Google Brings Street View to the Amazon

The Amazon rainforest is about to get the Google Street View treatment.

Google Street View is an awesome tool for planning trips, mapping out journeys and even just seeing places you wouldn't otherwise have the chance to see. You can check out London's Piccadilly Circus, the Sydney Opera House, the Eiffel Tower, the penguins of Antarctica, and the Guinness Brewery without ever leaving your home. Soon, you'll be able to add the Amazon rainforest to that list.

"A few members of our Brazil and U.S. Street View and Google Earth Outreach teams are currently in the Amazon rainforest using our Street View technology to capture images of the river, surrounding forests and adjacent river communities," Karin Tuxen-Bettman of Google Earth Outreach and Karina Andrade of Google Street View revealed today via the official Google blog.

"In partnership with the Amazonas Sustainable Foundation (FAS), the local non-profit conservation organization that invited us to the area, we’re training some of FAS’s representatives on the imagery collection process and leaving some of our equipment behind for them to continue the work. By teaching locals how to operate these tools, they can continue sharing their points of view, culture and ways of life with audiences across the globe."

Google and FAS will photograph a 50km section of the Rio Negro River, extending from the Tumbira community near Manaus to the Terra Preta community. The company plans to use the Google Earth Trike (a tricycle with cameras mounted on top) to maneuver through the narrow dirt paths of the Amazon villages. The search giant will also mount the camera on a boat to take photos from the perspective of the boasts floating down the river. Then they'll begin the process of stitching together the photos to create the 360 degree panoramic shots we're used to seeing on Google Street View.