Reading Time: < 1 minThe Virtual Earth 3D blog has a post today that explains in detail how they create each 3D city. From the article: Microsoft’s acquisition of Vexcel Corporation, a 20-year old provider of remote sensing solutions, provided the Virtual Earth team with a broad background in photogrammetry, geospatial data production, and digital elevation model (DEM) generation […]
Google Earth/Maps
StreetView now included in the Google Maps API
Reading Time: < 1 minGoogle has just announced that they have added StreetView to the Google Maps API! It sounds like there are some neat things that can be done with it, and I’m anxious to give it a try. The post at the Google Maps API Blog has much more information — go check it out. If you […]
Hybrid view coming to Virtual Earth’s Bird’s Eye imagery
Reading Time: < 1 minOn April 10, Microsoft plans to release Virtual Earth version 6.1. Among the enhancements: Enhanced experiences with bird’s eye view in 3D, and new bird’s eye hybrid view. Reverse geocoding for U.S. users. Walking directions for North America and European Union users. Traffic-based driving directions. New cross-browser support. Improved printing support for maps. That’s quite […]
WorldWind finally gets road data… sort of
Reading Time: < 1 minOne of the problems with NASA WorldWind is that it uses public domain data, and most road data isn’t public domain. Therefore, there really isn’t any road data in the application, which makes it far less usable. However, OpenStreetMap data is public domain, and now you get get that data into WorldWind. It takes a […]
Techdirt suggests Google Maps should become even more wiki-like
Reading Time: 2 minAbout a week ago, Google started allowing users to add/edit/delete items from the map. It’s a neat idea with a lot of great potential, but opens up the possibility of vandalism. Timothy Lee of Techdirt has a great suggestion on how to help address the problem: …as far as I can tell, there’s no way […]
March Madness in Google Earth
Reading Time: < 1 minThe Google LatLong blog has just released a KML that maps the location of all 65 teams in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. It’s a pretty simple file, but it’s interesting to see them all placed on the map. You can download the file here.
Google Chart API now does maps
Reading Time: < 1 minThe Google Chart API has just released a new version. Among the new features: No limit on the number of requests. Support for maps! USA state maps, other country maps, world maps, etc. It’s quite slick. Click on the image on the right to see a chart of the states I’ve lived in (the lighter […]
MapQuest keeps trying, but still can’t get it quite right
Reading Time: 2 minI’ve been quick to give MapQuest credit for effort, as they’re really trying to catch up the big boys now that their lead is quickly shrinking. Yesterday they introduced live traffic. It looks very similar to the traffic info on Google Maps, but with more detailed information. The screenshots look pretty nice: Here’s the problem […]
Add new locations to Google Maps
Reading Time: 2 minA while back, Google Maps gave people the ability to edit the locations of businesses. If you know of a local business that has moved or closed, you can edit it on the map. These screens show me removing a local Dairy Queen that recently closed: Now they’ve enhanced the user editing feature of Google […]
Read an entire magazine in Google Maps
Reading Time: < 1 minThis is a very creative use of Google Maps — all of the pages of a magazine tiled onto the surface of the map, to let you zoom and skim through the entire thing. The site is Zkimmer. It’s certainly a unique concept, though I have to question the usefulness of it. I think there […]