View Google's 360 degree tour of endangered reefs...

A diver operates the SVII, a camera mounted on an underwater scooter. Photo: Catlin Seaview Survey

• See the 360-degree images

Australia's Great Barrier Reef has been opened to an audience of more than one billion people worldwide as Google launches a virtual tour of one of the seven natural wonders of the world.
Users can log on to Street View on Google Maps and Google Earth and explore high-resolution, 360-degree images of the reef that are being gathered as part of the Catlin Seaview Survey, which documents the health of coral reefs around the world.

"The project is as much about the engagement as it is about the science," project director Richard Vevers told Fairfax from Monterey, California, where he officially launched the survey at the Blue Ocean Film Festival in front of an audience of scientists and filmmakers that included James Cameron.

 

The images - there are currently 15,000 and will eventually be up to 50,000 - were captured using the world's first tablet-operated underwater camera, the SVII, which incorporates three individual cameras that sit on an underwater scooter operated by a diver.



Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/environment/googles-360degree-tour-of-endangered-reefs-20120926-26lb1.html#ixzz27kNEoCqR


http://www.smh.com.au/environment/googles-360degree-tour-of-endangered-reefs-20120926-26lb1.html

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