initiatives across Asia Pacific, and that is me pedalling the trike in these photos.

A camera that goes where cars cannot

The tricycle carried the same imaging system as the Street View cars, but on a pedal-powered rig small enough to go, in Google's words, anywhere a wheelchair can fit. That opened up zoo paths, parks, and campuses that vehicles could never enter, all captured under the same privacy policies as the car fleet, with faces blurred and capture times withheld.

Justin riding the Street View trike at Taronga Zoo, with giraffes and the Sydney skyline behind.

Justin riding the trike through the zoo as visitors look on.

Mapping the zoo

Winding past the giraffe enclosure with the harbour and city behind, the trike gathered the imagery that would put Taronga Zoo on Google Maps.

Justin with the Street View trike beside the giraffe enclosure at Taronga Zoo.

Justin at the controls, with the Google Maps rig mounted on the back of the tricycle.

The trike continued a theme that also drove Underwater Street View: using immersive imaging to bring people to places most of them will never physically go.