Interesting new thing : Google Earth

[maZe]

Ok, it's not gonna create a revolution but it's is quite interesting and it's free.

It allows you to see any place on the planet from the sky, then zoom in and see it in 3D. I've checked out Glasgow and don't think they are the best images possible (North American pics seems better, don't know why...?). But it's pretty cool.

I'm cyrrently trying to find Gartloch in 3D

PS: the trick to good pics is to wait (something a while) to get 100% streaming.

http://earth.google.com/

[The Voyageur]

NASA has a programme called 'World Wind' which is the dogs b*llocks when it comes to fully zoomable sat images.

You download the software, load it up, the software then conncets to something like 7 satellites orbiting various parts of the world and you get fully zoomable, rotational, 3d data of your chosen area in real-time or when the last image was taken.

N.B. This is a huge programme (180MB) and can only be viewed with high broadband connections.

About: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/index.html

Download: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov/download.html

[Apollo]

Thanks for trying this first. Every time I looked at it I thought it was a nice idea, but never had the guts to go for it.

Doenloaded it, and all the extra packages it needs to work, and crossed fingers tightly.

It does certainly work and do what it says on the box, but looks like something you need to do a bit of exploring to find the true potential.

Accepted the PC I've tried it on is not the newest, driving it is a bit like flying a plane with a joystick in a bowl of custard, but ok once you know that's what it wants to do. Worth noting it's also worth waiting to make sure it's finished downloading data to display, and not in progress.

Only problem I've had is that I don't seem to be able to make it forget the last command issued e.g. if I zoom in, then want to pan or zoom out, then all I get for any mouse button, roll or wheel is more zoom in. Only way I can clear it is to click on the Position icon on the top menu.

Mind you, the position display is neat, lat and lon under the cross, your viewing altitude, and the terrain height. Very nice.

[The Mighty R I D E]

ye get a crackin view fae the moon Apolo but yel need big fuckin binoculars to see you hoose.

ride

[Molendinar]

Amazon have a beta search engine called A9 that allows you to see things as photos at street level;

http://maps.a9.com/-/maps/?ypLoc=Los%20Angeles,%20CA

[Apollo]

Amazon's may only be showing places in America, but I'd like to nominate the designer of the screen/interface for an award.

Everything just works when you mouseover, the maps and images centre without having to be clicked or dragged, each window changes to reflect changes made in another, and there's no delay or blank screen refreshes.

Google could learn a thing or two from them.

[Craigyboy7]

One of my mates told me to give it a try last week, shame about the glasgow images but paisley is pretty sharp you can zoom in a good bit on that

[Vladimir]

I noticed you can zoom right in over the whole Bouches-du-Rhone 'metropole' (Marseille), but cant over places like Glasgow or Leeds!

[martin]

Google currently don't have a huge amount of hi-res photos for the UK, but some places are covered - including just to the south-west of Glasgow.

If you take a look at http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=55.926 ... &t=k&hl=en then you can see the hi-res areas as slightly darker squares. Aberdeen's also covered.

If you look at the south end of the runway at Glasgow Airport, you can see a plane just about to land..

[Molendinar]

http://j2memap.landspurg.net/index.html

if you install the above java app on your phone, you can view google maps and satellite data on your mobile!!

Even allows a link to Geoblogger.

Still quite a buggy application, but rather amazing nonetheless..

[dazed_and_confused]

I've been using Google Earth for a couple of months now, and got annoyed by the lack of high resolution photos of Glasgow. So I decided to take matters into my own hands. I found various aerial photos of the city, and added them on. They're not quite as good as the Paisley area, but are much better than the wee blobs of colour given by Google.

The file's 5mb in size, but I've got nowhere to post it at the moment. PM me if you fancy a look, and I'll email it to you.

Al

[Squigster]

Just thought i'd mention that the Western Isles are now in Hi-Res

[YokerBloke]

I had a look earlier, Clydebank is now showing up. especially the shopping centre

[mustardman]

Just thought i'd mention that the Western Isles are now in Hi-Res

cheers dude, cool! I fish up there quite alot...have to check the lochs!

[cheesemonster]

holy crap! just found out about this, good quality 360 degree street level viewing at various points on san franciscos streets in google maps
http://blog.outer-court.com/archive/2007-05-29-n38.html