Ho John Lee’s Weblog

Google Maps was already very cool, using Ajax to build a responsive scrolling, zooming, draggable map using XML and current browser technologies. The addition of satellite imagery takes it to another level altogether. Here’s Palo Alto, CA as a conventional map. Here’s Palo Alto, CA as a satellite image. Here’s the lower Manhattan construction site where the World Trade Center used to be.

At the moment, there are some limitations on the available imagery. There is good coverage of the San Francisco Bay Area and other major metropolitan areas. However, rural areas seem to have relatively little coverage, such as this satellite imagery for Brownville Junction, Maine.

Google Maps doesn’t provide data for regions outside the US, so there’s no imagery for non-US locations either.

Nonetheless, this is another great web application from Google. Other than adding coverage for more regions, perhaps we’ll see a Digital Earth-style flythrough next.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 5th, 2005 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Travel, Search Engines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.