Category: tech

Like every other Google map geek in the world, I’ve been waiting with anticipation for the release of embedded ‘My Maps’. Most unusual for Google to announce a feature before it’s released, usually it’s just a matter of keeping an eye on the blogs or looking for the “New” at the top of the various Google services. This time, however, the news was out more than a week ago, so I’ve been checking daily to see what form the new feature would take. Finally, it’s here with lots of good points and a couple of bad ones.

Well, the fact is, they didn’t – entirely. Sure, it appears in Google’s wonderful maps, but the images were captured by a company called Immersive Media, who have developed these innovative products.

It seems that Immersive’s main thrust is moving images – spherical video with embedded geodata – very impressive stuff. In typical Google fashion, however, they’ve released a lo-fi version that really hits the spot. Other blogs have pointed out that the flash player used by google references individual tiles and stitches them together on the fly – very clever stuff.

Immersive say they’ve been taking these photos since 2005. I don’t know what the schedule was, but there is ample evidence of an improvement in the technology over time – the more recent images are substantially higher resolution – compare a New York shot at full zoom with one from San Francisco.

Further evidence of a time lag can be found by comparing the racy little VW with the groovy little camera – which you can occasionally catch a shadow of, with the shadow of a much less streamlined version.

All interesting enough – but really, we know it’s just damn good fun!

newly found – great close up of the van, and a blog post about google van self portraits too!.

When I first used google maps I was utterly speechless at the smooth way they could present the incredible amount of data that the system held. Well, they’ve done it again – in spades!

There are plenty of blog posts talking about it, but the instructions found at googlemapsmania are simple and easy:

head over to Google Maps, center the map on the US and click “Street View”. Click a city with a camera marker and zoom in to have a play.

Once you’re there, click anywhere on a blue outlined street and suspend all disbelief… this is a ‘virtual tour’ on a scale no-one has even dared dream about. For a quick way in, try this view of the Golden Gate Bay bridge (thanks Jeff), which Product Manager, Stephen Chau rates as his favourite.

The big question is HOW? This is a lot of work, in anyone’s language, so how have they done it? Not hard to see that the images are taken in sequence, about 25m apart, and there are reflections that suggest some sort of plastic bubble – probably mounted on top of a car. I would have expected this to be done with a one-shot pano camera, but some images show signs of being stitched (though maybe it’s those reflections again). I’m assuming they are located using geocodes, so that’s probably automated into the exif data… incredible stuff!

Another aspect which should not be overlooked, is that the ‘Link to this page’ link works as you’d hope (better than you’d expect!). It takes you to the map, the location, the view and the zoom level – all in one hit. Business is going to love this!

Just imagine what implications this has if they release some API hooks for the pano viewer!

Google’s most revolutionary tool, Google Maps, has just added a new feature – My Maps – which brings ‘mapping’ to the masses.

It is brilliant. You can create maps, draw shapes, make points, add html features such as photos. Sure, there are dozens of tools out there already which allow similar capabilities, but Google, in typical style, have created the basic flexible framework which will see the widespread adoption to make it mainstream. And… the really neat part for me is the ‘KML’ link, which downloads a kml file for Google Earth.

What’s so good about that? You can do all the drawing and mapping in GE, but you can’t manage a web repository of your files – that’s the beauty of ‘My Maps’.

Once I have my KML file I can use GPSBabel to convert it to GPX and upload it to my Garmin eTrex. So, effectively, ‘My Maps’ is now my web based respository of GPS data!

To give it a road test, yesterday I mapped out the route from Maribyrnong park to Brimbank park along the Maribyrnong River. This ride is part of Bicycle Victoria’s ‘Bike path discovery’ program, but you don’t need an excuse to ride it – it is a beautiful track. Anyway, the mapping worked perfectly – I was a happy (and tired) cyclist by the end of the day.

Wishlist: I won’t consider it perfect until I can import kml or gpx I’ve created elsewhere. As it matures, I’d also like to see fuller support for GPX, such as perserving icons etc. but that’s secondary.

Recommendation: get out there and start mapping – I think we’re about to see mapping and mashups go seriously mainstream!

I can even view my flickr stream as GeoRSS in Google maps!

It’s not always easy using a Mac. Being in the minority means you don’t have access to many of the tools others take for granted. GPS is a good example. I love my little Garmin eTrex, but Garmin don’t love my mac. They have promised software this year, but details are very sketchy. So, I live hope, but in the meantime, I’ve got things I want to do, like geocoding the 2,000 odd photos I took on a recent holiday to Thailand and Myanmar!