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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."
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!
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.
Earthsized?
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
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 -->
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.
3 9.825644,-104.980974&spn=0.007749,0.015003&t=h&hl= en
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=
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
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."
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!!
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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