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together with Google

Portview

Google revolutionised the way we travel the planet without actually moving from our home with Google Streetview. How often have you checked out what a street looks like before you drive there? Is there parking alongside the street? Is it a nice neighbourhood? Are there trees? And we had a blast looking at beautiful underwater images of coral reefs when Google Ocean commissioned the Catlin Seaview Survey, commonly known as the "Underwater Streetview" project.

Anyone who takes a boat to a new port has the same questions. What does it look like? Where do I turn? Are there big scary ferryboats at the entrance? Where is the capitainerie?

Thanks to our long partnership with Google on other projects, we've started the conversation whether it wouldn't be possible to do a similar collect of imagery and make it as widely available as Streetview. Google saw the value and the partnership - and the product Portview - was born.

During 2014, we're collecting imagery of some signature ports in the Mediterranean but later on we'll be opening up the project to any port that would like to show up on Google Maps for a look from the sea. Interested marinas and ports may contact us now to get on the planning for 2015.

The imagery will look similar to the San Francisco Shoreline collect, done by Marine Advanced Research using their WAM-V platform. We are using jetskis and rigid inflatable boats to run a Google Trekker camera from, and we are closer to the objects, but the idea is similar.
Sea ID then offers a layer of information on top of the images. Berth information, navigational markers, regulations etc. Anything you need to get into port safely.