The Google Maps panoramic contents service has recently updated its images of the Zoo and, starting today, it will have a virtual tour of the main paths inside the Barcelona Zoo.

This initiative is the fruit of the collaboration between the Catalan Autonomous Government’s Centre for Telecommunications and Information Technologies (CTTI) and the American company Google, whose aim is to enable virtual visits to the main tourist, cultural and architectural attractions in the country.

Google technicians use a portable system called the Trekker that they wear on their backs like a rucksack, so they can reach areas that their typical cars cannot. The camera in the rucksack is equipped with 15 lenses that take 360 degree instant snapshots every 2.5 seconds. The recordings are shown over previously taken background images from satellites that create the popular Google Maps. Further, the images can also be viewed in virtual reality format by using a smartphone and Google Cardboard, a viewer.

Google Street View is a technology used by Internet browsers around the world that appears on Google Maps and Google Earth and provides panoramic views from different positions along many streets of the world.  The new recording of the Zoo is an update from the previous contents published in April 2011, which Google operators filmed inside the park for the first time, allowing for a different sort of route through the facilities.