Proposal of System for Calculating Sky View Factor Using Google Street View

Abstract

In recent years, big data entered use in various fields. Google Street View (hereinafter called “GSV”) can be regarded as open big data, and its images can be obtained using API. The streets can be viewed 360° horizontally and 290° vertically from each point on the web. In addition to those, zooming up is available, and the viewpoint can be moved approximately 10 m forward or backward to/from the current point. The original image to provide the view is the panoramic image associated with the latitude and longitude information on the street consecutively at intervals of 10 m, and they exist as massive data on the web. We determine the area of the sky using these images from GSV. In this research, we calculate the sky view factor (hereinafter called “SVF”) in an extended area by defining the area of the sky with the SVF and utilizing the computer.