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Google Offers Hybrid Satellite and Map View

Posted by Zonk on from the best-of-both-worlds dept.

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."

30 of 298 comments (clear)

  1. I wonder ... by poopooboi · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ... how large is the intersection of code between Google Maps and Google Earth?

    1. Re:I wonder ... by dariuscardren · · Score: 4, Funny

      Earthsized?

  2. Nice by Jeet81 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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    1. Re:Nice by bladx · · Score: 3, Informative

      They've had arrows pointing out traffic flow for a while now... as far as I know. (Because I used it a while ago to see traffic flow for a certain city...)

    2. Re:Nice by OrangeGoo · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I dunno how often their maps are updated, but it is interesting to note that in certain areas, their map data is at least as old as their satellite data. A new bypass highway opened around my piddly hometown not too long ago. To no surprise, the completed highway doesn't show up on the satellite (though most of it is present). The map, however, shows none of it.

      It's amazing how accurate the roads they do show are, though - most online mapping tools (MapQuest, MSN) aren't very close, especially on the local college campus. Google, however, has everything nailed. Well... at least until the college decided to rip up all the streets, but that's another story. I wonder where they get their data...

    3. Re:Nice by bmwm3nut · · Score: 4, Interesting

      To no surprise, the completed highway doesn't show up on the satellite (though most of it is present). The map, however, shows none of it.

      here's a cool view of a place where the map is newer than the sattelite picture. you can see where rt 36 extends to the west over washington street. but in the pure sattellite picture, you can only see the construction. this is a realitively new bypass, so the sattellite doesn't have it in, but the map is updated perfectlly. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=westminster,+co&ll=3 9.825644,-104.980974&spn=0.007749,0.015003&t=h&hl= en

    4. Re:Nice by surprise_audit · · Score: 4, Informative
      I just looked for my house, and found something a bit out of place. The road running past my house has another road joining it as T-junction, with the upright part of the T running directly away from the house. Google Maps shows that as a 4-way intersection, with a completly fictitious road following what is in fact a drainage ditch... And just up the road the map shows a cross-street that runs through someone's house...

      I too wonder where they get their data. I was looking at a couple of mapping apps a few weeks ago, playing with a GPS puck I got for my birthday, and I think one of those shows the same stupid mistakes in the streets. It was either Microsoft Streets and Trips, or it was Rand McNally Streetfinder. I don't remember which, and right now I don't have either loaded because my disk drive died...

      The satellite view shows my pool, though, so - Hey!! I can see my pool from space!!

    5. Re:Nice by itchy92 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The satellite view shows my pool, though, so - Hey!! I can see my pool from space!!

      That's more scary than exciting to me, though.

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  3. Not entirely new by PeeAitchPee · · Score: 4, Informative

    Mapper of Doom has had this for quite some time, albeit with existing data from Terraserver.

  4. Re:Hmm... by SpinJaunt · · Score: 4, Informative

    http://channel9.msdn.com/wiki/default.aspx/Channel 9.InternetExplorerSupportForPNG

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  5. Scale! by OrangeGoo · · Score: 5, Informative

    They added a scale since the last time I checked the maps, too! Halleluah!

    1. Re:Scale! by OrangeGoo · · Score: 4, Informative

      Not really. Depending on how they project from spheroid to rectangle, the scale should change. The distance between parallels is constant, but the distance between meridians decreases as you move further from the equator.

      I guess it is actually odd, though, because the rectangle covers the same area at all times. Interesting.

  6. This'll come in handy... by The+I+Shing · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is certainly bad news for all those girls I've been stalking.

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  7. Scaled as well by Penguin · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

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    1. Re:Scaled as well by mike.newton · · Score: 5, Informative

      Excuse me, there are maps for Ireland as well. (Not to mention Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.)

  8. IE supported as well (transparent PNG) by Penguin · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

    There are a couple of different methods. The Google Maps API mentions one:

    http://www.google.com/apis/maps/documentation/#XHT ML_and_VML

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  9. Re:Hmm... by hazee · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  10. PNG support in IE by gusnz · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

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  11. Re:As good as this looks... by TopShelf · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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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  12. About time! by Jon+Abbott · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  13. Very Impressive by (eternal_software) · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Very Impressive by killa62 · · Score: 3, Informative

      The accuracy of the overlay seems to vary according to the elevation of the area and also the image itslf.
      Because of the fact that sattilites can only zoom in so far and still have a good image, in areas where you can zoom all the way in, they have to use airplanes to take pictures. Nevertheless, these survery airplanes have to maintain a perfect or almost perfect parallellness with the ground or else the image will look shifted. In places where the overlays are not very exact, the most common reason is than when the sattilite image was taken, the survey plane's camera was not pointing straight down and resulted in a shifted overlay in relation to the real image.

  14. You're right, I just noticed too. by game+kid · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

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  15. This guy did it earlier... by GillBates0 · · Score: 4, Informative
    I wholly agree that this is a very cool development, but some credit has to go to this guy who developed it first with the Google API.

    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.

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  16. Poor Guy... by Ghoser777 · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

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  17. Re:It has to be said. by dourk · · Score: 3, Insightful

    But, since Google provides all these neeto features to me and so many others free of charge, who am I to complain?

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  18. BUT by Ark42 · · Score: 3, Insightful


    Still NO EXIT NUMBERS! :(
    I can't believe I still use Mapquest's tiny and slow interface just to find freeway exit numbers.

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  19. Re:It has to be said. by Naikrovek · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Beta is no longer a technical term for them, it is a marketing term. It is for most people.

    and about the address parsing: it isn't sure it can accurately guess what you want, so it prompts you. would you rather it guess incorrectly or prompt? I'll pick prompt, thanks.

    nothing has to be said.

  20. Re:It has to be said. by Deliveranc3 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Google isn't a company... Google is an Empire.

    They will create services which will survive for YEARS! Slow ad revenue is just a stumbling block towards total domination.

    If they can just keep generating 5c a click for 50 years they'll generate billions!

    Plus they have froogle which promises to be the biggest cash cow the internet has ever seen.

  21. Re:It has to be said. by krunk4ever · · Score: 4, Insightful

    so how's this going to be different to you? imagine google did remove the beta word from their google maps software. would you know the difference? would it matter if it was exactly the same product that it was during beta form?

    in my opinion, beta is just a term google likes to fool the public with. if something is truly beta, you have 'beta' testers which usually are a select group to test out the product before releasing to the general public. this is usually a process to find bugs and etc. google has made the ENTIRE WORLD their beta testers, which i don't really mind, but final question that i want to ask you is how is sticking the word 'beta' or removing it from their products going to be any difference to you.

    i can see why you'd complain if it wasn't release to the general public, while beta users reaped all the usefulness. sorta like how people felt when only a select few got 1gb gmail accounts. gmail was in beta, and people were fighting to get accounts paying over $50 for 1 account. i could see why you'd want to see gmail go outta beta just for that reason. but google maps doesn't require subscription fees, no one has exclusive access, and it works beautifully.

    in fact, as someone else mention, google beta products are AD free!

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