Google Maps tool EarthTools intros contour maps

Update: EarthTools.org no longer exists so all links have been removed from this post.

Jonathan Stott has been hard at work over at EarthTools.org writing a contour map overlay which looks pretty snazzy and compliments the height finder tool already on his site. His coverage is growing all the time and he aims to cover the whole world at zoom levels 10, 9, 8, 7 and 6 and then selected areas at closer zoom levels. To see the areas of the world that have contour maps, check here. To use these maps from his main site toggle the "contour" map control when you're exploring.

Jonathon explains some of the technical challenges in creating this additional mapping layer:

For example, I cover the whole of the western United States up to zoom level 13 as well as an area of the Alps in Europe. The United Kingdom and Ireland as well as Cyprus are covered up to zoom level 14. One limiting factor is the speed of my computer - it will take about a month to generate all the tiles for zoom level 10 for the whole world. The other is the space on my webserver - the maps currently take up about 20GB. Another slight problem is that I use an alpha transparency layer for the PNG images so that I can darken the satellite and still see the contours well enough. This doesn't work on Internet Explorer 6, so I have given people the option to install FireFox or people will have to wait for Internet Explorer 7 (the current beta shows the contour maps well).

Wiki + Google Maps = Wikimapia

WARNING: The Google Maps tool/mashup/app that you are about to read about is extremely cool. Please be seated and clear time from your schedule before proceeding. :) It also seems to only be viewable in Firefox presently..

Wikimapia is a new project created by Alexandre Koriakine and Evgeniy Saveliev aimed at "describing the whole planet earth". They have created an excellent way to accomplish this goal. Using a mixture of Google Maps satellite imagery, a "wiki" editing mechanism and tagging, Wikimapia lets anyone add or edit a description for any place on earth (without registering). It also provides a new, unique way of browsing Google Maps satellite images. Here are some examples:

Egypt pyramids:

Male, the capital of Maldives:


Wikimapia presents itself in a multilingual fashion with interface controls available in English, Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, German, Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Portuguese languages! Honestly, screen captures from this site don't do it justice.. Get in and have a play and you'll realize the full potential and how nice and easy it is to use. This one gets the "awesome" label from Google Maps Mania for top notch interface, great idea, and concept stikiness. The only thing lacking is the Internet Explorer interoperability.

Make an "Earth Sandwich" with Google Maps!

Update: Zefrank's Earth Sandwich map no longer works. You can now use the Antipode Map instead.

If the earth were a sandwich....

"..If you put a piece of bread on the ground, and somebody exactly opposite you (on the other side of the world) put a piece of bread on the ground, you would have an Earth sandwich!"

Try it out:

It turns out that Waipatiki, New Zealand and Madrid, Spain have an interesting connection with one another! :) Give it a try to see where you end up. The geo developer has placed some other good country-combos along the bottom of the map for you to check out. This tool makes it very easy to move the map around and see your "sandwich partner" as you center the map. Good fun!

Big News: Google Maps street maps for ALL of Europe!

Some loyal Google Maps Mania readers have tipped me off on some big news in the world of Google Maps - Street maps for all of Europe! What a surprise people will have when they wake up on Tuesday morning! Not only are street level maps now available (in addition to the satellite maps available previously) but so are driving directions! Google Maps Mania is about to erupt with more new mashups to come from this area of the world! :)


Update: Check the comments section for more information about the updated street map data in various parts of Europe as observed by many readers.

[Thanks to Frank and Stefan for the tip!]

Build your own Google Photo Map with a GPS-equipped camera

(GPS Camera) + Maps
= Easy Photo Mapping
(link now dead)

Tim Vidas has a great description (link now dead) of how he was able to equip his Ricoh D200 with a GPS unit to easily Google Map pictures he takes with it. He explains that "The tagging of GPS data into the Exif of each picture is a really nice novelty for me". More from his How-To:

The Sales folks as Red Hen informated me that the adapter would come with some sort of mapping software, and when it didn't I called them up and was informed that it's 'not quite ready' and they'd email be about beta testing (evidently the sales teams information didn't quite jive with the software team). So I set out to create my own, and as it turns out, with only a Image::ExifTool, the Google Maps API and a little over a hundred lines of PERL, I have a script that given a directory of images, will create the GMaps htm, the associated XML for the GPS points and extract thumbnails from the pictures themselves. All that's left is to upload everything to a web directory!

On his page he has posted the source code for you to be able to do this yourself, and even makes his custom map pins available to anyone that wants to use them!

A possible way to take this a step further would be to somehow tie this into a PocketPC with a mobile data plan on it that would allow you to wirelessly transfer these photos the second they are taken to a server that automatically Google-maps them with this app running. This way you could snap photos and have them instantly viewable for people looking at your real-time Google Photo-Map. It will only be a matter of time before this is possible. Camera companies like Ricoh or Canon could do this in partnership with mobile carriers, or perhaps mobile phone handset manufacturers could just add the GPS feature to picture phones and mobile carriers could just build a service offering around it? Fun stuff. I can't wait for this all to be a little easier to do.

Gawker Stalker: Realtime New York Celebrity Map

Just saw this Google Maps mashup mentioned on BBC World here in my hotel, so I thought I had better let other Google Mappers out there know about a mashup getting some major press play. Gawker Media has put up a Google Map that shows the realtime locations of celebrities in New York City. The Google Maps mashup is called Gawker Stalker. Users can email their sightings to a gawker address and those tips are then mapped out for other users to follow. Some are calling it the killer celeb tracking app, while others (A PR Agent was interviewed on BBC World) say that it pushes the personal privacy envelope.

New Google Maps running tool: MapMyRun

Here is a new Google Maps exercise tool called MapMyRun.com - It can be used for running, walking, biking, wheeling.. whatever! It allows your map your route, plot your distances (miles and kilometers) in real time and also calculate the number calories burned.

Check out Google Maps tools similar to this:

• Walk.Jog.Run - save routes by city
• Gmaps Pedometer

Other Recreation and Fitness mashups can be found here.

182 School Districts. 1623 Schools. 150,000 data points. 1 Google Map.

Brian Timoney has created a functional Google Map to display standardized test scores for 1623 public schools in Colorado. It allows the map user to make quick visual comparisons between schools as well as getting 3 year drill-down information by clicking on any given school. Brian has this to say about the Google Maps integration:

"Standardized testing is a high-profile issue in the state and it is our hope that presenting this bulky dataset in this intuitive format will enrich the public debate."

[via]

3 more Google Maps mashups!

HotorNot.com is a site where you can post a photograph of yourself (or someone else) and have visitors to the hotornot.com website rank the photo. The question that is posed - Hot or Not? Think what you may, this site has been around a while and continues to be popular. This Google Maps mashup (link now dead) has taken the site a step further by plotting the locations of those in the photos on a Google Maps overlay. As a footnote, HotorNot actually has an API and developer wiki which this person used to create this mashup.

Here's (link now dead) a Google Maps mashup which has combined the 'Wiki' page publishing concept with Google Maps. "Maps can be created, edited, saved in a Wiki fashion". The creator is eager for feedback.

Google Maps and the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) - I'm not sure if I already posted this overlay or not. If not, here is the Toronto subway network (known as the TTC) overlaid onto Google Maps. So much more could be done with the captions for this hack. Station information, accessibility info, photos etc. I'm sure more detail will be added to this or an enhanced mashup.

Google Map interface now includes a scale!

Since any good map includes a scale, Google Maps is no longer an exception. If you check Google Maps today you'll notice at the bottom left of the map tool, there is now a handy scale to judge distance. For Canadians and other countries using the metric system, it is displayed in kilometres as well as miles!

(Thanks to the good folks at Google Sightseeing and Sightseeing with Google Maps for the tip!)