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Google Offers Hybrid Satellite and Map View
That's Unpossible! writes "Google Maps now offers a hybrid view which combines their map view with their satellite view. The Google blog has a notice on the update. It appears to use 8-bit alpha transparent PNGs to make it work."
... how large is the intersection of code between Google Maps and Google Earth?
Saw that this afternoon as I was pulling out directions. More interestingly they even have arrows pointing traffic flow which I don't think they had earlier.
What does your Credit Report look like?
It was so tiring carefully printing out the satellite views and then cutting out the roadmaps in thin slivers to fit over my printouts.
10
20 Print "Balls To That"
Mapper of Doom has had this for quite some time, albeit with existing data from Terraserver.
http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel 9.InternetExplorerSupportForPNG
/. is good for you.
They added a scale since the last time I checked the maps, too! Halleluah!
Now they need to make it do I can draw or adjust the line to see the mileage on different routes I want to take.
This could also potentially used be used to collect data to improve the mapping, i.e if the end user plots a better/shorter/faster path between two points if to/from map drawn.
Also could be used to collect correction data (i.e directed down one way street.
A button for optional feedback on change reasoncouldbe used to collect why the change was made, etc.
ZZ
This is certainly bad news for all those girls I've been stalking.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
It's pretty neat - the satellite photos are no longer wrapped around a cylinder (making places far away north or south from equator look squished).
Unfortunately there still isn't maps available for Europe besides England. I hope it would arrive soon.
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
There are a couple of different ways to achieve transparent PNGs in IE - besides simple 100% transparent colors (as known from gifs). The Google overlay isn't simply 100% transparent. The same goes for the "speech bubble" when clicking on different places.
T ML_and_VML
There are a couple of different methods. The Google Maps API mentions one:
http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/#XH
- Peter Brodersen; professional nerd
As for the purple line floating over the highway, that's an active research area. The military is pumping a lot of dollars into augmented reality. I've gotten to see a few shots of some of their demo tech and it's pretty cool stuff. Now they just have to make it work correctly all the time and give proper depth queing... heheh
Someday, though. Someday!
Perhaps a more interesting question would be why they bothered to make it work with IE, rather than requiring IE to work with PNGs. How long is it before Google is strong enough, at least in the web sphere, to dictate terms to Microsoft?
Maybe they're there already - it's not implausible that they could release something that doesn't work properly with existing versions of IE, along with an explanatory note to upgrade to a working browser.
If they put in a direct link to Firefox say, the takeup could be huge, dwarfing the installed base to date. All of us here may know about all the alternative browsers, but your average joe doesn't - but if Google were to start pushing people towards them... now *that* would be news.
OK, so as sort of a meta-reply to all the posters asking about IE and PNG support, here's 2 interesting hacks you can use to get your PNG magic rolling in MSIE.
MSIE (as of v6) doesn't support 32 bit transparent PNGs natively, but there is a cool hack where you can dither them down to 8 bits, retaining translucenct for browsers that support it, and using 1-bit transparency in MSIE, so it still looks OK.
Alternatively, you can use the AlphaImageLoader() filter for near native IE PNG support -- that's a link to my own free CSS behavior that automatically adds IMG and background-image support for PNGs to MSIE 5.5+.
Either way, PNGs rock, except for the lack of a cross-platform gamma standard -- if you need to match other colours on your site, just use JPEGs/GIFs.
<!-- DHTML / JavaScript menu, popup tooltip, Ajax scripts -->
Quite the contrary, I could see using the hybrid in preference to just the map. If you print it out for someone, I find it more useful than just the raw map...
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Multimap had done this for quite some time over the UK, but only with Internet Explorer. Google's solution works fine on Safari, and it looks clean to boot. Kudos Google!
Now if our ZIP codes resolved to a single address, we would be set. ZIP+4 helps, but it's still not there yet. UK postcodes, while not perfect, are much better in this regard.
Slashdot's first reaction to VMware
I guess "regular" maps can now be officially declared dead. This is right on so many levels, and implementation appears to be flawless.
From a programming standpoint, this is amazing.
The fact you can zoom in, to the highest zoom level, anywhere in the US... and the roads line up with the satellite maps.. is amazing.
I just zoomed in fully to my street on Long Island, NY, and the road names and highways were overlayed perfectly with the actual streets as depicted on the satellite map.
How do they do this? I guess the satellite maps are labelled so precisely that they can overlay lat/lon routes on top of them?
Geez! If they put pictures of fancy roses in corner you'd be creaming yourselves!
Doesn't it make you feel good to know that our freedoms are protected by politicans, lawyers and journalists.
Yep, there's a scale. Seems credibly accurale.
With all this and Google Earth too, I still wonder why my brother uses MapQuest. I guess some people like legacy systems.*
*I notice they both use "@media print" so they only print what matters, not all the ad and search-box crap. Sweeeet.
You can hold down the "B" button for continuous firing.
"Perhaps a more interesting question would be why they bothered to make it work with IE, rather than requiring IE to work with PNGs. How long is it before Google is strong enough, at least in the web sphere, to dictate terms to Microsoft?"
When Google become's the thing you all claim to hate.
And I find his GUI better than Google's. It's slicker, and the ability to adjust the transparency (slider at the bottom) is quite innovative. As is also the ability to move the foreground or background and have the other align itself accordingly.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Google has a reputation for having a totally unstructured working environment. That's good for creativity and morale, but there has to be some coordination and policy making, or else you're just creating stuff at random and shoving it out the door.
I hear somebody saying, "But they're making money!" Sure, they do have some good basic products that generating tons of cash flow. The fact remains, their other projects are a mess, and a lot of promising products will probably never mature. All that cash flow is both very good and very evil. Very good because Google will not be in real trouble for the foreseeable future. Very evil because they have no incentive to correct their worst mistakes.
Ouch, you must be on dial-up. My condolences. Maybe you can write google and see if they can do an ascii version to speed up the downloads.
James Tiberius Kirk: "Spock, the women on your planet are logical. No other planet in the galaxy can make that claim."
Yeah, but all the cool applications and features they keep releasing are impressive as hell.
There used to be a significant desynch between the map and the satellite image for Canada and other northern areas. It was an artifact having to do with how the projection was done. They seem to have cleared it up now though; Winnipeg looks much less stretched, though you can still see some funny business in the watermarks.
Still NO EXIT NUMBERS!
I can't believe I still use Mapquest's tiny and slow interface just to find freeway exit numbers.
Morphing Software
Actually they're only using 8-bit PNG files, which IE has supported for quite some time, unsurprisingly as they only use one bit for transparency much like good old .gif files. Full 24-bit PNG transparency support is still lacking in IE however, though you can use an ActiveX filter to force it in IE if you desire it.
What exactly would Google gain have by making their applications not work properly in IE? The general public does not want to bother installing a different browser just so they can use a Google app. In fact, it may have the unintended effect of turning people off to Google. It gives the perception that they have lazy developers and/or just doesn't care. I'd like to believe that Google develops applications for the end-user, not just Firefox zealots.
Go to http://moon.google.com/ - zoom all the way in. If you can't find your way around a hunk of that stuff, you need to spend less time on Slashdot.
Virtual Earth had it first. This time Microsoft beat Google on their own turf. By the way, the MS interface is way better and the clarity of the aerial photographs is better too.
Actually they're only using 8-bit PNG files
o om=1
No, they're not, they're using 24-bit PNG files with 8-bit transparency. You can see this plainly by looking at a PNG snippet from the L.A. area hybrid I posted in the article:
http://mt.google.com/mt?v=w2t.1&x=11236&y=26171&z
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
So why not go a link further? Or perhaps even try it for yourself? Pity most folks here don't realize that Google rarely innovates* anymore; they'd rather herald half-cooked imitations as something amazing ;-P
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* Correction: they do innovate sometimes, like making green cheese yellow or something equally amusing. Here, mods, do your worst!
My other Beowulf cluster is... er...
There is map.search.ch with this feature since a long time. In addition map.search.ch feature satellite images of higher resolution, is very intuitive to use, and has many nifty features when hovering over displayed icons (schedules on bus-stops or train stations, temperature reading of public swimming-pools, amount of free lots on parkings).
Markus
Not to be contrarian, but I actually think the hybrid will be useful.
Several times I've found myself flipping back and forth between the two as I'm trying to visualize where something is and I need to see the street names to know exactly where something is, and the map to reconcile with the geography.
Like all shiney google things, you may not need all of the features, but someone will find 'em useful.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
I would really like to see the ability to zoom in by dragging a rectangle on the map. You might toggle between zoom and pan with a toolbar, or use keyboard shortcuts.
"If you are an idealist it doesn't matter what you do or what goes on around you, because it isn't real anyway."-R.P.W.