I am frequently on google maps, looking at interesting places and whenever possible I go down to street level to roam the streets of an interesting looking city. This morning, I noticed that while in street view, there is now a new icon on the left below the zooming bar which seems to enable a “3D movie” type mode on the image shown in the street view. I don’t have 3D goggles to see if the effect is really the real thing or this is just another April Fool’s joke by google. You decide and if you have 3D goggles, let me know if this is really 3D.

This is the original interface where the only new thing is the guy with the 3D goggles on the right hand side.

This is the original interface where the only new thing is the guy with the 3D goggles on the right hand side.

As soon as you click on the 3D goggles guy, the view changes to show the tell tale old style 3D comics view that you might have seen. Get out your Blue/Red 3D glasses to see the effect.

As soon as you click on the 3D goggles guy, the view changes to show the tell tale old style 3D comics view that you might have seen. Get out your Blue/Red 3D glasses to see the effect.

Another example:

A house in the suburbs of Toronto without the 3D view enabled

A house in the suburbs of Toronto without the 3D view enabled

The same house with the 3D effect enabled. Here you can very clearly see the double view.

The same house with the 3D effect enabled. Here you can very clearly see the double view.

Update: The 3D Goggles guy is still there at 10:16 AM IST. Will check again in about two and a half hours when it will be past 12:00 midnight at the Googleplex.

I couldn’t get my hands on the old 2 colour 3D glasses, however I had blue and red filters that I use with my SLR. They work well too. The effect is minimal yet pretty cool to have. Wearing those glasses for any decent period of time will give you a headache though.

Update: Its past 12 midnight in California. The 3D goggles are still available in google maps street view. Maybe this isn’t a April Fool’s thing.

I have had to remove the images from my blog and link to them from Picasa since all the traffic ate up all my bandwidth. Hope to not run out this time.

Update: It’s still there :-)

Another Update: Found on the official Google Maps blog.

Update (14th April 2010): The 3D goggles dude icon is no longer appearing in google maps street view.

Update (11th July 2010): As noted by a commenter, the 3D mode can be activated by right clicking on the street view image and choosing “3D Mode On”. However, this seems to be working intermittently.