SIEM REAP — The opportunity to explore Angkor’s Bayon Temple or study the intricate carvings at Angkor Wat is now just mouse-clicks away.

Unveiling one of its largest digital renderings of a world heritage site to date, Google today (April 3) announced that it is making 100 temples at Angkor — one of the most important archaeological sites in South-east Asia — available online on Google Maps’ Street View. This is the first South-east Asian heritage site to be launched on Street View.

Through the new imagery, users can virtually roam through Angkor’s prehistoric temples and experience the sites, structures and carvings through 360-degree digital imagery.

Using Street View cars, Trekkers and tripods to carefully photograph the exteriors and interiors of Angkor’s temples, more than 90,000 new panoramic images were captured. The Trekkers are wearable backpacks with a camera system made up of 15 lenses, each pointing in a different direction. A 75-megapixel image is taken from each lens every 2.5 seconds, and the best images are selected to be stitched together.

Among the operational challenges, the pictures had to be taken in a consistent way, and the transition had to be elegant, said Group Product Manager for Google Maps Manik Gupta. The scope of the project was also much bigger, compared to previous projects, he added.

“We hope people in Cambodia and around the world can experience these Cambodian cultural and archaeological treasures in an entirely new way,” said Mr Gupta.

Alongside this launch, Google released its 15th Street View trek, the Temples of Angkor, curated from the over 90,000 images that were taken.

The Angkor imagery is also be available on Google’s Cultural Institute’s World Wonders Project, where users can zoom in on famous artistic carvings, such as the Churning of the Sea of Milk or the Battle of Kurukshetra. The imagery is in addition to the near-300 pieces of Angkor-related objects on the Cultural Institute, such as 1940s black and white temple photography and artists’ renderings of what life may have been like in medieval Angkor.

“By putting online imagery from Angkor, the most iconic symbol of Cambodia, we hope to invite more people from around the world to learn more about the fascinating world of Khmer culture and art,” said Director of the Google Cultural Institute Amit Sood.

Street View, which currently covers more than 6 million miles in 55 countries, allows users to virtually tour and navigate through panoramic street-level images. Historic wonders and landmarks that are currently available on Street View include the Taj Mahal in India as well as popular trails at the Grand Canyon National Park in the United States.