Getting Google's Street Views

Immersive Media is the Canadian outfit behind Google Maps' new 360-degree images. What will its unusual cameras shoot next?

by Douglas MacMillan

Immersive Media's 11-lens camera, the Dodeca 2360

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Maybe you've seen one cruising the streets in your city: A platinum gray Volkswagen Beetle with a camera that looks like a small disco ball fixed to the roof. They've been driving the streets in major cities across the country, snapping some 125 million images to be digitally woven into 360-degree views of everything from New York's South Street Seaport to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood.

The fleet of VW (VOWG) Beetles is the brainchild of David McCutchen, a 56-year-old entrepreneur who has been trying to make the Web three-dimensional. He's the co-founder and chief technology officer of Calgary (Alta.)-based Immersive Media (IMSVF), a company that may have a good shot at doing just that. For example, Street View, the popular new feature on Google (GOOG) Maps, is made possible through an exclusive license with Immersive.

When 10 Lenses Just Aren't Enough

Welcome to the world of immersive imaging, a nascent technology still being perfected by a handful of patent-holders. Immersive Media is one of the pioneers in the field—it began developing digital 360-degree still images and videos in 1994. The technology is used in security and real estate applications, but may be ready for more extensive consumer tasks.

Immersive Media's secret weapon is an 11-lens camera, called a Dodeca 2360. It takes 11 simultaneous video or still shots, which are seamlessly stitched together by a software program so that viewers can shift continuously from one perspective to the next. "There have been a lot of people trying to do this since the camera was invented, whether [with] a fish-eye lens or with a dozen cameras strapped together," says Immersive Chief Executive Myles McGovern.

Immersive manufactures the Dodeca and holds numerous patents on the device. What makes it unique is its dodecahedron (12-sided) shape, which captures images consistently in every direction. Anyone can buy one for around $100,000, but only a handful have been sold—mostly to government agencies.

Finding an Audience

McCutchen came up with the idea after working in Hollywood special effects, doing film graphics for Terminator 2, Total Recall, and other big-budget blockbusters. Back then he hoped media companies would take immediate interest. But until now, the technology has been so expensive and the Web bandwidth needed so overwhelming that its only practical applications have been in defense, security, or real estate for video surveillance systems; military reconnaissance; and virtual home tours. Through the '90s, Immersive eked out a tiny business from those fields, and U.S. government agencies were its biggest clients. The company reported revenues of $2.5 million in 2006 and expects to turn its first profit this year.

Immersive has been itching to get into the consumer market. In 2005, McGovern approached all of the major search portals with a wacky plan: Fix Dodeca cameras to the roofs of cars, drive them through every street in every major city, and piece the resulting 360-degree images together with existing online maps. Several portals were sold on the idea, says McGovern, but Google was the most attractive suitor because of its tight grip on online mapping.

Street View launched in May with images of five cities, four of which were captured by Immersive Media (Google itself shot San Francisco). Many more cities will be rolled out in coming months—so far, Immersive has shot about 45,000 miles in 35 cities. That amounts to around 125 million individual images. Currently the Beetle fleet has six cars in North America and three cars rolling through cities across Europe.