Google Releases More Oblique Imagery in Google Maps

January 14, 2011 11 Comments

So there you go, 45º imagery update for various U.S. cities.

…the Geo Imagery team has just rolled out some refreshed 45° imagery for a number of places in the United States. So whether you already miss the places you may have visited over the holiday season, or you’re looking for new vacation spots to travel to this year, you can now escape the winter weather and check them out virtually from the comfort of your warm and dry home.

So how long to Pictometry’s lawyers start making a fuss?

Oblique images in Google Maps?  I see nothing!

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Google Maps Labs Finally Improves Navigation Features – Sort Of

February 12, 2010 25 Comments

Yes FINALLY! I can’t tell you how frustrating it has been for me since the day Google Maps arrived. I always wanted to hold down the shift key (like every other modern mapping API) and draw a box to zoom in. With Google you had to use your mouse wheel and really who has a mouse wheel anymore with our notebooks and touch mice. Something had to be done.

Enter Google Maps Labs. You should now see that little green beaker in the upper right hand corner of your Google Maps screen.

![The new labs icon](http://images.spatiallyadjusted.com.s3.amazonaws.com/GoogleMapsLabsButton.png “Labs Icon”)

Clicking on that icon you are presented with some new features:

![The labs options](http://images.spatiallyadjusted.com.s3.amazonaws.com/GoogleMapsLabOptions.png “Labs Options”)

A two of note:

### Drag ‘n’ Zoom ###
Now this was the one I was most excited about until I saw its implementation.

![The navigation](http://images.spatiallyadjusted.com.s3.amazonaws.com/GoogleMapsLabsNavigation.png “Google Maps Navigation”)

See that little square below the zoom bar? You are supposed to click on that if you want to zoom in. You can’t do what is completely obvious to everyone, hold down the shift key. I wouldn’t mind if they had both, but not adding the shift key to enable is totally baffling. But even worse, you can’t use the escape key to get out of the Drag ‘n’ Zoom. You have to move your mouse all the way back over to the left and turn it off.

### Aerial Imagery ###
I don’t agree with what Google calls this because I’m sure there is “Aerial Imagery” in their “Satellite” images, but they’ve got 50 Billion in cash and I’m under water on my mortgage. So what do I know? Anyway this is the Google oblique imagery [we've read about](http://www.spatiallyadjusted.com/2009/12/08/google-maps-pushes-dagger-into-bing-maps-and-pictometry/ “Google Maps Pushes Dagger Into Bing Maps and Pictometry”). It is only available in some small areas, but we can now see them outside of the Google Maps API. When you zoom to an area that has supported oblique imagery, you’ll see the new oblique aerials button that turns it on. You can use the Drag ‘n’ Zoom to quickly get into an area you wish.

![Google Maps Oblique](http://images.spatiallyadjusted.com.s3.amazonaws.com/GoogleMapsLabsOblique.png “Google Maps Oblique”)

### The Others ###
The rest aren’t in my opinion that newsworthy but address probably small needs of users. I think this is a good way for Google to get some new features into Maps quicker than their normal release schedule. I just wish they’d get on board with existing UI and naming conventions.

via [GigaOM](http://gigaom.com/2010/02/12/google-maps-now-has-a-labs-feature-too/)

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Google Maps Pushes Dagger into Bing Maps and Pictometry

December 8, 2009 44 Comments

When people always asked me, what did I like about Bing Maps, it was always the Bird’s Eye View.  It was something that Google didn’t have in their map API and it really was useful since a top down view doesn’t always tell the full story.  Well today Google announced that they too are going to have what they call Aerial Imagery in their API.  Yep, that is the same perspective view that Bing Maps has with their Bird’s Eye View.

Hard Rock Hotel - San Diego, CA

Hard Rock Hotel - San Diego, CA

Now of course how could one really get that excited about Google adding oblique imagery.  Well unlike Pictometry, you can zoom out much further on the data so you can see how one might get from the Hard Rock Hotel to the San Diego Convention Center (Bing Maps is of course out of date).

Gain better perspective on where things are

Gain better perspective on where things are

Isn’t that so much more valuable than the top down version?  I just can’t see how any current Bird’s Eye View user can continue to use Bing Maps over this (Shall we count the days until Zillow changes?).  What I’m interested in seeing which company can build out their “new service” first.  Google with their oblique aerial view, or Microsoft with their street level view.  I think we all know who will be throwing more resources at getting this done, don’t we?

The one weird part is this appears to be in the v2 API only. I suppose this is because launch customers Orbitz, Redfin and Trulia are all using that version of the API on their websites. v3 can’t be far along.

Dave Brubeck Quartet flying over Google’s Oblique Aerial Imagery

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