For maphounds..if you didn't already know, Google Earth

I've had it for awhile now. It is truly awesome.

Coming from an imagery/mapping background, it's cool to do this type of stuff on my PC in my living room.

Ed

I can't get it to run. Some DirectX problem.

Windows XP Home Edition SP2
AMD Sempron 2800+
2GHz 448MB RAM

maybe not enough ram

Pretty darn cool indeed.

Check out Washington DC. The rooftops of some buildings are blacked out so you can't see what's on top.

I've heard it's pretty cool, but for whatever reason I don't feel entirely comfortable downloading a product from Google. Because I'm not sure there wouldn't be some "extra" functions to help them track internet usage. Probably just paranoid.

This is my new favoritist toy. Resolution in NYC is way under a meter-- you can see what color tops people are wearing as they walk down the street. You can see lines on soccer fields.

I can see that Art wasn't home when the Sat took the pic of his place. I can see that my neighbor was.

The elevation is pretty neat. Doesn't work for buildings until you get to Manhatten or the like.

Won't work for macs!

coolest thing EVER!!!!

http://kh.google.com/download/earth/index.html

Apple Macintosh computers are not supported at this time (but we are working on it).

Click to expand...

Resolution in NYC is way under a meter-- you can see what color tops people are wearing as they walk down the street. You can see lines on soccer fields.

Click to expand...

I was hopeing for better resolution of New Zealand. I was trying the find the Heaphy Track which I'll be hikeing just before Christmas this year, but the resolution for at least that part of the country can't be any better than 100 meters.

How recent are most of those pics? By the looks of things one of my neighbors had a mosquito breeding ground (aka pool in disrepair) at the time my neighborhood was snapped.

Ok. That's too darned cool.

Mike

Holy CRAP.

21 degrees 21'47.49" N 157 degrees 57'07.24" W...

It's Battleship Row, Pearl Harbor. With the USS Missouri and the USS Arizona.

Wow.

Cool site. You might look at the USGS site that is hosted by Microsoft below. Great for aerial photographs and topo maps for free.

http://terraserver-usa.com/

That is pretty cool, Mike.

With respect, 22-rimfire, I've been using the TerraServer site for years, and this program kicks its sorry butt.

For a handier hybrid map/sat mix, try Google Maps. It'll take you to an address like Mapquest, but let you switch conveniently between Satelite and map view. Very convenient.

Matt G: With respect, I agree with you about Google Earth. I don't like the resolution when you get away from the cities. When I'm looking at aerial photographs, I am generally looking for as good a resolution as possible and having them black and white actually is useful. But, Google Earth is pretty cool and it is one of the latest toys with people I know. I mentioned Terra Server because many don't know about it. Frankly, I have all my topos on CD and can print them at what ever scale I want, and annotate with property lines, trails, logging roads, and so forth when I feel like it. Useful tool.

If you fish streams, have you ever looked at the water level and flow rate info (gauging stations) that is available on the USGS web site? This is also cool as it has saved me an hour drive or more only to discover that the water was too high on a stream/river to be fishable. Most don't know about this.

That is awesome.

I don't have the stuff on CD ROM, so I'm using the Terra Server site, and a lot of country still seems to be missing, online. Or was I missing something? Art sent me a link to a TerraServer view of some property in Big Bend about 6 years ago, and that's about as rural as you'll get. I would tend to think that they'd only gotten better.

I agree that B&W does better for resolution; color can be distracting, sometimes. (and takes up memory)

Matt, I have only searched on Terra Server in the areas that I'm interested in. It appears based on limted regional usage, that the topo coverage is complete, but there are gaps in the aerial photography. I don't know if there is a continued effort to revise the aerial coverage or it is static. So, in areas that I'm interested in, I check. If it is there, great. If not, I didn't loose any thing.

I use the Delorme CD's. I have the states that I am most interested in. But, that info predates some of their other products on CD. I'm told that Topo USA has complete (available) topo coverage, but I wonder how that can be as there is only so much information you can put on a CD at the highest resolution 1"=2000 ft (or standard topo scale 1:24000). They have some really cool stuff that you can use with a GPS, but I have not graduated to that level of need.

Some cities have high resolution GIS photography on their web sites for free. Othes want a fee or they have not the funds to set up a secure server where folks outside the government can get access. Where available, this is very cool and has changed the way mapping is done in urban areas.

Some of the landmarks are not accurate on every site I've checked. I always go to photos of areas that I'm very familiar with. Every single one of them has the Old Herndon Road here in Waynesboro on them. Apparently airbrushed in. You'd need a four wheel drive and a chain saw to navigate the Old Herndon Road. It's been abandoned for over fifity years. Walking down it; you have to be observant to realize you're on an old road if you don't already know.

Sometimes that's the beauty of aerial and satellite photos, Byron-- they can see stuff that you simply can't see from the ground. This is especially true when, as with most sat pics, the image is a composite of visible and IR light. Looking at Old Herndon Rd, I see that it's made up of several different colors, light and dark in the photo. I doubt that anyone took the time to draw that in. It's probably just the different color reflection from the new foliage in the right of way versus the old foliage on either side:

Nice - I just moved recently and the detail of the local waterways is great - you can actually SEE the shoals and channels in the pictures.

Of course these can change pretty quickly.....