Viewing life in Sonoma County, street by street

<p>Google Maps now includes detailed photos of Sonoma County homes, schools and everyday happenings.</p><p>Google published panoramic photos taken with a car-mounted camera that canvassed Sonoma County roads sometime earlier this year.</p><p>The photos are part of the company's free online maps, and expand on its already comprehensive street maps, satellite images and traffic information.</p><p>This latest service, called Street View, lets users stand virtually in the middle of the road and have a 360-degree look around.</p><p>Google launched Street View in May 2007, originally covering five cities, including New York and San Francisco. It now covers more than 100 cities across the United States and Europe.</p><p>With a few mouse clicks, a user can navigate from www.google.com to immersive photos taken in front of Santa Rosa High School, the Mystic Theatre in Petaluma and Wilson Winery outside Healdsburg. People can even explore the redwood-crowded neighborhoods of Rio Nido and Camp Meeker.</p><p>Users navigate down streets by clicking a white arrow, which creates a slow-moving flipbook effect. It gives a pretty good view of the surrounding area -- whether it's the man in Guerneville talking to his neighbor or the family walking into the Carl's Jr. on Farmers Lane in Santa Rosa.</p><p>Google, based in Mountain View, collected the images by mounting a camera atop a car and driving around the county. The camera is designed to take a series of photos from its multiple lenses, which are pointed in every direction but down.</p><p>In June, Google released a new round of Street View photos that included Sonoma County and areas as far north as Ukiah.</p><p>The company declined to specify how it determines its coverage area or why much of Santa Rosa was not photographed. It also declined to comment on when it plans to expand its Sonoma County coverage.</p><p>But the company's stated goal is to create street-level photos from every road in the world.</p><p>-- Nathan Halverson</p><p>You can reach Staff Writer Nathan Halverson at 521-5494</p><p>or nathan.halverson@</p><p>pressdemocrat.com.</p>