August 7, 2006
Goggles
Chocks Away!. Using Google Maps as a backdrop, Goggles should occupy you for all of ummm...... 23 seconds.
Posted by weaver at 12:03 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The Red Planet
To complement Google Maps and Google Moon, there is also Google Mars.
Posted by weaver at 11:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
September 12, 2005
Personalised mapping
Experimenting with the Google Maps API to custom build a map for a site, produces this little gem for Metheringham.
You can move the map around and zoom in and out but there's a lack of decent imagery at the higher resolutions.
Posted by weaver at 10:57 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 24, 2005
Virtual Earth - first look
Virtual Earth Beta.
Oh dear, in all the initial excitement, it would appear that Virtual Earth has fallen over. The servers can't cope with the demand and are refusing connections. Its the fault of those people at Slashdot. I'll be patient and wait for tomorrow's official announcement.
First impressions are that Virtual Earth is nowhere near as good as Google Maps. For a start its misnamed - It should be Virtual US, as the rest of the world barely exists. Using the search facility to find London, UK & Paris, France fails to find any location outside the US. Imagery is non existant for Europe. To be fair, Google Maps imagery is only patchy for Europe anyway. The World Trade Center is still their on the New York imagery. Oops, that'll please the majority of American citizens.
Zooming to Lincoln, UK on the road map and then switching to Aerial photo is interesting. Lincoln UK gets instantly transported to the US, fascinating. The zoom cursor is a bit erratic and not smooth or stepped like Google Maps. The pan feature is a direct lift from Google Maps. Nice to see that Microsoft can pinch (sorry... learn from) its competitors.
One plus point, I will give it is that, when it works, it works in Firefox as well as IE although some of the popup window options don't appear to work in Firefox.
Visual Earth gives the impression of an application that's been rushed out in a vain attempt to stifle a competitor's stranglehold. I wouldn't mind so much if they had taken the Google idea and built on it or expanded it in new directions. Sadly, MS have failed to do so. Overall, a poor imitation of Google Maps.
Posted by weaver at 6:34 PM
...and into the ring...
Virtual Earth Beta
.....steps Microsoft with their online mapping offering, Virtual Earth. Pre-release today pending an official launch tomorrow, its pretty similar to Google maps. We really do live in interesting times.
With the power of MSN serach behind it, will MS go to head to head with Google or will Virtual earth have a different spin on it to Google Maps?
Microsoft's view of the world is obviously Flat earth, unlike Nasa's World Wind and Google Maps/Earth.
I like the idea of the Locate Me feature but there is a dearth of imagery for the UK. Hopefully this will improve.
With this flood of mapping applications, its time to start a new blog category - mapping
Posted by weaver at 5:32 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 23, 2005
Getting better
Google. What a company. Not content with resting on their laurels and hot on the heels of the Google Earth release, they have improved their Google Maps offering.Undecided if you what a map view or satellite image, you can now have both, together, using the Hybrid option. As far as I can see the two line up perfectly.
It works by changing the alpha transparency level of the PNG images. This site gives a better idea of what is happening. Use the slider at the bottom of the image to vary the transparency.
As an added bonus, Google have also added a small scale bar to the bottom left of their map screen.
Posted by weaver at 11:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
July 20, 2005
Giant steps are what we take..
....walking on the moon.
Only 15 people have ever walked on the moon. To celebrate their achievement Google of Google Maps & Google Earth fame, have launched Google Moon using NASA imagery and showing all 6 manned Apollo landing sites.
I especially liked the view of the Apollo 11 site viewed at maximum resolution. It confirms something I believed as a child!
Posted by weaver at 5:25 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
June 28, 2005
Google Earth
Google have just raised the bar again. Released today is Google Earth. Starting with a view of Earth from space you can zoom into anywhere on the planet, and then tilt to see it in 3d and then pan and then zoom and then find places and then.......
Its like Nasa's World Wind but with a much much smaller download. With a good broadband connection its fast, very fast.needs a reasonable specc'd machine with a decent 3d graphics card but wow, its brilliant....... even some good imagery of the UK , mainly London..
Some cities in the US have 3d buildings that can be added as an additional layer to make tilting even more exciting.
Absolutely fantastic. Well done Google.... oh and its free......
Posted by weaver at 10:23 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack