Google Maps New UI Goes Live

Google have been testing a new user interface for Google Maps for a couple of months now. The new design seems to have now gone live.

The biggest change is in the appearance of the map buttons. The buttons have been changed to larger thumbnail images. In the new design when you roll over the satellite thumbnail the layer options appear in a drop-down list.



The list of your recent map searches is also displayed in the layer panel.

Hat-tip: Street View Funny

Viewing Historical Maps with Google Maps

Hypercities

Hypercities is a great collection of historical maps that can be viewed on Google Maps. The site now has historical map collections for 18 cities around the world.

If you select a city from the map the historical maps available for the city will load in the map sidebar. If you select a map from the sidebar you can view the map overlaid on a Google Map of the city.

The transparency of the historical map overlays can be adjusted with the slidebar control. It is therefore possible to compare the historical map with the Google Map underneath.

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A Google Maps Adventure Game

Virtual Village II


Last year I wrote about Virtual Village II an online adventure game built on top of the Google Maps API. In the game you are able to move around on a map and interact with other players, with virtual players and with buildings and objects.

Virtual Village II has now been updated with a number of new features. It is now possible to log-in to the game with your Facebook account. The game also now features a number of YouTube cut scenes. When you move around the village there are a number of videos that show the locations of the village in real life.

More villages have also been added to the game and you can move between the different villages. The game now uses Open Layers but also features integration with the Google Earth browser plug-in.

The game supports English and Spanish. Here are some quick tips to help you explore the game world:

1. Walking - you can only walk short distances so click on the map fairly near your game avatar to walk to that position. You can not walk through buildings so stick to the roads.

2. Entering buildings - you can only enter some buildings. The game instructions tell you when you are near a building that you can enter. The instructions point you in the direction of the building and tell you how far away it is. When you are in the right position click enter and then click on the building in the map.

3. Virtual Players - it is important to interact with the virtual players as they can give you objects that you will need later.

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More Street View for Denmark

As well as launching Street View in Romania yesterday Google also added about 40% more Street View imagery in Denmark. According to Soren ofmicroformats.dk there is now about 4,3000 km of Street View coverage in Denmark.

Amongst the new areas to get Street View imagery is the island of Bornholm.

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Transfagarasan Highway in Street View

Street View Drives

Earlier today Google Sightseeing found a beautiful Street View of the Transfagarasan Highway in Romania. I couldn't resist the temptation to create a little animation of a drive down this amazingly twisty road.

The link to this latest Street View animation can be found at the bottom ofStreet View Drives. Essentially the animation just flicks through consecutive still images from Google Street View.

You can use the provided buttons to change the direction of the camera and to speed up the animation.

You can create something very similar yourself with Directions Map. Directions Map uses Google Maps to help users create an embedable driving directions map for their website or blog. This Google Maps based widget allows you to create an animated Street View tour. If you just add a starting point and a destination to Directions Map you can view the route entirely in Street View.

Here's a link to Directions Map that I created for the Transfagarasan Highway.

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