Google Street View (GSV) Tutorial

Fruitcake

Google Streetview (GSV) can sometimes be a very useful tool when fighting an unfair parking invoice.

Do not try this on a 'phone. 

I hope you will find this brief tutorial of some help.

If you don't already have a desktop folder for fighting the invoice, I suggest you create one and keep everything in the one place for easy reference. If you have never done this sort of thing before, just break it down into a series of simple tasks, and do them one step at a time. I taught myself how to do this by looking stuff up on the internet. I've done the research for you, so you now just need to follow the instructions. 
You will find it easier than navigating Ikea and assembling flat pack furniture.

First, you need the address of the car park or the place where the alleged event took place. The more precise you can be with that, the better. This could be the name of the car park, the street name, the name of a retail park or hospital, and of course the name of the town/city etcetera. A house/building number and or post code is also a good starting point.

I find it easier to locate the place on a map first before switching to Streetview. Satellite views might also be of use.
To begin with, go to Google Maps UK.     
https://maps.google.co.uk

Type in as much information about the address you want into the Search Google Maps dialogue box near the top left of the page, then press return or click on the magnifying glass icon.
A map of the location with an information panel on the left should appear. If you are trying to retrace a route then you can use the panel to get driving directions. Otherwise, click on the left facing arrow near the top left to hide the panel.

You should now be able to navigate your way round the map to find the location you want. Once you have found the exact place, for example the street leading to a car park, or the entrance, switch to street view.
To do this, click and drag the Peg Man (the little person icon) in the bottom right of the map view to your starting point. 



As you drag the Peg Man around the map, it will flop about as if it is hanging from something, and a pulsing disc will appear underneath them. This disc is your aiming point, and you need to line it up with the place you want to start. When you stop, a dot will appear under the person as well as a thumbnail picture view so you can position it fairly accurately.



When you release the icon, a full screen picture view will appear. You can now navigate around by clicking, or clicking and dragging up, down, left, right, diagonally etcetera on the image. Arrows, crosses, and street names will be imposed at regular intervals on the image to show which way you are "travelling", and where the images were taken, so you can also "jump" along a street by clicking on each cross in turn.
It's a good idea to practice around a place you already know well such as your own town until you get the hang of it.

You should now see something like this, with the date the image was taken near the bottom right. It is important that this date can be seen when using GSV images as evidence. Note that any other tabs you have open will appear at the top, which you may want to close before you do a screen grab.



If you are lucky, the camera car will have entered the car park in question. Sometimes though all you can get is a view of the entrance and possibly entrance signs. Use the + - buttons to zoom in or out as required. Zoomed image resolution is not very good, and it may be difficult or even impossible to read wording on a sign.

If you are dealing with an historical case, there may be images from previous years. To search for these, click on the clock icon near the top left of the image.



This will reveal a time slider with a series of dots. Each dot represents the dates that the camera car previously visited.



Click on the dots in turn until you find the date you want, ideally, one either side of the date of the alleged event. After clicking on the dot on the slider, you must click on the image within the drop down box to bring up images from the date you want. Click on the cross in the top right of the box that dropped down when you clicked on the clock icon to hide it. Do NOT click on the cross in the top right of the full screen image.

Once you have found what you want, showing the best angle and view to support your case, take a screen grab/screen shot. On a Windows PC this is normally done by clicking Alt - Print Screen or Alt - prt sc at the same time. This should copy the image which you will then need to paste into a photo editing suite of your choice. You don't need anything fancy, so something like Windows Paint is perfectly adequate. 
Open the programme and select New, New Project, New Image, or whatever is needed, then paste the screengrab into it. In Paint, you just right click then click paste. You can now crop if required, then save it to a folder. If it is a residential site then you can also redact the location name if necessary. You can save it within the image editing programme, but I would suggest saving it to a desktop folder with all the evidence and documents you are using for your appeal/defence. In Paint, click Menu, Save As, Image, find the folder on your desktop, give it a file name, change the image type to jpeg, click save.

Now you need to upload the images to a web hosting site. I favour Postimages, but others such as Dropbox or tinypic are just as good. If you already have an account with a hosting site, make sure your real name does not appear anywhere, and ensure other personal photos are not accessible. Ideally, create a new account just for the parking event, and create an album of the parking photos. to go with other relevant documents

To post images on this forum, paste the URL into your post. To do this, click on the part of the post where you want the image to appear, then click on the icon at top of the post that looks like an envelope. (It's actually supposed to be mountains and the sun). Delete anything already in the text box that appears. Paste the URL of the image you want to post, then click enter.
If you are a Newbie and can't post links, change https in the URL to hxxps. One of the regulars will convert it back to a live link.
If you are using Postimages as your hosting site, click on the image you want, then click on Share, then click on the "copy" icon to the right of the line saying "Direct Link", then paste that into the dialogue box mentioned above. If using another site you will have to work it out for yourself, but it shouldn't be difficult.
Repeat the process as required. Type a brief explanation of each image in your post.


Other types of maps and street view programmes are available. Whilst the instructions may differ, the overall process is the same.
Find the location on a map.
Find the starting point for your search.
Find the image(s) you want
Save the images to a photo editing programme
Crop/edit the images
Save them to a folder on your computer.
Upload them to a web hosting site
Post the images on your thread

If anyone can think of simplifications or improvements to all of the above, please let me know.

Jenni_D

Excellent stuff!

Maybe @Coupon-mad will add a link to this thread from the NEWBIES thread?

Umkomaas

Super job Fruity, nice one. 👍

But will the blind see?

Snakes_Belly

Brilliant Fruitcake.  As I am sure that you are aware those pictures of the Derby Street car park have been used over and over again. 

Images are really important. Some people respond to images more than the written word including judges. 

beamerguy

Brilliant Fruitcake, thanks for your hard work ....  Now listed here

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6103933/abuse-of-process-thread-part-2/p1?new=1

Coupon-mad

I think the NEWBIES thread is currently closed, but when it is open and I am not so busy at work I will add this thread.  Thanks @Fruitcake!

MothballsWallet

And just to add a little useless fact: the "little person" as Fruity refers to the orange figure in Google Street View is known as "Peg Man".

This has been #MothballsWalletsUselessFactOfTheDay