maps of world

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Buenos Aires in Panorama

Foto Recorridos is a collection of 360 degree panoramic photos of Buenos Aires, Argentina. The site uses Google Maps to show the locations of all the interactive panoramas of the city.

The panoramas contain links that allow you to navigate from one image to another. You can also click on the map markers to load the panorama for that location. As you navigate from one interactive image to another a green line is drawn on the map to connect the panoramas. This feature allows the viewer to tell at a glance which photographs have already been viewed.

Other Panoramic Photograph Maps

360Cities.net
Geirangerfjord and Ålesund From the Air - Norwegian panoramas (fjords from the air)
Tours from Above - More aerial panoramas from all over the world.
Virtual Africa
Panedia
Singapore VR
Limoges 360
360 Toronto
Panoramic Earth

Search for Travel Books with Google Maps

JungleThingy

JungleThingy is a very simple to use Google Maps based search engine for travel guides listed on Amazon.

To search for a travel book for a specific location on JungleThingy just click on a location on Google Maps. The travel guides and travel books for that location are then listed in the middle column. If you then click on one of the listed books you can get further details, including the price, reader ratings and a summary of the book's contents.

Also See

GuidebookPlus - maps the page numbers of locations in guide books, such as those published by Lonely Planet and Rough Guide.

Labels: tourism

Animated Google Sky

Eagle Nebula Scroll

Having played around with static Street View images to create an animated side view of Oxford Street in London I wondered if it was possible to do something similar with static map tiles fromGoogle Sky.

It is.

Here's an animated marquee of the Eagle Nebula. In itself it probably doesn't have many practical applications but the static images could be useful for anyone wanting to illustrate an astronomy article on the internet.

The image illustrating this post is itself a static Google Sky map tile.

Perhaps Google should create a static API for Google Sky as they have forGoogle Maps.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Map of the Week - Part Two

Tripline

Tripline allows you to create an embeddable interactive Google Map of a journey or trip.

Using Tripline it is very easy to add markers for the different stops or stages on your trip. Users can add photographs and comments to each marker. In the completed map the information windows for each marker contain forward and back arrows which animate the map to the next (or previous) stop on the journey. The line between each map marker is nicely animated and the map contains pause and play buttons to control the animations.

The ease of creating a Tripline map and the fact that maps can be embedded in a webpage or blog, just like YouTube videos, should help to make Tripline a popular mapping application.

As well as mapping personal journeys and trips Tripline can be used for plotting the routes of marathons and other races, such as this Tour de France map, or for plotting historical expeditions, such as this Lewis and Clark map.

I guess I shouldn't have named my map of the week yesterday. Tripline has easily slipped in at the last moment to claim joint top position.

Find a Caravan Site with Google Maps

Camping & Caravanning Club - SiteSeeker

The UK's Camping and Caravanning Club have produced a very useful Google Map for caravan owners to find a camping site that meets all their requirements.

The map's search facility allows you to search within a defined distance of a given location and refine the search to sites offering electric hook-up, hard standing, full facility or electric and hard standing. Beneath the map are a large number of other facilities that you can require in your search, such as laundry facilities and showers etc.

Map of the Week - Part Two

Tripline

A Google Map Car Trip Cost Calculator

Go-gas.com

Go-gas.com is a simple, intuitive Google Map that can tell you how much a car journey will cost you.

You can plot the route of your car journey with a few mouse clicks or by typing in the starting address and the address of your destination. If you then input your car's fuel economy and the price of gas Go-gas.com will tell you how much the trip will cost.

Friday, August 6, 2010

Google Map of the Week

Athens Historical Buildings

If you are visiting somewhere like Athens, Greece one of your priorities would surely be to view some of the city's historical buildings. Using the historical monuments database from EIE (Archaeology of the City of Athens) Phil Stubbings has created this Google Map showing the location of interesting architecture in Athens.

The map includes a slider navigation control that allows you to refine the buildings shown on the map by date range. So, for example, you could choose just to view buildings erected in the city in the 16th century. The map also has a good search function that lets you search for architectural styles, for example 'neoclassical'.

As well as finding the location of historically important buildings in the city you can also overlay an historical map of the city from 1890.

I really like this map. In fact it has just sneaked in at the last minute to claim the crown for 'map of the week'.

The Decade Volcanoes

Inspired by some recent Volcano-related posts over at Google Sightseeing, I thought it'd be neat to look at the 16 "Decade" Volcanoes around the world. Decade Volcanoes, according toWikipedia are "the 16 volcanoes identified by the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI) as being worthy of particular study in light of their history of large, destructive eruptions and proximity to populated areas."

Like most mountains (as we saw earlier this year), these volcanoes look stunning in Google Earth. They're listed below in alphabetical order. Click the "KML" link for each one to view it for yourself in Google Earth.

Avachinsky-Koryaksky - Kamchatka, Russia - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Colima - Jalisco and Colima, Mexico - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Mount Etna - Sicily, Italy - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Galeras - Nariño, Colombia - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Mauna Loa - Hawaii, USA - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Mount Merapi - Central Java, Indonesia - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Mount Nyiragongo - Democratic Republic of Congo - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Mount Rainier - Washington, USA - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Sakurajima - Kagoshima Prefecture, Japan - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Santa Maria/Santiaguito - Guatemala - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Santorini - Cyclades, Greece - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Taal Volcano - Luzon, Philippines - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Teide - Canary Islands, Spain - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Ulawun - New Britain, Papua New Guinea - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Mount Unzen - Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Vesuvius - Naples, Italy - KML Google Earth File. You must have GE installed.

Are there are volcanoes that you find particularly interesting? Leave a comment and let us know!

Seeking map data in response to Pakistan floods

According to the UN, the recent floods in Pakistan have affected over 4 million individuals - and the human toll continues to grow. Disease is an ever-increasing risk as relief agencies rush to the aid of those who have been hurt or displaced.

Google’s Crisis Response team has provided satellite imagery and KML layers to assist relief efforts in past disasters, including the Haiti earthquake and recent Gulf of Mexico oil spill. In Pakistan, however, the cloud cover over the impacted areas has inhibited our ability to make this valuable content available. The Crisis Response team is looking to collect and aggregate imagery and user generated KML, or other map data, with the goal of making this content more accessible to both crisis responders and the general public. We’re hoping you can help. You can submit links to KML and map data via the following form. We’ll contact you if we are able to publish your content.