Show HN: Search London StreetView panoramas by text

Inspired by All Text in NYC (https://alltext.nyc) by Yufeng Zhang I thought I would replicate something similar for London.

A searchable tool that lets you explore text captured across Google Street View imagery in London; shop signs, posters, graffiti, van numbers etc

tantalor 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

For [batman] it only finds this one poster,

But doesn't find this billboard, probably because it doesn't actually contain the text "Batman".

It should be able to match text query to anything, not just text.

	▲	dfworks 2 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		We were actually considering doing some object detection in a next run. It feels like there could potentially be some town planning applications like finding the distribution of rubbish bins vs litter on the floor
	▲	pbalau 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Also it doesn't find the Batman statue in Leicester Square.

dang 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Search all text in New York City - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44883304 - Aug 2025 (116 comments)

All text in Brooklyn - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41344245 - Aug 2024 (50 comments)

n1xis10t 2 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

What do you think it would take to do a global version? How much hard drive space does just London take up?

	▲	dfworks a day ago \| parent [-]
		Hi Author here, This doesnt really answer your question but hopefully gives some insight into our process. The main bottlenecks were breaking the fisheye-style panoramas into different perspectives (so text was more readable), passing it to OCR and acquiring the panoramas as there isn't an official API. Because of the above, we constrained ourselves from the outset. For example, the spacings between panoramas was 50m, we didnt traverse residential roads that were less likely to have signage, we only used the most recent panorama for a location etc If I interpret global as without those constraints (5m spacings, every road, all historic panoramas) then I think the first problem you'll run into is being rate limited by Google. Compute may be able to solve the other problems but it would be very expensive.

Gooblebrai 17 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

After inputting a text from my phone, I just get a:

Subscribe to Public Insights for just £29/month More data. Better value.

rahimnathwani 20 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

When I search "Colliers Wood", with or without quotation marks, each results match only one of the words.

card_zero a day ago | parent | prev [-]

Doesn't find R Soles.

Doesn't find Crystal Palace

	▲	dfworks a day ago \| parent [-]
		There are around 50 results for Crystal Palace, Ill have a look through the logs to see what might have gone wrong Sadly no R Soles though (A shoe shop formerly in Chelsea but now online) - however, just searching for profanities does bring back some graffiti