Past Camera – Capture the Past with Google Street View

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Overview

This is a camera that allows you to capture the past scenery of a place.A normal camera captures “the present moment, ” but this one cannot take pictures of the present. Instead, it captures what once existed at that location—the buildings, streets, and landscapes of the past.

Example Photo 1

I photographed the site of the Mansei Building, a well-known Akihabara landmark that was demolished in 2025, using the Past Camera. Through the Past Camera, I

was able to capture the building as it once stood.

Example Photo 2

Although the restaurant is now white, the Past Camera can capture its earlier appearance in red.

How It Works

The camera retrieves historical panoramic images stored in Google Street View. Using its GPS location and orientation (direction and tilt) from onboard sensors, it extracts the corresponding “past photo” and displays it on the LCD screen. Each captured past photo is also saved to a microSD card.

Hardware Setup

• This camera is built on the M5Stack Tab5.
• When the shutter button is pressed, the GPS sensor obtains the exact shooting location and a WAV file with a shutter sound is played.
• The IMU and geomagnetic sensors (9-axis) measure orientation: the horizontal angle (compass heading) and the vertical tilt angle.
• The Google Street View Static API is used to fetch images based on this positional and directional data.
• The retrieved images are shown on the Tab5’s LCD screen and stored on the microSD card.
• The project uses several built-in features of the Tab5:LCD display, multi-touch controller, Wi-Fi, IMU (Inertial Measurement Unit), microSD slot and speaker.
• Additional components include a GPS sensor, a geomagnetic sensor, a shutter button and battery.

• I implemented a feature that uses the Tab5’s touchscreen to show debugging information. You can quickly check information such as latitude/longitude, yaw, roll, and the number of GPS satellites being tracked at a glance.

Development Story

My childhood home was demolished in 2024 and no longer exists. Before it was torn down, I tried to preserve it in many ways: creating 3D scans, taking drone footage, and capturing it with a 360° camera. Although the house itself is gone, it now lives on digitally—recreated in Unity, where I can “return home” anytime in VR.

Details of that project are shared here:https://protopedia.net/prototype/5854

While sharing the project on social media, I connected with others who also lost their childhood homes. Some regretted not having enough photos, saying they wished they could see their homes again. That’s when I introduced them to Google Street View’s time-travel feature, which allows you to look back at past views of a location. They were deeply moved.

From that experience, I came up with the idea for the Past Camera: a device that lets you stand where your old home once was, press the shutter, and instantly capture a photograph of the past using Google Street View.