Skyscrapers “inside and out” appears to be the latest project for Google’s Street View team, with the rollout Monday of new panoramic – truly panoramic – imagery from Dubai’s Burj Khalifa, the world’s tallest building.
The new set of pictures were taken from in and around the building over a period of three days using the Street View Trekker backpack, as well as a camera-laden trolley. Presumably its Street View car wouldn’t fit in the elevator.
“Described as a ‘vertical city,’ the Burj Khalifa is the world’s tallest manmade structure, towering over the Dubai skyline at 828 meters (2,716.5 ft),” Google’s Tarek Abdalla wrote in a blog post introducing the new material.
The Burj Khalifa Collection of Street View images includes the area around the building, the observation deck entrance at the bottom, the viewing spot on the 43rd floor, the highest swimming pool in the world on the 76th floor, the view from the 124th-floor observation deck, another view from the 151st floor and, not for the faint-hearted, the view from one of those window cleaning baskets you sometimes see clinging to the side of buildings – this one’s on the 73rd floor.
With an on-the-door ticket for the Burj Khalifa’s observation deck costing AED400 ($108) a time, or AED125 ($35) if booked in advance, Google’s Street View imagery certainly offers a cheaper alternative to turning up in person. If you’re not afraid of heights, the new material is well worth checking out.
