Just when you thought they were out of ingenious ideas, Google has just enabled Keyhole Satellite support for its popular 'Maps' and 'Local' services. The system allows you to zoom in on almost any spot in North America, and seamlessly transfer between a map or recent satellite view of the area.
"Have you ever wished you could see what someplace looked like before you got there? A house? A hotel? A freeway exit? We thought you might find it useful. Now when you type an address into Google Maps, you can click the 'Satellite' link and see a view of the area. You can zoom, move the view by dragging, and even resize the window just like the normal 'Maps' view. Looking for a new apartment or house? Type in an address you're considering, get a view from the air and, with a quick local search, find out if you can walk to your favorite Saturday morning cup of coffee."
Keyhole support will easily satisfy casual users who downloaded NASA WorldWind to see their house from space. Using Google Maps I was able to make out individual cars on the freeway, and even see my neighbor’s pool. (Slide and all) Performance is amazing considering the massive amount of data Google must have stored.
View: Google Maps | Google Local
View: Google Blog
"Have you ever wished you could see what someplace looked like before you got there? A house? A hotel? A freeway exit? We thought you might find it useful. Now when you type an address into Google Maps, you can click the 'Satellite' link and see a view of the area. You can zoom, move the view by dragging, and even resize the window just like the normal 'Maps' view. Looking for a new apartment or house? Type in an address you're considering, get a view from the air and, with a quick local search, find out if you can walk to your favorite Saturday morning cup of coffee."
Keyhole support will easily satisfy casual users who downloaded NASA WorldWind to see their house from space. Using Google Maps I was able to make out individual cars on the freeway, and even see my neighbor’s pool. (Slide and all) Performance is amazing considering the massive amount of data Google must have stored.
View: Google Maps | Google Local View: Google Blog
Thanks to Skid_Mark for his Back Page News submission.
Where can I see Portugal and EU stuff?
My house is one of the ones by the body of water
1 Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA 98052
Real MS HQ
MS HQ according to Google
Xbox ?
the Xbox division is located somewhere else...
Last edited by 41949 on 06 Apr 2005 - 05:59
anyways, if you want to go throw out eggs in our doors better go somewhere else...
Only it's blurry and obsured by trees.
It's definately a satalite immage, but I wouldn't call it "keyhole" by any stretch of the imagination.
When I can read the writing on the manhole cover in my parking lot then I will consider this to be "keyhole" stuff.
Still, for a free service, you gotta like it.
I wish they had better info in the Lat./Log. of what you're looking at, though. They need to provide us with more info. A scale in meters/feet etc. would be nice.
And don't think the CIA doesn't already have that.
http://www.keyhole.com/
Last edited by 18571 on 05 Apr 2005 - 10:52
Hope they update the images in Keyhole.
For example, Ann Arbor, MI doesn't let you zoom in to the max, and the images are entirely pixlated. Very bad.
Not to mention the directions feature is really nice as well the way they show the router and each segment of the route.
BTW, some addresses and directions are completely incorrect (as someone mentioned above about MS) but that is perfectly understandable, it's still in BETA! If anyone finds a mistake, submit it to Google through the feedback form so they can work on that bug to make it better.
Also, some of the satellite imagery is blurry at close resolutions because they are older GIS images. If you zoom out far enough to look at a large section of land (for example, look at Miami, FL and the Everglades), you will notice the distinct seperation of the new satellite imagery and the old. Either the new satellites are snapping away all over the country trying to update the GIS images or maybe Google isn't done interfacing the new images on their map. I would think it's just that they are still taking new pictures to replace the older, less resolution images.
I think we just found the Mapquest killer!
BTW, anyone use Google SMS? I use it all the time and it works great... Don't know very many people that use it though.
[EDIT] The new GIS images are VERY current in relative terms. It's showing all of the new construction around Miami, FL within the past year or two! [/EDIT]
Last edited by 23601 on 05 Apr 2005 - 17:36
2gb email, satellite imagery, desktop search, what more could a person want?!
(that is, potential terrorist targets)
Of course, since the Search seems to be based off an Yellow Pages database, any search for such things will come up empty. But you could manualy scroll-and-zoom your way around. I have no idea where such things are located, so I'm not gonna test this out.
But tha reminds me: the search engine for this "keyhole" thing really bites.
For example, if I open the Google maps page, type in "london", and hit search, it directs me to... a bunch of places in Kansas? What the hell? It should point me to either London, england or London Ontario... or perhaps a few of the other Londons out there (london, texas?). But.. the London house Aprtments in Kansas what NOT was waht I was searching for.
Great maps, crappy search engine.
Last edited by 89581 on 06 Apr 2005 - 08:57
But off by an entire continent?
Wonder if the govt will make them grey it out?
If you're looking, just northwest of Las Vegas.
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