Google Street View beginning

The Google Street View project began in 2007, covering five cities in the United States, with camera-equipped vans literally driving block to block canvassing the entire cities.

Google Street View cars

Starting with vans and then moving to smaller wagons and even hybrids, the Google Street View cars are equipped with nine cameras that simultaneously take pictures every few feet. GPS and infrared technologies keep track of the images' locations.

Image processing

The nine images taken by Street View car cameras are then combined at the edges to form 360-degree panorama images, allowing the viewer to rotate all the way around, seeing an image of the entire location.

Street view privacy

Google only photographs images of public streets, trails and paths. They do not photograph private property. Both faces and car license plates are blurred in the images automatically by computer before uploading.

Street View expands

Today, Google Street View cars and vans have photographed many cities all over the world in countries throughout Europe, Asia and North America. Google has even added camera-equipped tricycles to reach areas that cars cannot get to.

Source:

Google Maps: Street View Behind the Scenes