Yerevan to join Yandex.Panorama until the end of 2016

Yerevan will become a part of Yandex.Panorama until the end of the year. Shooting the street images took 6 days, and then Itel.am talked to the crew.

Deputy Head of Cartographic Service at Yandex.Maps Nikolay Kalashnikov noted that they took panoramic images of an about 500km area in Yerevan.

“Yandex.Panorama took panoramic pictures of all main streets of Yerevan. This will give the opportunity to take a virtual walk in Yerevan. First we intended to take images of a nearly 440km large area, but when we were shooting we realized it wasn’t enough. We took pictures of not only highways, but pedestrian streets as well. We also included such popular tourist attractions as Garni, Geghard, Erebuni Fortress, and others,” Nikolay Kalashnikov told.

According to him, the map of Yerevan will become a part of Yandex.Maps in November-December.

“Shooting takes quite long. To get one shot, the car with cameras attached to it makes 4 shots at the same time, which allows the viewer looking up, down, right and left. We take pictures every 20 meters in the center and every 50 meters in other streets. That is how we get quite a large number of panoramic images, - we got about 40,000 for a 500m area, each of them comprised of 4 pictures. In the end we had 160,000 images to give a good presentation of Yerevan and its places of interest,” Nikolay Kalashnikov said.

photo © Yandex

photo © Yandex

“Yandex.Panorama started operating a few years earlier than Yandex.Taxi. Yandex.Taxi mostly came to the cities where we already had Yandex.Panorama. In Yerevan it’s the other way round, Yandex.Taxi got here first. Moreover, Yerevan didn’t have a full panoramic map before, so Yandex.Panorama will be the first one. We realized the shooting together with Yandex.Taxi. It was their idea, as they value correct maps, which will help both the drivers and passengers,” Nikolay Kalashnikov added.

photo © Yandex

According to him, they didn’t spare efforts to make the results of their work appealing to Yerevan residents.

Program Coordinator at Hek4, the company that realizes panoramic shootings, Olga Bolotova told that they worried about facing obstacles.

“We thought that we would be stopped in Yerevan and asked what we were doing, or even prohibited from shooting sometimes. We had such experience in other cities, and we lose plenty of time on such incidents,” she said.

Olga Bolotova stressed that Yerevan roads are rather good, which helped them take pictures quickly.