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High-resolution photos mapping Suncoast roads

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BY RICHARD MULLINS THE TAMPA TRIBUNE

Published: February 20, 2009

If you see a cute, white Nissan hatchback driving around the Suncoast with a pole sticking out the sunroof, smile and wave, because it's taking your picture.

A small fleet of such cars are crisscrossing the area over the next few weeks, taking high-resolution images of every house, lot, building, yard and road in the area. If you walk by the vehicle while it was capturing images it took a picture of you, too.

The project is similar to Google's online "Street View" system that shows ground-level images of nearly every road in U.S. cities. Google drove the streets of the Suncoast in early 2008.

But the similarities end there.

Miami-based Blue Dasher takes much higher resolution images than Google, and takes many more of them, forming near cinema-quality scenes of roadscapes.

Its fleet of a dozen cars comes equipped with a set of seven high-resolution cameras pointed in every direction, including straight up. As the car goes down the road, the cameras take three to four images every second, matched to GPS coordinates along every road.

Later, technicians then blend images from each camera together to create a 360-degree photographic tunnel users can drive virtually through the landscape. What will Blue Dasher do with all those images? Sell them, hopefully. Among the company's business plan:

•Real estate companies would use the images on home advertisements, so they could tell potential buyers "Click here to watch what your drive to school looks like."

•Commercial developers could quickly scan potential sites for projects.

•Web services firms could buy the maps for things like online illustrated driving directions, running and biking routes or other trips.

Typically, Blue Dasher drivers cover between 70 and 80 miles per day, following prescribed routes, often driving down one side of the street, then another, plus every on-ramp and off-ramp of a freeway.

"People seem to be very curious," said Teca Albuquerque, a driver and field operations manager with Blue Dasher. "They see the car, stop by, ask what we're doing, wave."

The company's first application in use is in Miami-Dade County for The Beacon Council, the area's economic development agency, which makes images available for companies considering locating to the area.

There are places Blue Dasher can't drive its cars. On the Suncoast, some private developments or gated communities have declined to let the company's cars in to photograph the area. Drivers mark those areas for a follow-up call.

As for privacy concerns, company executives promise to remove images upon request.

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