Google Street View team captures the Grand Canyon with ‘Trekker’ backpack camera

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Google already offers a number of remote locations that are hard to capture with its regular Street View cars and trikes, but today it announced it is capturing even more 360-degree imagery using a new wearable backpack camera system called “Trekker”. As highlighted in the video above, the backpack allows the Street View team to capture areas on foot that it normally couldn’t access with its Street View vehicles. The team’s first project brings it to the Grand Canyon where the Trekker will collect imagery that will soon go live on Google Maps for users to explore the popular destination:

The narrow ridges and steep, exposed trails of the Grand Canyon provide the perfect terrain for our newest camera system. The Trekker—which its operator controls via an Android phone and automatically gathers photos as he walks—enables the collection of high-quality imagery from places that are only accessible on foot.

Among the locations Google will capture is the “portions of the South Rim at Grand Canyon National Park, including the ridge, the famous Bright Angel Trail, South Kaibab Trail.” Google said the new imagery would soon make its way to Google Maps.

It also explained the new Trekker backpack camera is operated with an Android device:

The narrow ridges and steep, exposed trails of the Grand Canyon provide the perfect terrain for our newest camera system. The Trekker—which its operator controls via an Android phone and automatically gathers photos as he walks—enables the collection of high-quality imagery from places that are only accessible on foot.