From the monthly archives:

March 2008

StreetView coming to Google Earth within a few weeks

March 31, 2008

According to Rafe Needleman of Webware, StreetView will be available inside of Google Earth “within a few weeks”. Rafe quotes an unnamed source with that info. He states that it’s not clear if this will be a public release or an internal testing release.
If done smoothly, this could be very slick. It’ll [...]

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Some background on how Virtual Earth creates 3D buildings

March 31, 2008

The Virtual Earth 3D blog has a post today that explains in detail how they create each 3D city. From the article:
Microsoft’s acquisition of Vexcel Corporation, a 20-year old provider of remote sensing solutions, provided the Virtual Earth team with a broad background in photogrammetry, geospatial data production, and digital elevation model (DEM) generation and [...]

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StreetView adds 13 new cities and a national park

March 28, 2008

To go along with adding StreetView to the Google Maps API today, Google has just added data for 13 new cities and Yosemite National Park.
The 13 new cities are:

Albuquerque, NM
Anchorage, AK
Austin, TX
Cleveland, OH
Fairbanks, AK
Little Rock, AR
Madison, WI
Nashville, TN
Rockford, IL
Richmond, VA
Spokane, WA
St. Petersburg, FL
Tampa, FL

I wonder why they still don’t have Atlanta in there? It’s the [...]

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StreetView now included in the Google Maps API

March 27, 2008

Google has just announced that they have added StreetView to the Google Maps API! It sounds like there are some neat things that can be done with it, and I’m anxious to give it a try.
The post at the Google Maps API Blog has much more information — go check it out. If you make [...]

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Hybrid view coming to Virtual Earth’s Bird’s Eye imagery

March 26, 2008

On April 10, Microsoft plans to release Virtual Earth version 6.1. Among the enhancements:

Enhanced experiences with bird’s eye view in 3D, and new bird’s eye hybrid view.
Reverse geocoding for U.S. users.
Walking directions for North America and European Union users.
Traffic-based driving directions.
New cross-browser support.
Improved printing support for maps.

That’s quite a bit of good stuff. While I’ve [...]

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WorldWind finally gets road data… sort of

March 26, 2008

One of the problems with NASA WorldWind is that it uses public domain data, and most road data isn’t public domain. Therefore, there really isn’t any road data in the application, which makes it far less usable.
However, OpenStreetMap data is public domain, and now you get get that data into WorldWind. It takes a few [...]

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March Imagery update for Virtual Earth

March 25, 2008

As always, it’s a huge update. This one totals over 42 TB!
There was no new 3D data added, but a lot of ortho and a TON of new Bird’s Eye imagery. Here is the full list, or you can just go view it right now.
Orthos
USA

Las Vegas, NV
Denver, CO
Phoenix DT, AZ
San Luis Obispo, CA

Austria/Switzerland Orthos:

Vienna, Austria
Bern, [...]

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Techdirt suggests Google Maps should become even more wiki-like

March 25, 2008

About a week ago, Google started allowing users to add/edit/delete items from the map. It’s a neat idea with a lot of great potential, but opens up the possibility of vandalism. Timothy Lee of Techdirt has a great suggestion on how to help address the problem:
…as far as I can tell, there’s no way to [...]

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Google Earth updates radar data

March 20, 2008

A few months back, Google added near-real time weather data, which included radars. Today, they’ve added coverage for a few more areas:

Europe
Canada
Alaska
Hawaii
Puerto Rico

I really like the radars in Google Earth. Not only are they useful, but they’re pretty cool. They float a few miles above the surface of the earth, just the way actual clouds [...]

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March Madness in Google Earth

March 20, 2008

The Google LatLong blog has just released a KML that maps the location of all 65 teams in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
It’s a pretty simple file, but it’s interesting to see them all placed on the map.
You can download the file here.

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