Blog This...

Here's a couple constantly updated maps of the mess going on outside.


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View Larger Map

Labels: fire, google maps, maps

Just found dual maps today - very cool.

Wondering if they have a solution for the "I want to see my Google My Maps in Virtual Earth" I have here. If not, seems like an interesting collaboration opportunity.

They've obviously spent more time on their solution. ;)

Labels: google maps, maps, virtual earth

Recently, my folks were looking for some things to do during a quick stopover in New Orleans. I'd visited a few times, and wanted to send them pointers to a few quick sites - so I cooked up a quick Google "My Maps", and shared it with them.

Shortly afterwards, I was surfing around in Virtual Earth, and realized New Orleans is one of the cities Microsoft has modeled in 3D - plus, it has Birds Eye View imagery. Cool! Now I wanted to see that "My Maps" data in Virtual Earth... but how?

I could take all those details and copy them into a new Microsoft Live Collection, but that seems like a lot of work; Google has my all my info already. So I went looking around to see if anybody had a quick solution for me - a way to take a My Maps and turn it into a VE Collection. Nothing turned up, so I started thinking about ways to solve this myself.

Hmm...

• Sometimes, Google's "My Maps" provides a link to download a KML file containing the "My Maps" details


• Virtual Earth has added support for KML files!

Putting all those pieces together... the data's there, just have to get it in the right place. So, I took an evening learned a few new things I could do in PHP, and cooked up this page: http://www.ringthis.com/maps/mymaps2ve.php

It takes the name of the Google My Maps-provided KML file, massages the link a bit, sucks down the KML data and hands it to Virtual Earth.

It's so much more satisfying to be able to fly around a modeled city! The script has worked on most of the collections I've tried, though YMMV. If you find a KML that doesn't work, please send me a quick mail and I'll try to fix it.

Labels: maps

For dad, who both did time in Ohio (Go Tribe!) and is still doing time as a traffic engineer...

There's an interesting story at Technology Review on some work Ohio State is doing to help model and predict traffic accidents.

Will be interesting when my GPS re-routes me to avoid a dangerous intersection. 'Course, until my car can drive itself, I'm probably at higher risk paying attention to a GPS than just driving myself through that red intersection. Hmmm.

Labels: google earth, maps, traffic

So Google Earth came out with a new build with better support for photo-textured, 3D buildings. While it continues to get better, this feature is still a distant 2nd to Microsoft Live's support.

Here are some screenshots of Denver - a city Google Earth actually has decent support for - in both GE and VE.

Google Earth


Microsoft's Virtual Earth


[Updated, here's a fly-through video of Denver in GE. ]

Pan back to see more of the city, and the lack of textured building support in GE is even more apparent. Virtual Earth is the clear winner on this feature.

It remains to be seen whether Google's "let somebody else build it" strategy will win over MS's "we'll build the models ourselves" approach. In the long term, I'm hedging my bets on Microsoft here. I'm not sure how long they've been gathering their data, but it's unbelievable how many building they already have coverage on - I'm stunned every time I find the shack in Joe Random's backyard modeled.

I'll still stick with Google Earth for most of my earth lurking; the satellite imagery is better (Santa Barbara street level is still in black and white! C'mon guys.), and the 3rd party options are a generation ahead in GE. I don't care about lack of Mac support, or having to use IE - support for Mac and Firefox would be nice, but neither affects me personally.

Folks will continue dinging VE for embedding the street names into the image (so the text is upside down when South is "up"). But the 3D buildings are just so much more pretty in Virtual Earth.

Competition rocks.

Labels: 3d, google earth, maps, virtual earth

Stumbled on this interesting school mascot(?) painted on the roof of a school in the UK.

Darn [funny] kids. Headmaster Dunn must be so proud.

Labels: maps