Google Maps Now Cover Whole World

GregBryant writes "They haven't blogged it yet, but maps.google.com has added some additional scaling-out, and maps of the entire world are available. Only country names so far (except in the US, Canada & UK) but it's still nice to finally click back & forth between the Satellite imagery and some real maps, even if their proportions don't quite match."

Comments

Professionally, I Love This

[geomon]

Getting satellite views of physiographic features from a readily available source is truly one of the best things to come from the internet. The only downside to the Google satellite images is that the highest resolution images cover metropolitian areas. This is great for folks who use it for urban planning, environmental impact assessments, historic studies, etc., it doesn't do much for geologists or geographers. Still, it is free.....

As a geologist it is nice to have aerial tools on line, especially when some of the other taxpayer funded sources of data have been taken offline by private companies. While I don't object to paying for data produced by private companies, I get a bit steamed with the idea that I have to pay *twice* for government-generated data. I understand the necessity to save the taxpayers money, but in the case of topographic, DEM, and DLG sources generated by the government, we have already paid for most of the cost of production; hosting is a fraction of cost for agencies such as the USGS.

Even if hosting were a significant cost, paid advertising could cover the cost and provide a good income for any company interested in providing the service for the government. The fees that some of these charge for taxpayer-subsidized data is rediculous.

Thanks again to Google.

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[Momoru]

It also appears that for North America (maybe about as far south as Costa Rica) you can zoom in down to the 4th to last zoom level...it gets kind of pixelly, but from a geographer point of view, its neat to be able to pick out distinct urban and country areas in remote places like southern Mexico and Guatamala

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[dcclark]

The only downside to the Google satellite images is that the highest resolution images cover metropolitian areas.

Actually, it seems much weirder than that. Looking at my home state of Michigan, there are super-high-resolution bits out in the middle of nowhere. Someone decided they needed high-res photos of lovely fields and a bit of expressway. Usualy, I can't find any significant features, political or geographical, to justify it. Makes me want to put on a tinfoil hat sometimes... :)

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[Planesdragon]

Random guess:

All those burnt trees along the side of the highway (forget the @#$!ing number, haven't driven it in years) got a shot from above to determine how well the forest is recuperating.

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[tonsofpcs]

You can get most USGS GIS data[and that of similar agencies in other countries], including satellite images, for free online from State and Country websites. I have most of New York and New Jersey on my external hard drive.

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[OhioJoe]

maps.Google looks a million times better than maps.yahoo or mapquest (an aside: Ever notice that Mapquest USED to allow an "enlarge map" feature, but discontinued that feature a year or more ago?... that's when I switched to maps.yahoo) ... maps.Google also has a wonderful data entry process, where you simply type one of various ways to write an address, and it figures it out. BUT... on three different computers running WinXP, maps.Google has hung up, causing a browser crash in all three. I never had those problems with maps.yahoo or mapquest. I can't find an "enlarge map" with Google maps either.

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[fbjon]

So.. South Mexico is an american's idea of "remote"? :)

Re:Professionally, I Love This

[Momoru]

hehe actually yes...A lot of south mexico is not easily accessible, some of it is rebel territory, and its 3100 miles from where I am...you would consider the south philippines remote wouldnt you?

Well

[Neophus]

I still can't find area 51! dang.

Re:Well

[harks]

Look here: http://maps.google.com/maps?q=groom+lake,nv&ll=37. 272835,-115.798731&sll=36.518555,-115.561924&spn=0 .060081,0.085402&sspn=0.127029,0.120678&t=k&hl=en/

Re:Well

[cashman73]

Quite easy to find just northwest of Las Vegas,...

click here for aliens :-)

Re:Well

[Trollstoi]

I didn't know Las Vegas had "2005 Google" all over its ground. Did Google buy Las Vegas already?

Re:Well

[zymano]

Area 51 is no longer used to test spy stuff.

They have a new secret base somewhere.

Re:Well

[akeyes]

Didn't you hear?

Re:Well

[PakProtector]

No, they have a secret base somewhere. When a secret base becomes the old secret base, it's no longer secret.

On that note, has anyone in Gainesville, Florida noticed an increase in strange lights in the sky? Or funny noises at night?

Re:Well

[G-Licious!]

I'm going to cut their balls off for this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.179343,5.097656& spn=51.280426,113.818359&hl=en

(Take a look at the Netherlands.)

Re:Well

[SWTP_OS9]

Else just find Pahrump NV. Its close by Art Bells place!

Actualy the detail for Area 51 is more detailed than his town!

Re:Well

[WarPresident]

(Take a look at the Netherlands.)

...and there it is, squeezed in between Belgium (you don't see their name until you zoom in, too) and Germany, as usual. Your point?

Re:Well

[Pete (big-pete)]

You think that's bad, check out this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.179343,5.097656& spn=20.385598,52.207031&hl=en

-- Pete.

Re:Well

[potHead42]

The funny thing is if you zoom in the names are correct ;)

Re:Well

[G-Licious!]

Looks like zoom levels are not stored in the URL. At a certain level, belgium and the netherlands are switched around.

Re:Well

[Scrameustache]

I still can't find area 51! dang.

If it's a U.S. military secret, it's not on the maps, and satellites aren't allowed to take pictures of it.

This isn't tinfoilness either, they bothered to mention it in press releases about satelite imaging back in the "OMG whu if da terrists use [everything in existance]!1!!" days.

Re:Well

[jericho4.0]

"satellites aren't allowed to take pictures of it"

The fact that Area 51 (and a few others) are blurred out in US gov provided photos is no surprise, but lots of other people have satellites, and they can take whatever pictures they want.

Re:Well

[Scrameustache]

The fact that Area 51 (and a few others) are blurred out in US gov provided photos is no surprise, but lots of other people have satellites, and they can take whatever pictures they want.

They are called "commies".
Trained space apes use lasers to disable those cameras.

Either that or you never get security clearance to get within a hundred miles of a launch facility or any of it's employee's or employee's family ever again (i.e. they deport you to a small, weird island resort where you're given a numbered badge to wear on your black turtleneck).

For national security reasons, off course.

Re:Well

[zymano]

http://www.aliendave.com/UUFOH_DugwayProvingGround s.html

Re:Well

[Finuvir]

In today's modern galaxy there is of course very little still held to be unspeakable. Many words and expressions which only a matter of decades ago were considered so distastefully explicit that were they to be merely breathed in public, the perpetrator would be shunned, barred from polite society, and in extreme case shot through the lungs, are now thought to be very healthy and proper, and their use in everyday speech is seen as evidence of a well-adjusted, relaxed, and totally un(bleep)ed up personality.

So for instance, when in a recent national speech the Financial Minister of the Royal World Estate of Quarlvista actually dared to say that due to one thing and another and the fact that no one had made any food for a while and the King seemed to have died and that most of the population had been on holiday now for over three years, the economy was now in what he called "one whole joojooflop situation," everyone was so pleased he felt able to come out and say it they quite failed to notice that their five thousand year-old civilization had just collapsed overnight.

But though even words like joojooflop, swut, and turlingdrome are now perfectly acceptable in common usage there is one word that is still beyond the pale. The concept it embodies is so revolting that the publication or broadcast of the word is utterly forbidden in all parts of the galaxy except one where they don't know what it means. That word is 'belgium' and it is only ever used by loose-tongued people like Zaphod Beeblebrox in situations of dire provocation.

Weird..

[pigeon]

If I zoom in to a certain magnification, the labels of Belgium and the Netherlands are switched.. if I zoom further in, it's correct.. I do wonder what plans google has with their expansion to europe..

Re:Weird..

[LiquidCoooled]

I still can't deicide if thats a bug or a feature.

Re:Weird..

[BobVila]

Obviously Google is planning to buy Belgium and the Netherlands and switch them. They are getting close to running out of ideas of what to do with all that money.

Re:Weird..

[wed128]

of course you know that belgium doesn't exist...

Re:Weird..

[laurensv]

As I'm Belgian, I zoomed in and saw that besides the country names, some nature parks/lakes have their name indicated in Belgium/France.

Re:Weird..

[jerald_hams]

Here's another weird one. Go over the middleast totally zoomed out, and start zooming in towards Israel. zoom...zoom...the labels "Gaza Strip" and "West Bank" appear for two zoom levels but no "Israel". Weird, since they're not yet countries and cover less territory.

Re:Weird..

[Incadenza]

The GIS data is probably from 1830.

Re:Weird..

[Aardvark82]

As a Dutchman, I think this is an outrage. Don't worry, I've already reported this severe bug to Google Maps.

Re:Weird..

[msbsod]

You should see what the folks at CNN produce! It's a redefinition of Europe and the rest of the world.

http://www.sunfire.de/

Re:Weird..

[Kippesoep]

How will they manage to switch them only at certain zoom levels?

Just a few steps...

[orange haired boy]

Can't wait till the whole world is available. I think it'll mean Google will dominate the mapping industry, but, it's the best thing out there.

Re:Just a few steps...

[wwwillem]

Don't understand why people are so enthousiastic about the "world coverage" by Google maps. Besides the UK, not a single road or city in the whole of Europe. As if there are no German 'autobahns' :-).

But what can you expect from a mapping system that has taken lat/long N 38.35 / W 98.5 as the center of the world. This is not a joke, Wacoma Lake in Kansas is the origin (x=0, y=0) of Google's mapping system. Even the maps of the UK are relative to that coordinate system.

I love Google and the way they approach many issues. But technologically maps.google is more a brilliant piece of JavaScript than a well thought through cartographic system.

OK, mod me down..... :-)

Re:Just a few steps...

[Scrameustache]

Don't understand why people are so enthousiastic about the "world coverage" by Google maps. Besides the UK, not a single road or city in the whole of Europe. As if there are no German 'autobahns' :-).

Be patient, googlemaps are created by teams of hitchhickers with GPS equipment.
They write down the gps coordinates on a hand-drawn map of the square mile around that point and send this information back to base in a small metal capsule attached to leg of a trained pigeon.

Countries rich in falcons and other birds of pray should expect slower googlemap implementation. That is all.

So....

[Himring]

You could always do this in Civ as soon as you build Apollo world wonder....

Re:So....

[cashman73]

But we've already built the Apollo Program wonder of the world!! Or maybe this is just proof of that conspiracy that we never landed on the moon?!?! Or possibly, the civilization game needs to be revised to include Google as a new wonder of the world!! ;-)

Re:So....

[AndroidCat]

After you have the Apollo wonder, you still need the Internet Pr0n wonder before you can do it.

Well..

[PopeAlien]

Getting all the country names and rough maps is a good first step for WORLD DOMINATION!

Re:Well..

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

Getting all the country names and rough maps is a good first step for WORLD DOMINATION!

Hey I can see your house! It's all bright and shiny, like if it was covered in, I don't know, tin-foil or something. Most puzzling...

Anyway, I'm so glad you pointed that out. After all, before google, we NEVER had detailed maps of the Earth with country names. I even thought the planet was flat...

Re:Well..

[AndroidCat]

About those country names .. I wasn't too happy when the spray-painting helicopter flew over.

Re:Well..

[A beautiful mind]

The planet is flat you stupid heathen!

Can't you see from your own eyes? Even that ungodly google shows it's flat!


Yes. Humour.

Re:Well..

[game kid]

The evil Sphericalists tried to convince the world's people otherwise, so Google bought them and silenced the remaining heathens.

However Rosco P. Coltrane is not yet convinced of The Truth. He is a Traitor to the Masses, and so the War on Sphericalism must go on.

Re:Well..

[SnprBoB86]

lie, lie, lie.......
the full moon is rising over dark water
and the fools below are picking up sticks
and the man in the gallows lies permanently
waiting for the doctors to come back and tend to him,
the flat earth society is meeting here today,
singing happy little lies
and the bright ship humana is sent far away
with grave determination....
and no destination, lie, lie, lie
yeah, nothing feels better than a spray of clean water
and the whistling wind on a calm summer night,
but you'd better believe that down in their quarters
the men are holding in for their dear lives,
the flat earth society is somewhere far away,
with their candlesticks and compasses
and the bright ship humana is well on its way
with grave determination.....
and no destination, lie, lie, lie, ad infinitum

^^ Bad Religion - Flat Earth Society ^^

This is just priceless

[October_30th]

Although the rest-of-the-world region of Google maps is not that useful quite yet, I'm really looking forward to the day when I can get both street level maps and satellite images detailed enough to show buildings and planes of almost any region of the world.

Would you have believed it if someone had come to you ten years ago and said that in 2005 you can do that on the net for free?

Re:This is just priceless

[whathappenedtomonday]

you might want to try World Wind (but bring lots of time and a fat pipe!). Far better than google maps, more complete and with lots of different data sources to chose from. give it a try, it's free.

Re:This is just priceless

[October_30th]

Thanks, but it looks like I'll have to wait for a Mac/Linux version.

Re:This is just priceless

[whathappenedtomonday]

looks like I'll have to wait for a Mac/Linux version

hm not sure, see the WorldWind forum:

Have you tried Wine on Linux?
We'd be thrilled to see World Wind ported to other platforms, but we have limited development resources to do this ourselves. Anyone who wants to help with the effort is exceedingly welcome to do so. Indeed Nick Whitelegg is soliciting help for a Mono/Gtk#/OpenGL port--see the Developers' Corner pinned thread.

I wish

[interiot]

Japan isn't there yet, apparently... Here's tokyo... zooming in one more level on sattellite-view or two more levels on map-view results in blank data. ("we're sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region"). I think this has always been true of japan on google maps. So... has anything really changed?

Re:I wish

[kubla2000]

No, nothing has changed. It's been like this for a few months now... ever since the UK was mapped and imaged.

WOOOAH

[bmgz]

I was expecting this, but like not so soon. I was expecting a new continent at least every 6 months..

I agree.

[game kid]

On a side note, am I the only one who notices that dragging the zoom bar's handle has a smooth (fatbits or whatever one calls it) zooming effect* now?

Firefox users need not apply; I see it on IE only so far, so I'm guessing it uses script and their zoom "Microsoft extension to Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)." (rough translation: it's a non-standardized property)

Re:I agree.

[cirisme]

It works in Safari and Firefox for me... always has.

Re:I agree.

[WormholeFiend]

I use Firefox and I can use Google Maps without any problem.

Re:I agree.

[calidoscope]

Google Maps just plain doesn't work for me in Firefox

Hmmm. Works for me on Netscape 7.0 on Solaris/Sparc (unsupported browser version on an unsupported OS on an unsupported architecture). I did have to click the "load Google maps anyway" button.

Re:I agree.

[BLAG-blast]

Well, smooth zoom certainly doesn't work for me with firefox. It redraws/reloads the whole map each time, no matter how small a movement I make on the zoom slider thingy.

Re:I agree.

[QuaZar666]

now I can see how Netscape 7 might not be an unsupported browser but how is Solaris unsupported on Sparc hardware, unless of course you are running Solaris 10 on some ancient hardware.

Re:I agree.

[iminplaya]

What? Has the Mozilla suite completely dropped off the "map" now? BTW, Mozilla suite users need not apply either.

Re:I agree.

[itcomesinwaves]

If you mean that the slider slides smoothly up and down, then yes, it works in safari. However I think the poster is trying to say that as you drag the slider the map zooms in and out (not just after you release the mouse button). That doesn't work in safari on my machine.

Re:I agree.

[periol]

You're guessing? Without having any clue what "plain doesn't work" means (thanks for the technical language), and not working for Google, I have to wonder if you've turned Javascript off in your options. Or one of your extensions has.

Re:I agree.

[calidoscope]

I was referring to Netscape 7, Solaris and Sparc as being unsupported by Google for Google Maps - but it seems to work pretty well. My point being that Google was being very (unnecessarily?) conservative with their "supported" browser/OS/platform list.

My nearly 7 year old U10 is running 5.9.

Re:I agree.

[iminplaya]

I thought that's what I was saying. Hang on a sec, and let me re-read... tick...tick...tick...tick......tick......tick..... Ok, sorry I took so long. Yep, I was talking about smooth zoom.

Re:I agree.

[Sporkinum]

Ok, what I mean is that it draws the controls and the border around the map area, but the map area is bare. Javascript is on and functioning. Extentions are Adblock, Smoothwheel, Imagezoom, Tabbrowser Preferences, Objection, Permit Cookies.

Re:I agree.

[Sporkinum]

I just uninstalled Smoothwheel and Imagezoom which had no effect. If I disable Adblock, it works. If I list all blockable items for the page, it shows nothing being blocked.

Re:I agree.

[Safety Cap]

If I disable Adblock, it works.

Replace your broken adblock rules with some very good ones.

Make sure you read the instructions, though. Adblock settings matter.

Re:I agree.

[Sporkinum]

Thanks! Replaced my rules with the ones you mentioned and Google maps now work. I guess Adblock blocks stuff even if it isn't listed in the blockable elements.

Re:I agree.

[shm]

I had the same problem until today when I decided to find out WTF was happening.

Firefox:
Options->WebFeatures->Javascript->Adva nced

Make sure that Javascripts are allowed to Change Images and you should be good to go. /* I was lazy and switched on everything. */

Re:I agree.

[fbjon]

No, that's not smooth zoom. Smooth zoom is when it zooms at the same time as you drags. This works in Opera at least.

No. They don't.

[azav]

Enter San Diego in google maps.

Scroll down.

You'll see that the world ends south of the United States.

(not like we didn't know that already)

weeeelll, not everywhere...

[geeklawyer]

"We could not understand the location amsterdam, netherlands"

Re:weeeelll, not everywhere...

[knarf]

Not that strange that they can not find Amsterdam... They can't even find the Netherlands there where it is supposed to be. For some reason the Netherlands is called Belgium, while Belgium is called... the Netherlands.

Re:weeeelll, not everywhere...

[Sly Mongoose]

We could not understand the location barbados

Nice

[FullMetalAlchemist]

What I would like is the ability to register information on google, so that people google me an by doing it they can find a travelroute to my place in Sweden.
Hook it in with GPRS and GPS and my friend could always find where the fuck I'm at, especially useful when i visit Stockholm, a suck-ass town in which I always get lost...

Also...

[azav]

Enter Premium Pt New, Rochelle.

Zoom in.

Look at the text that says "We're sorry, but we don't have imagery at this zoom level for this region."

Looks pretty incomplete to me.

Re:Also...

[azav]

Try Panama Canal.

"We're sorry..."

Zooom RIGHT out

[LiquidCoooled]

And you notice that google have done it again.

There is at least 4 times more land mass than before.
The world population will have enough room to grow.

Thank you google.

Re:Zooom RIGHT out

[dustinbarbour]

Better yet, zoom out and then recenter the map to somewhere that was on the edge. The map keeps going! We can never run out of space! Man.. Google really is the most awesome company ever. They even made the damn globe bigger!

Re:Zooom RIGHT out

[dustinbarbour]

Stupid fuck face.. the highest you can score is the 99th percentile. There is nothing higher by definition. God I hate stupid asswipes.

Got my hopes up!

[Balthisar]

Oh, I was hoping this would mean that the best-in-class road maps would finally go south of the US border. I've ALREADY been able to see the Mexico satellite photos -- granted I had to drag along the highway to get where I wanted: Hermosillo and San Carlos, but they've already been there.

Still, can't wait to see what develops!

Professionally?

[khrtt]

If you are a geologist urban planner, or historian, why can't you buy satellite imagery? You'd get well-specified data, and not just some pictures from an unknown source. The cost of the data should be inconsequential if you have any kind of a budget. Having to pay twice for data from tax-funded sources is outrageous, but it doesn't make your life harder.

What I'm trying to say, professionals might have a use for this, but it shouldn't benefit them that much. On the other hand, if you are about to go hiking or hunting, or skiing, or fishing, then this is your only chance to see the area where you are going before you get there. It's also a great addition to driving directions. Would be even better if the imagery was real-time, or near real-time.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

If you are a geologist urban planner, or historian, why can't you buy satellite imagery?

I do. Re-read the original post.

The cost of the data should be inconsequential if you have any kind of a budget.

One of my customers is the federal government.

I think many of the folks who post here object to the notion that I should think of my budget as "inconsequential".

Having to pay twice for data from tax-funded sources is outrageous, but it doesn't make your life harder.

Wrong again. If I buy the data for a goverment client, you pay three times for the same data.

What I'm trying to say, professionals might have a use for this, but it shouldn't benefit them that much.

You don't spend much time analyzing aerial data, do you?

Re:Professionally?

[SquadBoy]

When I worked for the goverment we got all of our data for free from the source. After all it *is* owned by them. I call bullshit.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

I call bullshit.

Fine. Give me the URL for free USGS data.

It doesn't exist. It hasn't existed for nearly five years.

Re:Professionally?

[khrtt]

You don't spend much time analyzing aerial data, do you?

No. I spend much time designing electronics and software. I don't go bonkers every time a surplus electronics shop opens next door. I can't use surplus stuff for real work. Google maps doesn't seem to have been meant as a source of data for professionals - which is why it's so amusing that Google maps are so interesting to you - I'd thought you had your own, better, sources!

Re:Professionally?

[stampystamp]

Well, it's not a web application, but NASA World Wind was out before Google Maps. http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

I don't remember all the features, but when I last looked at it, it had a good zoom, which I like better than Google Maps. It also provides data from LandSat and USGS.

Unfortunately, it's Windows only, and now that I switched to Linux, I have to use Google Maps.

Re:Professionally?

[glass_window]

You mean like this:
http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm

or maybe this:
http://nationalatlas.gov/

Or is that not enough?
I know they're not overly professional, but it's still not bad for something free to the public available through an internet browser.

Re:Professionally?

[Derling Whirvish]

Fine. Give me the URL for free USGS data.

http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm

Re:Professionally?

[Stankatz]

http://terraserver.microsoft.com/

Re:Professionally?

[trixillion]

You are egregiously wrong and should be modded down accordingly.

Here is free USGS topographic data from the USGS:
http://edcdaac.usgs.gov/gtopo30/gtopo30.asp

That's the raw data files, buddy. Can't really ask for much more than that can ya. BTW, if you check out the NASA worldwind project you will find that there is an incredible amount of freely availble GIS data being served up on wms servers all over the world.

Re:Professionally?

[WhiteBandit]

You mean like this:
http://nmviewogc.cr.usgs.gov/viewer.htm

or maybe this:
http://nationalatlas.gov/

Or is that not enough?
I know they're not overly professional, but it's still not bad for something free to the public available through an internet browser.

While those are some great and informative links, they are useless for actual geologic applications. The grandparent poster isn't talking about the pretty aerial photograph (orthoimagery) you see available in programs such as World Wind and the National Map Viewer. Those simply have high resolution aerial photography for a small number of urban areas in the United States.

The grandparent post is specifically talking about extraordinarily high resolution aerial photography sets that can be put together to exam under a stereoscope, which basically allows you to exam a high resolution photograph in 3D, giving the picture depth/relief.

This is useful in various studies, such as mapping past/potential landslide areas, mapping active/inactive fault traces, and determining relative elevations of various topographic features to see if they are related (just a topographic map will not help for this, since you want to see if rock type, erosional properties, vegetation, etc are the same between multiple features if you want to correlate them). There's a multitude of reasons for this information. It serves a great purpose when time/financial constraints make it inconvienent to go out into the field, or even doing preliminary work BEFORE you go out into the field, so you know what the area is like.

These aren't available online or for free, and the USGS has extensive high resolution aerial photography for most of the United States. But you have to order it, which can be quite expensive (especially if you are a student/academic doing a research project) and the fact that your taxpayer money has already payed for this to put it into the public domain.

Re:Professionally?

[glass_window]

Well that I would never expect. We live in a capitalistic state and therefore you should expect to pay for anything that helps you in any profession simply because, in this country, everybody is out to make a buck.

Re:Professionally?

[SquadBoy]

Well not for the public. But you claim to work for the goverenment.

Re:Professionally?

[loraksus]

They recently added sub meter true color imagery for all (most?) major cities and have had 1m usgs b&w imagery for the entire usa for quite some time.
Also 2 sets of landsat data for the entire world and some other goodies.
Really cool interface, although if you have an older video card, you might have some issues.

Re:Professionally?

[SpiritGod21]

The first thing to jump out at me on that page was the big "Order now" button. You can preview the maps, see a demo, but you can't get good details there without paying. The original poster's point was that yes, he can spend money for it, and he does. But it used to be free, or at least relatively so, and he feels it should still be free. It seems that the taxpayer's money used to be spent once, for collection, but now it is also being spent a second time to procur the data from a recently privatized company, so the data is being purchased twice (once to compile it, and again to get it from the company now owning it). Nothing out there which is freely distributed matches the quality of what a geologist needs, and despite the faith one might have in P2P clients and Bittorrent, chances are people aren't going to start hosting high resolution geological maps anytime soon.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

But you claim to work for the goverenment.

Wrong again.

I said one of my customers is the federal government.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

That's the raw data files, buddy.

Yes, and they are for sale too.

Good thing everyone ignored your mod advice.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

Terraserver doesn't have topos, DEMs, or DLGs.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

Great viewer.

Not much help in adding to our own GIS.

If you want *that* kind of access, you need to pay a private company.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

We live in a capitalistic state and therefore you should expect to pay for anything that helps you in any profession simply because, in this country, everybody is out to make a buck.

No disagreement here. But your comparing apples to oranges. The *public* paid for the compilation and mapping of these products and now a private company is charging *you* for its use.

That is corporate welfare.

Re:Professionally?

[geomon]

Google maps doesn't seem to have been meant as a source of data for professionals - which is why it's so amusing that Google maps are so interesting to you

You work with electronics for a living. I guess you would know a lot about the value of aerial photos.

- I'd thought you had your own, better, sources!

Now why would I have better sources? I work for a private consulting company.

Your statement is equivalent to my claiming that, because you work with electronics, you have your own IC fabrication plant.

Re:Professionally?

[trixillion]

Have another look. I assure you the data is free for downloading. You only have to pay for CD hard copies.

Maybe I should have mentioned at the outset that I had used all of that data, from that source, for free, for a project I worked on several years ago. So I know what I'm talking about.

Re:Professionally?

[trixillion]

See my reply, here.

Google Maps Now Cover Whole World

[thewiz]

Just great! Now who's going to clean up this mess?

Re:Google Maps Now Cover Whole World

[game kid]

Just great! Now who's going to clean up this mess?

I'm sowwy, mommy! I pwomise I won't pwint a thousand maps from the factowy laser thingy again! I'll cween it up when I'm done watching my Girls Gone Wild tape.

They've fixed the distortion

[grahamsz]

Maps of anchorage now actually appear to have streets which meet at right angles.

Of course they couldn't really show world maps if everything was normalized for the US.

Re:They've fixed the distortion

[jfengel]

They didn't before? I don't suppose you saved a picture.

So they botched the projection and that became noticeable once you got as far north as Anchorage. I know that's a pain in the butt for you Alaskans, but somehow I find it kind of cool anyway. I've made a lot of bugs in my career, but I've never managed to let the curvature of the earth screw something up.

I tell junior programmers that the reason I can fix problems faster than they can is that I've already made every mistake they can possibly make. Somebody at Google has managed to screw something up in a way I never have. I bow to them.

Re:They've fixed the distortion

[grahamsz]

I'm not alaskan, but someone pointed it out to me.

I think it was about 1.6x distorted, the city blocks looked really funky. Wish i'd grabbed a screenshot now

Re:They've fixed the distortion

[Megane]

They fixed it on the maps, but if you look at Elmendorf AFB just to the north of Anchorage, the satellite projection is still messed up. The most amusing part is the fighter planes on the tarmac. The ones pointing northward are fat, and the ones pointing eastward are thin.

Re:They've fixed the distortion

[Colm Buckley]

As far as I can determine, the previous projection was a spherical projection centred on Kansas, which worked pretty well for the lower 48 states, but really sucked once you got far away. This is actually one of the best projections to use when you're only dealing with the contiguous states, but wouldn't be remotely suitable for a world map - so when the map was expanded to cover the globe, the projection was changed.

Mercator has its faults (area distortion), but it does preserve direction across the entire globe, and it's easily understood. I don't think "botching" was involved anywhere.

Re:They've fixed the distortion

[adpowers]

I saved some pictures. They are not of Alaska (which was amazingly distorted, but they were sufficiently distorted to make it noticeable. It wasn't really a mistake, it was just the projection they chose, but I imagine they got lots of complaints and changed it. But yeah, the satellite imagery hasn't ben reprojected yet.

Re:They've fixed the distortion

[adpowers]

Okay, the people that run this website might not like me posting this, but to view the old map, go to geobloggers.com (type it in yourself, I'm not going to link it) and type in the zip code. Anchorage is 99501. You'll probably have to zoom in, and then you can scroll around for angled streets (it is harder to notice in map mode when the streets go north/south).

Andrew

Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[diegocgteleline.es]

While it's a cool thing, I don't know why I'd want to use this thing for something. The maps can be nice and useful, but why the satellite view? What's so interesting about seeing roofs?

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[Trollstoi]

Chicks sunbathing on roofs... just imagine...

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[geomon]

The maps can be nice and useful, but why the satellite view?

Aerial views of large physiographic features is essential for watershed studies, landslide assessments, earthquake risk evaluations, etc.

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[Anonymous Coward]

You're doing landslide assessments with undated satellite photos?

"I think that cliff is going to go...five years ago."

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[Momoru]

I dunno for me its just interesting seeing other towns and stuff in different parts of the world. But I could just stare at a map all day and be entertained...

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[johnlcallaway]

I used maps.google.com during a recent home-buying experience, and it was very useful. It's easier to see the different residential and industrial areas for neighborhoods one is not familiar with. It's also pretty easy to spot apartment complexes, parks, golf courses, and how close a home is to a highway.

One can also compare lot sizes to get an idea of residential density, the number of homes with pools (I live in Phoenix, so pools are very common). Being able to switch easily between maps and images makes it easy to determine what that big parking lot is a part of, such as a mall or a mental health facility. Fortunately, the images for Phoenix appear to be less than a year or two old.

Some people may prefer to live next to a mental health facility, some may prefer the mall. All this info makes it easier to informed decisions about whether or not you want to live someplace before making the decision so schedule a home visit. Granted, it didn't always work out, I remember driving up to one place and telling the realtor to keep driving.

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[danhm]

It makes for fun websites, such as Google Sightseeing.

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[geomon]

You're doing landslide assessments with undated satellite photos?

I'm not. I use recent information that I purchase from a private company.

The source of that information, however, is paid for public funds.

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[GiMP]

It is good for driving. I would rather have a photograph of where I'm driving than simply having drawn lines.

One real-life example is that when planning a trip to Hollywood, I found that we would be passing a very large junction off I-5. The "regular" map made the situation look ambigious, while loading the satillite images really cleared it up.

It is great to know that "if you see a car dealership, you've gone too far." With classic maps, you were stuck with the basic driving directions (which aren't always accurate or making sense) and basic geographical features (like rivers). Satellite images represent a revolution in map-making.

Re:Personally, I don't think it's worth of it

[dextroz]

You've obviosuly neer used WorldWind. The amount of time you can spend educating yourself or simply "killing" time and curiosity is incredible. It has a very high entertainment factor there buddy. I wish there was high-resolution imagery for the whole world available in WorldWind - I know they have it there. :-(

Not just US and UK, actually.

[richie2000]

They have satellite imagery of a very large piece of Denmark too: Clicky, clicky, looks just like the real thing to me. :-)

Re:Not just US and UK, actually.

[hysterion]

Interesting that some areas go to far lower resolution in satellite than in map view. E.g. Reykjavik (where satellite view clearly shows the airport).

Re:Not just US and UK, actually.

[richie2000]

Heh, my first reaction was "What the hell, where did those houses come from?" since I've done a bunch of stop-overs on Iceland but never saw anything except a barren wasteland outside the Leif Eriksson airport. Then it occured to me that there are two airports nearby; I'd only been to Keflavik: KEF and not the one in Reykjavik. :-)

My second reaction was that I saw the same phenomenon at that Groom Lake link someone posted. The map was totally blank, but you could make out the runways on the satellite imagery.

BTW, anyone know what those large green areas are on the zoomed out maps? This is the largest one, but there are loads of others.

Clicky, just for fun.

Re:Not just US and UK, actually.

[Feztaa]

Not sure about that particular area you linked to, but just from my own experience switching between map/satellite views on areas that I'm familiar with, the green areas are "green space" like parks, grassy fields, etc.

Re:Not just US and UK, actually.

[pcmanjon]

BTW, anyone know what those large green areas are on the zoomed out maps? This is the largest one, but there are loads of others.

It's Quttinirpaaq National Park If you zoom in to one of the levels you will see it say that.

Click here, and you'll see its one HUGE park yourself. http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=82.106322,-70.31250 0&spn=0.254245,3.197021&hl=en

Re:Not just US and UK, actually.

[richie2000]

Ahhh, I'd missed that zoom level... Looking closer, the rest are actually some kind of national parks too. I got confused by this one where the park's name is smaller than the names of the other features in it. I guess that's why it's still in beta. :-)

Re:Not just US and UK, actually.

[pcmanjon]

Pretty crazy!

Must be a million acres worth of park. Imagine a golf course like that! That'd be one fine Golf Course.

You'd need a subway instead of a golf buggie to get around though!

Don't worry.

[game kid]

Once Google adds the option to turn off SafeSearch on Google Maps, you too will be able to search for hot whores.

I for one, can't wait. ;)

Re:Don't worry.

[wfberg]

Once Google adds the option to turn off SafeSearch on Google Maps, you too will be able to search for hot whores.

Have a look at the mapping provided by our kindly municipal authorities;
Have fun.

How far can you zoom in?

[duncanbojangles]

Woot! The whole world? Nude beaches of Spain, here I come!

For Europe, there is a better map site

[lokedhs]

I find http://www.map24.com/ to be superior to google maps. Even for the areas which google maps do have map data.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[Gorath99]

I suspect that google may license their data/technology, if not buy them up altogether.

According to their website, map24 are already cooperating with google.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[LiquidCoooled]

This is who provide the mapping service for yahoo.

The only thing I like about it is the Orientation zoom feature which does a quick interactive zoom out of the map.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[lokedhs]

The cooperation is that you get a map24 link when you search for a city on google.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[Cyclops]

It demands a proprietary java virtual machine.

Please explain how that is better than google maps which don't require anything but the browser...

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[imsabbel]

Well, colour picutes require a colour monitor, so obviously b&w pictures are better?

Html isnt for everything.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[Gorath99]

I know. It also means that google is well aware of map24 can do. Since that is something that they want to do themselves and they happen to have a lot of money... See where I'm going? Of course it's all speculation, but if I had any shares in map24, I know I'd be quite excited right now.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[danila]

I don't know, really... According to map24, there seems to be a "colony" (Novo-Pargolovskaja Kolonija - prison?) almost right under my window. There is an unfinished shopping mall there, but I don't see a prison. :)

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[imsabbel]

Ok, now you ABSOLUTELY DISQUALIFIED yourself als an idiotic fanatic.

Sorry, be happy with your religion, i just use a tool.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[lokedhs]

Better than google maps who doesn't have maps for your area at all. :-)

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[Cyclops]

Ok, maybe to you I am a fanatic, but to me you're simply waiving rights that you do have for the sake of a minor and utterly unnecessary convenience.

I could understand if you were giving up your rights for something important, like someone else's life, but like this? For such a shallow motive? yeesh...

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[wolfdvh]

In the UK at least, Google uses Map24 images. One gets map24 images and that slick Google UI.

From the map24 site: 'Due to the new cooperation between Google, Inc, and Mapsolute GmbH, maker of the unique mapping portal Map24.com, it is now possible to search for city maps in all European Google search engines. If you enter a city name into Google.co.uk, the first result list entry is a special link to Map24.com that brings up the corresponding city map. On the result page, for sure, the full set of the rich Map24 options is available to the users.'

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[windowpain]

Now I know why I was able to but MS Streets & Trips at Costco for $5.00 after rebates.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[J. Random Luser]

This is who provide the mapping service for yahoo.

You mispelt "better", should be c-l-u-n-k-y

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[Gulthek]

Wow, as an impartial 3rd observer I have to say that's pretty crazy. You might want to back off the caffeine or something?

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[Ninwa]

I beg to differ. I would rather have no map over an incorrect one.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[jericho4.0]

Just putting in my vote that, no, you're not crazy. Fanatic, sure, but not crazy.

People, we can have the internet like we want it, or like corporate interests want it. If the GNU fanatics weren't there, the web would suck.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[rduke15]

I don't agree that map24 is good. It's cluttered, complicated, requires Java, and you cannot copy the link in the address bar.

For Switzerland, there is map.search.ch which is great (and with a simplicity which reminds very much of Google). I don't know for other European countries.

Re:For Europe, there is a better map site

[wwwillem]

I would mod you up, but don't have points right now!! :-( Grand-parent is an idiot....

Oops

[localoca]

Apparently the Netherlands are below Belgium...

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=50.792047,5.625000& spn=27.563344,64.863281&hl=en

There is more detailed info for big cities...

[rochlin]

A lot of big cities are already gathering images and info (including satellite imagery) and making them available. Portland, OR (big?) has Portland Maps. Not as slick as Google, but it sure would be neat if google listed links to other map/info sources for a region you're looking at on their map. I think listing relevant links is something they can handle. Paris Metro? Utah Topo? Disneyland bathrooms?

Israel will be angry...

[danimrich]

When zooming in, the "Gaza Strip" and the "West Bank" are labelled first. The label "Israel" does not appear unless one zooms further in.

Massachusetts

[rtconner]

Why is Massachusetts brown, and the rest of they area around its borders is green?
Do people in New England not know how to grow grass or something?

Re:Massachusetts

[turgid]

Massachusetts

Don't try to say that with false teeth.

Re:Massachusetts

[Punboy]

The green color on the maps indicate natural reserves/national parks. If you mean on satellite imagery... its cause yes, they dont know how to grow grass.

Re:Massachusetts

[aledafreeman]

Massachusetts is brown because Google is showing the 0.5 meter 2001/2003 aerial photos (orhtophotos) instead of the alternative sattelite imagery for adjacent states. The photos were taken in 2001 for the mainland and 2003 for the islands. Previous black and white 0.5 meter photos were taken 1992-1999, and this spring the entire state was reflown and that 0.5 meter imagery will start to become available in September. The photos are taken after snow melt and before leaf-out so that more building details are available. For more information on the photos see the metadata page at the MassGIS web site: http://www.mass.gov/mgis/colororthos2001.htm

In addition, various online mapping viewers are available at the MassGIS web site: http://www.mass.gov/mgis/mapping.htm including OLIVER, a Java Web Start application. These applications don't allow 3D flying, but they do offer the ability to add and subtract hundreds of map layers, such as zoning, landuse, openspace, roads, wetlands - anything in the MassGIS catalog: http://www.mass.gov/mgis/database.htm

Making progress, but it's not Earth yet

[Anonymus Bosch]

Google may be full of very smart people but they still can't geliminate the Mercator projection distortion (although this is an aesthetic gripe) Google Maps is a clever web app that gets around many of the limitations of the browser, but I'd like to see a rich client, something like the 3D virtual globe Earth from Snow Crash perhaps? It doesn't have to be real time but it'd rock if it was - even if it was time delayed. I'd pay USD$5 a month for that, mainly for the eye candy. Anyone else interested?

Re:Making progress, but it's not Earth yet

[Anonymous Coward]

IT's called Keyhole and it's made by google.

Re:Making progress, but it's not Earth yet

[sane?]

NASA WorldWind is a good start. Make sure to use that right mouse button

http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

Re:Making progress, but it's not Earth yet

[imsabbel]

Take a look at worldwind.
Its free, offers better (satellite) data than google maps and even has 3d hight information.

http://worldwind.nasa.gov/

Re:Making progress, but it's not Earth yet

[drseuss9311]

right mouse button?

what is that?

I've only got one button.

Governmental Paranoia

[Fromeo]

I wonder what bit of US government paranoia caused this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.889145,-77.00879 6&spn=0.008122,0.008690&t=k&hl=en
but not this:
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=38.897502,-77.03659 4&spn=0.008122,0.008690&t=k&hl=en

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[payback451]

The buildings to the left and right of the whitehouse seem to have the roofs drawn over, for whatever reason to hide the top. Wonder why? Just something interesting.. not sure if anyone else noticed.

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[dzarn]

The buildings to the left and right of the whitehouse seem to have the roofs drawn over, for whatever reason to hide the top

Any chance there'd be anti-aircraft guns up there? Or would they put them further away?

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[Mechcozmo]

No, they wouldn't mount AA guns there. Far too big, heavy, etc. More likely, Secret Service agents with Stinger shoulder-fired missiles.

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[zippthorne]

If you zoom in a little more, you'll notice that the roof of the white house has been replaced by brown rectangles. Whatever's up there, you're going to need to image it yourself if you want to know. My guess? No stingers or AA of any kind, no snipers of any kind. We expect those things to be there, but we seem to have more of a reactionary government than a pro-active government. I'll bet it's blocked out because people would wonder, "Where's all the stuff that's supposed to protect the president?"

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[ar32h]

Antartica looks funny

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[nandhp]

The Whitehouse folks wanted to show that they had a better lawn than the Capitol Building people?

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[dlelash]

Do you think the roofs of the White House and the buildings on either side of it really look like that?

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[zippthorne]

Have you ever seen the sniper school show they put on TLC (i think.. maybe history)? Those guys could hide themselves in full kit on your couch next to you and eat a burrito and you wouldn't even notice.

If they're in full view of YOU, they're not snipers. So who are those guys then?

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[gnownaym]

Those are the Executive Office Building and the Old Treasury Building. Great place to put snipers.

Re:Governmental Paranoia

[OverlordQ]

LOL @ Burrito & Couch.

Most likely normal Secret Service 'special forces' type, probaby got some Stingers hidden up there too.

political ramifications

[djocyko]

It is interesting how they dealt with certain political issues. Kashmir is a bunch of dashed lines. Israel, too. Taiwan is labelled as such. The only thing that really throws me is Hong Kong. I thought that was officially part of China for the last 5 years.. I can't figure out what is going on with cyrus and the many lines through it. Anyone know what's up with that?

Re:political ramifications

[dracocat]

Well, they dont specify whether Taiwan is a country or a province, so I think they are pretty safe to assume it will always be called Taiwan whether or not it is part of China.

Re:political ramifications

[lavaface]

The lines in Cyprus delineate a couple of British military bases. Oddly enough, I see no line seperating the Nortern, Turkish-controlled half of the island from the sovereign state of Cyprus.
Background info here: 1974 war.

a step forward

[papar]

It seems that they have finally realized that there is dry land outside the US, but why can't they just bust out a real working worldwide map? The demand is there, the technology should be no problem, so what's taking so damn long? I've been waiting for a decent worldwide internet mapservice for the last couple of years. Come on guys, it shouldn't be that hard!

Re:a step forward

[Anonymus Bosch]

You're forgetting the massive costs and integration problems involved. Assuming a complete set of data exists, it's probably in a bunch of different formats. Also, would they/could they really fund the effort just through AdSense - assuming Google does eventually do this?

Re:a step forward

[papar]

You're right. But if Google won't do it, I believe Microsoft eventually will. They have the money, resources and willpower needed. At least Steve Ballmer has been very eager to destroy Google.

Still can't use standard html

[m50d]

When is it going to work in my favourite browser (konqueror)?

one way streets

[djocyko]

Even better, they've finally got one way street labels in place. I thought this was a glaring problem before, and they've since remedied. Nicely done.

Ocean Floor?

[RandomLetters]

Looking at the satelite maps of the ocean it looks like you can see the contour of the ocean floor. Is this from the satelite photos or is this generated artificially? It looks like the resolution of the ocean photos are lower than the land mass areas.

Re:Ocean Floor?

[dankelley]

It's generated artificially. There is no visible signal of these deep-sea features; light penetrates only 10s to 100s of metres, and the images show features several kilometres deep.

Re:Ocean Floor?

[ImaLamer]

I don't know, but can't we get better images of benign areas such as Antartica...

Now all we need is a cool body suspension ....

[3seas]

interface and we can feel like superman or neo flying around the world...

Re:Now all we need is a cool body suspension ....

[metachor]

Someone should do this with an embedded web-browser in the MMO virtual world Second LIfe. Neal Stephenson, eat your heart out.

Some if it's done!

[johnw]

At least the map of Australia has all the detail on.

MMORPGs

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, so I'm a bit drunk and I just smoked a bit of grass, so this might be an idiotic idea but here it goes: wouldn't all this data allow the creation of the greatest MMORPGs or tactical shooters ever?

Wanna kick ass in Fallujah? Download the citymap and the town gets rendered based on the satellite imagery. Want to fight orc hordes in frozen wastelands? Use siberian satellite imagery and add some CGI.

Re:MMORPGs

[Jesse_132]

Yeah, You can actually build a game on top of google maps too:

Google Tanks or as we like to call it: GANK - our Railsday entry.

EXIT numbers!?

[Ark42]

They still don't show exit numbers on freeway exits, which would be really useful. Of course, a scale would be really helpful too, so I know how long a mile or km is supposed to be at a given zoom level and map distortion.

Re:w00t

[MattWhitworth]

Or inverted...

Now I can get directions to New York and kick some invasionist/imperialist ass.

Works both ways you see :)

Broken?

[deke_kun]

Maybe its just me being nowhere near google-elite enough, but this thing seems to still have some MAJOR problems.

"We could not understand the location Australia"...I mean cmon! Its not hard to find! I even tried putting in a street address in the exact format specified on the oh-so-helpful sidebar, just to get a "We could not understand..." message. Way to go google, whole world my ass!

Not as good as mapquest yet....

[electrosoccertux]

The other day I needed to get to a house for a job...and I thought "hey I'll give that maps.google.com thing try." But it couldn't find either of the roads that would take me to the house. So I tried mapquest and it gave me the directions without a hitch. Sattelite imagery is cool though.

Re:Not as good as mapquest yet....

[SWTP_OS9]

The catch with these sat shots from google. Is they are about two to almost three years old!

Quickest Beijing to Boston route

[thomasa]

We could not understand the location beijing china

Re:No. They don't.

[Leroy_Brown242]

"Here be dragons"

ARG

[imsabbel]

should be
http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/

Shameless Plug (Google hacks?)

[MasterVidBoi]

I've been working on a full-earth terrain renderer for the last year, similar in style to Keyhole or Worldwind. The addition of worldwide outlines on google is wonderful, because yesterday afternoon I finally started to add a google maps data source to my application. Until now, it limited to WMS servers such as http://onearth.jpl.nasa.gov./

It's not nearly complete yet, because I still haven't properly handled the projection google uses (so the image is off near the poles), and it breaks at high detail levels, but these should be easily fixed within the next couple days. It should easily scale to the best data Google offers in the future.

There is one screenshot at the bottom of the page. The quality is fairly low, but that's because it's being rendered on a 5 year old laptop (I'm currently away from home).

http://cs.ucsb.edu/~richards/terrain/

I have no idea if I'll ship this with google maps support (since it is against their TOS), but it was fun to do.

Re:Shameless Plug (Google hacks?)

[follower-fillet]

Sweet... Hey, you should post this to the Google Maps Google Group:

http://groups-beta.google.com/group/Google-Maps>

--Phil.

Re:Shameless Plug (Google hacks?)

[jericho4.0]

Very nice. Linux and OS X have been needing this. If you're opening your source, I've been idly looking for something to hack a civ like networked game onto. Worldwind is .NET, and I don't want to go there.

It's too bad about the TOS issues, as so many cool hacks aren't being done. Maybe google will open the API like they did google search. (every user has to get a google key, restricts use to 1000 reqs a day).

No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[Animats]

After heavy pressure from Israeli lobbyists, the US Congress enacted "shutter control" specifically for Israel in 1997. Satellites using US technology aren't permitted to image Israel with a resolution of greater than 2 meters per pixel. That's why the images of Israel are so lousy.

Re:No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[Sprotch]

The highest-res images were all taken from airplanes, they are not satellite pictures. The "Israeli looby" is therefore entirely irrelevant.

RE: No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[Gordo_1]

That's not what your link says... "Congress in 1996 passed an amendment which prohibited the sale by U.S. firms of images of Israeli territory with less than a two-meter resolution. This followed an effort by Saudi Arabia to buy a U.S.-made satellite for imaging the Middle East."

The US government has access to what they want of Israel satellite photos, but the *sale* of high resolution images is restricted so Israel's enemies will find it harder to spy on them.

oooooh, a government acting in the interests of its citizens... scandalous!

Re:No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[bug brother]

Satellites using US technology aren't permitted to image Israel with a resolution of greater than 2 meters per pixel. That's why the images of Israel are so lousy.

Right, it's stupid paranoia. It's not like they have neighboring dictators which repeatedly starts wars against them, or something.

Re:No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[danimrich]

READ MY POST. I was referring to the map and not to the satellite imagery. Though unrelated to the parent post, your post is nevertheless interesting.

Re:No, that's what Israel lobbied for

[Animats]

There are several known "political holes" in the Keyhole/Google database. Israel is one. The US has insisted on blanking out the details of the White House roof, and for some wierd reason, the entire U.S. Capitol is pixilated. The Baghdad imagery is high-res, but pre-war, despite the copyright date on that section. A big area just east of the Baghdad airport seems to have been dimmed out recently.

But you can look at the former USSR in considerable detail. Check out the Kremlin, where you can see cars.

Even more fun with mutliple displays

[mpn14tech]

I have three monitors. It is even more fun to stretch the google maps page across all three monitors while in satellite mode. The extra viewing area makes browsing around the satellite imagery even more fun. Can't wait for those wall projectors to come down even more in price.

Re:Even more fun with mutliple displays

[adpowers]

I looked at Google Maps at the Apple Store on their 30" monitor and nearly wet myself :). I'll have to go back sometime now that they've changed it around.

One-way street arrows!

[dragonman97]

Well, after seeing this news, I looked to see if Google has fixed a bug of mine yet*, and they have not done so yet, *but* the big thing that I immediately noticed was the addition of directional arrows for one-way streets. I then proceeded to take a glance at 10021 to see how that showed up, and was pleased. :)

*I noticed and reported a missing DLR station on their map of England - it's still not there, despite the nice directional arrows on /Station Road/.

Wrong.

[imsabbel]

Its called keyhole and was BOUGHT by google.
You know, the microsoft approach to getting know how...

Projection

[meat.curtains]

I love Google Maps, but I hate their projection; it looks like Africa and Greenland have similar areas. However Africa is fourteen times the size of Greenland. And look at Antarctica; it should be half the size of Africa.

Re:Projection

[RockDoctor]

love Google Maps, but I hate their projection;
It's a Mercator projection ...

it looks like Africa and Greenland have similar areas.
Which is a problem people have been pointing out with Mercator projections for several centuries, and which is why Lambert, Peters, and cartographers galore have come up with their own alternative projections. BUT Mercator projections remain mathematically among the simplest ways to map a sphere onto a plane. Which is, I suspect why they're being used.

What's asorbing me is the waveband of their imagery. Look at the SW North Sea (or possibly another shallow sea you're familiar with ... significant over-representation of "land" colours in 20-50m deep sea. There's also a lot of oil drilling areas of Siberia which have been whited-out. (The wife was just on the phone to home in Siberia while I'm writing this.) Hmmm.

Keyhole 2

[Cytos]

Google has had a pet project for quite a while called Keyhole 2 that has many more features that they seem to be dragging over to their maps site. The zoom is a lot better ( down to the level where you can see cars clearly ) and it is international ( China doesn't seem to work, go figure..)I got sucked in during the trial period but couldn't find a logical reason to pay for it.

Has anyone else noticed this bug?

[windowpain]

I use Firefox and Comcast broadband. Every time I go to Google Maps to view a map, the map sections come in rapidly except the last section or two, which never come(s) in! This isn't a matter of the sections not existing. It happens with virtually every map I pull up. And I can sit there and hit the Refresh button on my browser and often a different section or sections will be the ones to not come in.

WTF? Anyone else experience this?

Re:Has anyone else noticed this bug?

[Sir Lurkalot]

Yep same thing here, running Firefox on Debian.

Couldn't be any worse than the blacked out areas..

[Svartalf]

Certain areas are blacked out on the satellite view, quite a bit less creative than the fuzzing an overlaying of the roof images in the instances you give. Anyone in the area would know what the blacked out images were- and all it'd take would be someone physically going there to find out if they weren't a local.

You might as well put a sign on the damn imagery: "Terrorists strike HERE!"

I wish they'd at least be creative like stitching in surrounding countryside or somesuch so it's not so obvious that they're covering up for this sort of thing out of National Security requirements.

satellite censorship

[sjs132]

Ok, am I the only one that thought to try this?

First, I understand why this would happen, because of terrorists, etc... I would like to state right now, that I am NOT a Terrorist...

But anyways, I was zooming in on cities and thought it was cool, I could pick out what house I wanted based on how it looked from the sky, etc..

So I thought... Hmmm.. Washington DC would be cool to see... White house in reference to SIZE of other buildings ect... so I punch it up... and when I'm in full zoom, it looks as if the White House and the two buildings on either side have been "Censored"... Look at other building tops, they show peaks, vents, etc... all that building roof stuff... On top of the White House and the two other buildings surrounding it... NOTHING...

Well, not NOTHING, but an obvious photoshop type hack to blank out details... interesting...

Thats all... Just interesting... Once again, you can't believe what you see, and all media has some type of controll... Personally, there are very REAL reasons for this, and I don't have a problem with that particular example, but what about other places... You might not even know that what you see is not what is really there...

Blurs on Lincoln Memorial, and other buildings also... this is now a game to me, find the censored images... new fun at google! :)

I bet it isn't 2:45pm at the Washington Monument either...

Just the type of conspiracy that the folks here on /. seem to like. :)

Now... to Find Area 51... Maybe I should post anonymously... Naw... I'm sure they won't fin$%()*#^#(*%#.... {Carrier lost}

Re:satellite censorship

[Snaller]

Yeah, because terrorists would really plan their attack based on old fuzzy pictures - ridicilous.

hats off the the google code poets!

[5plicer]

maps.google.com is amazing! Google's programmers are geniuses!

Today, the US........

[ShyGuy91284]

And tomorrow, THE WORLD!!!!!

Unimpressed

[rokzy]

glitches, UK sat images only let you differentiate between green bits and brown bits, and postcodes are offset from their tru position by about 2 streets.

not bitching about it being beta quality, just about it being beta quality and yet being on slashdot.

Re:Unimpressed

[zmollusc]

Yeah. There is a better level of zoom at groom lake secret air force thing in nevada than anywhere in the uk.

Would be nice to have polar projection

[davidwr]

It would be nice to have a polar projection of polar areas.

Even better, a birds-eye-view for any zoom level that doesn't go past the horizon.

the Philippines has no name

[mparaz]

And my country is just a bunch of islands.

There's some confusion here...

[game kid]

...judging from all the child posts below yours. I refer to dragging the zoom bar up or down without releasing the mouse button.

Does the map zoom in/out as you move the mouse in Firefox? If so, then I hang my head down in shame, as an utter liar. In IE, the whole map gets all pixelly; once you release the mouse button, it returns to a normal, smooth image (a set of them actually, but I digress).

Re:There's some confusion here...

[cirisme]

Sorry, I misunderstood. The slider moves up and down, but the image doesn't zoom in and out. Thanks for clarifying!

LOST?

[Fortyseven]

This will make it a lot easier to find the island those poor people from Flight 812 crashed on. Just look for a big pirate ship, and we'll be close.

Re:LOST?

[Fortyseven]

Or was that 815? Damn it.

Russia

[satsuke]

Not to pick a nit, but in the "whole map" view linked to from the main page. It still shows Russia as being the entire former USSR.

I'm pretty sure in the *stans, Ukraine, Georgia, Chechnya would have something to say about being lumped in with Russia.

Google .. might want to update that map a little

Re:Russia

[djmurdoch]

I see Ukraine and Kazakhstan in that view, as well as Russia. Zoom in a bit and the other republics are listed. Chechnya isn't, because Russia still considers it to be part of Russia.

Hot pixel action

[Urusai]

Just make sure that two-pixel pink blob isn't a guy.

Re:Governmental Paranoia (but Stupid!)

[Snowhare]

Nothing like fuzzing out a public landmark that is so photographed that I could reconstruct an accurate-to-sub-meter 3d model just from publically available photos on the net. Like This One.

And here is ...

[mapostel]

The Googleplex

Is Africa not part of the world?

[line-bundle]

I saw no satellite imagey of Africa, and they clam to have the whole world?

Does Africa truly not count?

Re:Is Africa not part of the world?

[J. Random Luser]

If it's any consolation there's a lot of the world still missing, including parts like Australia & New Zealand which have good satelite pix. We also have, which might be missing from a lot of Africa, a good set of local topographic & street maps. But we still fall into the crack of a work in progress. At least we've still got the sluggish ArcIMS viewer at NZ Topo on Line

Gaza

[slashmojo]

Its a bit odd that zooming in on the middle east shows gaza strip and west bank with no israel (label) at all.. until you zoom in a few levels further.. last I checked israel was a) quite a bit bigger than gaza and b) a country, which gaza isn't (yet).

Is israel just keeping a low profile?? ;)

Upgrade to round planet available

[Animats]

Get the upgrade to a spherical planet here. Really.

The Google Maps thing is a limited HTML/Javascript image file hack. The real Keyhole application works through OpenGL, and you get real 3D. Pan, tilt, zoom, fly over 3D terrain, seamlessly.

Portugal again forgotten (near spain)

[vsimoes]

Well this is habitual, Portugal a small country Southwest Spain, doesn't came on map (World Map).
It's a shame, but happens all the time...A beautiful country, even after Euro2004 no one remembers it?? :D

Re:Portugal again forgotten (near spain)

[wangman25]

Yes it does, at the fourth-from-last zoom level.

So what's next?

[kon_ig]

Well, it is obviously way off-topic, but looking at this I can't help but wonder how soon it will be that Google become so powerful we'll be glad Microsoft is still around?

Just a thought...

actually, there were a lot of changes

[adpowers]

If you interested, I've tried to make a full list of changes on my website. That website has side by side picture comparisons of the old and new. Some things they did as well: darkened minor streets, changed the projection, added one-way arrows, added some major building landmarks, and changed the size of the images being sent.

Re:actually, there were a lot of changes

[RedWizzard]

Another change: a couple of weeks ago I was able to see satellite images of Sydney, Australia, with enough detail to find my old house. That level of detail is no longer available.

Right angles are now right angles

[Anonymous Coward]

And as a new advantage, they've changed the constant long/lat ratio to cos(latitude). You'll notice that now if you zoom in on Anchorage, AK, the streets are at right angles -- which they weren't when this week's earlier Google Maps posting was made.

Albany, NY

[TheLearnerX]

I noticed that immediately also, try zooming in on upstate NY and see how ridiculously zoomed in you have to be before Albany shows up, it shows all of these tiny little towns around it before it shows the capital of the state..

Not at all zoom levels

[fbform]

there it is, squeezed in between Belgium (you don't see their name until you zoom in, too) and Germany, as usual.

Are you sure?

Sure, they could add all of the countries, but...

[denelson83]

They still can't add Valdes Island??? I mean, it should be on their maps, just to be a little more accurate. If you don't know where Valdes Island is, it's just off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia, between the Gabriola and Galiano Islands.

Re:Couldn't be any worse than the blacked out area

[orkysoft]

Well, in The Netherlands, there's a publicly available database of car licence plates. You type in a licence plate number, and the site returns information about the car and its owner.

Except for cars used by undercover cops and secret agents, then it returns the error that no information was found.

So, add one and one together, and criminals can easily notice if they're being followed by the cops...

Oh, and they're also going ahead with the GPS-enabled ankle-doohickeys, while their signals can be easily blocked by -- you guessed it -- tinfoil...

They're just fooling themselves.

awesome.

[pb]

What's not to like? The only thing I'm not too fond of is that they're using what looks like a really bad Mercator projection, instead of, say, a Peters Projection. Of course it didn't make that much difference when North America was the only thing on the map--now it does make a difference.

Also, would it have killed them to include some other major cities in the world, capitals maybe? Oh well, that's easy enough to do, so they'll probably do it. Or, given their current all-or-nothing approach, maybe they'll just map the whole world! :)

Re:NASA World Wind

[J. Random Luser]

yebbut, that don't work in my browser (Safari), Google does...

Comment removed

[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

Google Sightseeing is fun

[mazarino]

This is a cool site:

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

Re:NASA World Wind

[J. Random Luser]

hmmm, this makes me reconsider the definition of "Open Source". I just d/l'ed a 3M tarball of .Net code??? I don't want to sound like the poster who refused the Java EULA, but compiling .Net for ppc isn't exactly "free" as in time to go to the ball game...

Re:Nasa Wolrd Wind

[jericho4.0]

World Wind rocks, 'tis true, but it's also windows only (so far), demanding on hardware (cache space and rendering), and doesn't have the route finding/search integration google maps does.

BTW, google is also free.

LoD

[mlk]

The LoD in some bits of the US is great, little white spots of cars, and red rectangles of rooftops.

So in I zoom on London, but no such luck.

Re:LoD

[md04]

This is as far as I can zoom on my home town.

Scotland, LOD

screenshot of switch

[lixlpixel]

the screenshot is here -> http://lixlpixel.org/belgium-is-netherlands.png

found at http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.179343,5.097656& spn=20.385598,52.207031&hl=en

Re:screenshot of switch

[WarPresident]

Heh, that's funny. But, it doesn't do that to me. Belgium (text) shows up one click in, Netherlands the next click in.

Re:Nice going, jerkwad

[jericho4.0]

Classic. Equating criticism of Israel. the state, with white supremacy and anti-semitisim. Fuck you. The OP wasn't even criticising, just stating facts, yet you have to pull out that tired, old, card. Maybe the Jewish conspiracy theories would die if we could have an honest disscusion about Israeli politics, without screaming "Nazi!" and hiding behind accusations of racism.

The missing cities of northern New England

[gkearney]

Let's face ti folks Mane, New hampshire and vermont don't have very many cities but Google maps doesnt lable any of the ones that are there. As yo zoom in on nothern New England you will note that Portland, Bangor, Manchester and Burlington are not labled. Weld, Maine a town of fewer that 500 is put not Portland? what's with that?

Zoom in further and still these cities are not labled. What's going on? You have to be right on top of any of these cities before they get lables.

Still in beta of course

[PEdelman]

And it shows; when I checked it, the names of my fine country (The Netherlands) and our southern neighbours (Belgium) were exchanged on one scale. When I zoomed further, they displayed just nice.

Aral Sea

[jbennetto]

Even with the low level of detail, there's interesting stuff for the amatuer environmentalist. Look at http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=45,59.5&hl=en&z=9 and switch back and forth between map and satellite. It would be nice it they gave dates to the map and images, but I doubt it's much more than a ten-year difference.

anybody find

[sceptre1067]

Liechtenstein? didn't come up in the search...

Re:anybody find

[djmurdoch]

You just need to know where to look.

Trading Places?

[Icarus_SFX]

Funny,

I Didn't know we switched places with belguim...

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=50.233152,1.669922& spn=34.194819,76.113281&hl=en

Pity the poor developers

[Thiarna]

Ok, it'll be a soft go-live - we'll flick the switch over the weekend and that'll give us time to iron out any bugs or costly political errors, then if everything is ok we'll announce... wait, NO! Someones posted to Slashdot!

Now if only they fixed Google Groups 2 and Gmail..

[Snaller]

...we could buy our shares back!

Doesn't show a city of 4 MILLION people

[Traf-O-Data-Hater]

Google Maps have got to be kidding themselves if they think they're showing the 'whole world'.

It can't even show images or maps of Sydney, Australia, a city of four million people!

What an unfinished piece of work this thing is. How can they justify their 'whole world' claim?

Re:Doesn't show a city of 4 MILLION people

[mathwiz777]

Well, it can't show images of Shanghai, a city of 17.1 million people, so why should it show a different international city of less than a quarter of the size?

Am I the only one...

[stu72]

... who saw this - when Google maps first came out, I swear I could see the whole world, then google uk maps came out and suddenly maps.google.com was just north america, now it's the whole earth again and everyone is going nuts.. what gives?

Stupid projection!

[Col Bat Guano]

The world is a globe, yet it's rendered here as a flat sheet. There are lots of better ways of modelling the world.

It'll be interesting to see how they handle the mapping of satellite imagery of high lattitude locations to that stretched out rubber sheet they are using.

Not for Poland :-(

[mikelang]

I tried to switch "Satellite view" on my home, and got message: Sorry, we have no satellite imagery on this.

Re:Nice going, jerkwad

[Animats]

For an overview of the lobbying effort, see "MILITARY IMPLICATIONS OF COMMERCIAL HIGH RESOLUTION IMAGING SATELLITES IN THEORY AND PRACTICE", by Lt. Col. Peter L. Hays, USAF. He writes "Then, in June 1996 the Wall Street Journal reported that Israel was lobbying the White House to restrict all U.S. commercial remote sensing of their territory to resolutions of no better than three meters." The cite is "Israel Asks White House to Place Curbs on 3 U.S. Satellite-Surveillance Firms," Wall Street Journal, 17 Jun 1996.

This is a well-known issue in the imaging world.

Profoundly Inferior

[aminorex]

Expediamaps.com has covered the whole world down to a small village resolution, with rail maps, etc., for years. The Google effort certainly needs a lot of work before it will be useful, and for the moment remains a U.S/Canada service.

Re:Whole World?....ah no, not even close.

[wolverine1999]

Malta is missing too..

Interesting to see

[Mr Europe]

Compare the map and sat-image of the Lake Aral in the southern Russia !
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.840644,47.988281 &spn=78.826069,129.902344&hl=en

Is this the nature spoilage or what ? The Lake was earlier (one of) the largest fresh water reservoirs in the world!

Actually standard coordinates are used

[slim]

But what can you expect from a mapping system that has taken lat/long N 38.35 / W 98.5 as the center of the world. This is not a joke, Wacoma Lake in Kansas is the origin (x=0, y=0) of Google's mapping system. Even the maps of the UK are relative to that coordinate system.

I think you're misinterpreting the URL format. The "spn=" values are for zoom level. "ll=" values are latitude and longitude in decimal.

http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=0,0 centers on the Equator, directly South of Greenwich, just as you would expect.

My gripe with Google Maps is the absence of a scale display (although with that projection, it's not as easy to do as it might initially seem).