Three ways to view the spill’s progress: 1) Google Crisis center, with map data from NOAA and PBS live news feed showing the gushing oil, and 2) Paul Rademakers Google Earth representation of the oil spill, showing how it compares in size to Manhattan, London, Paris, etc, 3) New York Times”Tracking the Oil Spill in the Gulf“,map updated daily.
Archive for the 'Google Maps and Mashups' Category
Amsterdam standing on its head? New features for Google Maps (click on a little green vial in top right corner), provide some interesting options, including a rotate button so we can view of the world as the Aussie’s see it. Zoomed in locally, Amsterdam looks more like the city depicted by 16th century cartographers starting with Cornelis Anthonisz.
The new features also include a handy zoom box tool (draw a box around your destination), and a tool tip for plotting the latitude and longitude. Google announced last Friday that Google Maps will be getting more new gadgets, with its own “Maps Lab.”
Just found this fantastic route-planning website for bikers and hikers. I found a nice map of Maastricht which will give me some ammunition for touring around with visiting friends. Judging by the content, it has been around for a while (since 2005), but appears to be gaining momentum. It seems like a very nice interface, and the company also re-sells the web-components so people can customize routing on their own websites. They also do hard-core GIS processing, creating route-networks for GPS systems. RouteYou is a Belgian company, and they seem to be just expanding into global markets. So far they show over 80,000 public routes in Europe, but only a few hundred in the States, and a handful in Australia. This business may be fun to watch.
Planning a trip to New York? The Museum of the City of New York has three exhibitions of special interest to Nederlanders. This one is for map-people, too. Written-about in an Arts section review in the New York Times, the exhibition sounds a delight, and there is a book by the exhibition designer, Eric W. Sanderson and a clever Google maps mashup website about the Mannahatta Project sponsored by the Wildlife Conservation Fund. Time to travel.
The Henry Hudson 400 website has a dazzling new map mash-up. Using a “layering system” thirty-two historical maps and Henry’s four routes can be displayed on top of Google Maps, with variable transparency. Places and events related to this year’s celebration can be “turned in” revealing a wealth of historical information. There is even an opportunity for the public to add information to the map. The clever and rich map application was created by Cartosoft , a Portland-based neo-geo company with some great applications for new age mapmakers. The Hudson 400-year celebration is picking up steam (has wind in its sails). In September a fleet of traditional Dutch flat bottom boats (botters) will sail up the Hudson from New York to Albany. I’m going to try to hitch a ride.
Mapchannels Twittermap of the Elections in Iran.
Twitter maps of elections in Iran from 20 Minutes France.
When will it appear in Amsterdam? The Google Street View Trike was revealed in late May, and after a test-run in Rome (pictured), the trike will be put to use in the UK. Google-UK asked googleites for suggestions on where to ride the trike first, places such as monuments and castles. The final vote takes place on this web page. In the States, U Penn seems to be the first campus to snag the trike.
The USGS which calls itself “the nation’s largest water, earth, and biological science and civilian mapping agency” yesterday announced the availability of free vectorized topographic maps for the US in GeoPDF format. Details are on their Digital Map-Beta home page. Raster images of topographic maps have been available in GeoPDF form for some time, but the new series will include vector “layers” which can be switched on and off - contours, water, transportation, labels, etc. … just like a real GIS, but much easier to share. So far, only Arizona is available from the USGS, but much more will be released this year.
The GeoPDF reading software (TerraGo Desktop) can be download free from the developer, TerraGo Technologies. It is essentially a toolbar which is added to Adobe Reader which makes it possible to see the layers, to do a few spatial calculations (distance and area), and with a single click, hop into Google Maps. This is a fascinating development for the GIS world. Late last year ESRI announced an extension for ArcGIS 9.3 for exporting to GeoPDF. The US government is embracing GeoPDF in a big way, so little TerraGo will probably go a long way. After three venture-capital financing rounds will they go public, or be gulped by Google? Could we be looking at the ultimate Google/GIS Mashup? More later.
…to Zappo’s to buy shoes! Twittervision (see last post) looks like the first in what will probably be a mesmerizing flock of new real-time map mashups. In this Zap-map application, if you tire of the shoe-parade, click on a shoe and you get the details and an order form. The map is actually not very useful, except for the compelling representation of a retail businesses volume and customer base. Can’t help wondering if the speed will noticeably change as the economy recovers. As a sales gimmick, this worked on me. I hadn’t heard of Zappos before (not buying shoes online, obviously), and I just ordered my first pair (just to see if the map would fly to Amsterdam.)
Caution. Twittervision might make you dizzy. Maybe it is also a cure for loneliness, if you can bear it. It is certainly makes one ponder the meaning of it all. These effervescent messages from real people around the globe, vanish as quickly as they appear, an alarming demonstration of time and space convergence. Where are we headed?
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