A Google Car in Paris? [EDIT]

Posted on June 17, 2009 - Tags: Google

Today I've met in Paris something that looks like a Google Car. The one that takes pictures for Google Street. I hope I'm in the pictures, I would be very proud to see my face in Google Street ;)

[EDIT] Finally this car is not a Google Car, it's an IGN research center car. Thanks to all the people that comment this one.

COMMENTS

willima - 10/11/2010 11:07

YEs , even i saw this car some where around paris streets .
i thought, it was some sort of hijackers activity .

Bertrand - 11/14/2010 21:24

No.

But it looks like.

This is a 3D laser mobile mapping system (but it seems to be a quite old system, probably a 2 years old one... the new ones are far more smaller)

You have simultaneous registration of panoramic photos (like with google street car), stereo images, 3D pointclouds and accurate position of the car.

This vehicule is used to get georeferenced information about urban environment. The aim is to get dense 3D information in order to be able to produce accurate 3D models.

Here is an example of 3D pointcloud you can get with that kind of system : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXSVlnNFzV0

Bertrand - 11/14/2010 21:32

Sorry for the repetition, my browser gave me an error message each time I have tried to submit...

A last piece of information about this image : This car is from IGN research center. More information about it here :

http://www.calitel.eu/?p=9030

Nuno - 12/27/2010 13:54

It's not a Google Street car. It's one of the Google's self driving cars. The object on top is a laser 3D mapping system. It allows a street reconstruction that is then recognized by the software and interlaced with google maps, to make the auto navigation possible