Creating Art From Google Street View [Video]

So Google Street View art is now a thing, thanks to the design boffins at Canadian creative agency Teehan+Lax.

The Toronto-based firm has created a series of stunning clips in which a camera sweeps majestically through international landscapes, taking in major landmarks along the way.

However, this doesn’t require a round-the-world plane ticket and expensive video equipment. The videos created by Teehan+Lax take all their imagery from Google Street View and use a technique known as hyper-lapse photography.

Hyper-lapse photography is a kind of souped-up version of time-lapse photography. The difference? While time-lapse photography typically shows the passing of time from a fixed viewpoint, a hyper-lapse shot uses the same lapse photography technique, but with a moving camera. This can add a sensation of considerable speed and smooth motion.

Creating a video like the one embedded below would would usually involve a painstaking process of stitching images together.

Fortunately, Teehan+Lax has developed a do-it-yourself interface that lets anybody create their very own piece of Google Street View art in a matter of seconds.

The interface, which was built using the Javascript programming language, essentially lets you make any trip in the world look more exciting and dramatic than it will ever be in real life.

Before crafting your own Google Street View masterpiece, get some inspiration from Teehan+Lax’s demo below: