google street view glitches revisited

google keeps its street view reasonably up-to-date by refreshing it periodically, sending around new trucks with new and different cameras. this means that the street view glitches i found back in 2007 have long since disappeared.

but new trucks means new opportunities for glitches, as i discovered while digitally wandering the streets of indianapolis.

these glitches seem to involve a stitching error between the cameras at eye level and those pointed at the ground. if something happens to be physically close enough to the camera at near-ground level, it can end up pretty distorted:

a similar effect can be seen higher up—between the eye-level cameras and the ones pointed toward the sky—though it's less likely there'll be anything up there:

this last one's a real chance moment—a leaf fell on the camera:

update: click through the images to go to flickr... i've added street view links for most of them so you can see the glitches in their "natural" environment.

also, here's one more fun one: