Slashgeo

Google Maps Adds Terrain

posted by gywright on Tuesday November 27, @03:23PM        Permalink  Trackback URI  Slashdotthis  Diggthis  Del.icio.us
from the terrain-iz-in-your-mapz-makingz-them-purdy dept.

Google Lat Lon Blog announces the addition of terrain to their free Google Maps site. In addition to adding the Terrain button, they've removed the Hybrid button. They explain,

"You may notice in this screenshot that the handy "Hybrid" button, which shows satellite images overlaid with labels and roads, seems to have gone missing. Don't worry -- this view can now be accessed by clicking the "Satellite" button and checking the "Show labels" check box that will appear under the "Satellite" button."

Trackbacks:

• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE
• NONE

Related Stories

New Google Maps Features Launched Including Collaborative Mapping [+]

In addition to the important new terrain layer announced yesterday, Google Maps received a few significant updates, first, Google Maps searches are now providing a thumbnail of the related street view photo, second, the My Maps feature somehow becomes Our Maps, allowing to collaborate directly on someone else's My Maps, this has a lot of potential of getting big, and last, you can more easily share KML and KMZ files and GeoRSS feeds through My Maps. From the Our Maps announcement: "Just click the "Collaborate" link and enter the email addresses of the people you want to invite. They'll receive an email invitation with a link to the map. Once they open the map, they should be able to edit it, as long as they are signed into a Google Account that's associated with that email address. You can also open your map to the world so anyone can edit it by selecting the "Allow anyone to edit this map" checkbox."

Industry: Contour Lines Added To Google Maps [+]

The Digital Earth Blog informs us that Google has just added contour lines to their maps. From their summary : "Late last year, Google introduced terrain maps, which were 3D-looking maps of the earth — kind of a cross between flat maps and satellite imagery. Today they’ve added contour lines to many of the maps around the world, helping to show the elevation changes in even greater detail. Their explanation is:"

Head on over there for more information and of course to the google site to see the contours.

• MS, Y! and Ask already had that

  (Score:2)

  by Satri (3) on Wednesday November 28, @10:04AM (#1979)
  ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

  TMR reminds us that MS, Y! and Ask.com already had relief data for the webmapping online service [mcwetboy.net].
  • Re:MS, Y! and Ask already had that

    (Score:3)

    by lxnyce (1043) on Wednesday November 28, @08:04PM (#1980)
    ( http://www.vizure.com/ )

    Google is like the Apple of the GIS industry. They dress up features that have already existed and market it as brand spanking new tech. Seems to be working out pretty well for both companies :).

    [ Parent ]
    • Re:MS, Y! and Ask already had that

      (Score:3)

      by Satri (3) on Wednesday November 28, @11:58PM (#1983)
      ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

      Ah! You see, marketing matters! You can have OpenStreetMap, Geonames, QGIS, OpenLayers and the many more great geospatial products and services, but all are useless if nobody knows about them. Thus Slashgeo! ;-)

      [ Parent ]
      • Re:MS, Y! and Ask already had that

        (Score:3, Interesting)

        by lxnyce (1043) on Thursday November 29, @09:09AM (#1987)
        ( http://www.vizure.com/ )

        Yes, marketing does matter, however the problem is that if you have industry giants such as ESRI or Leica doing the same thing, they always get bashed for trying to copy Google, when in fact Google is copying these smaller projects. The other problem here is that if any of those companies try something new, it's quickly trashed until Google or MSFT pumps a ton of money into it and does the same thing.
        
        Either way, my point is that folks seem to think that Google is revolutionizing our field, but the reality is, they don't even care about it. They will dump it quickly and move onto the next bigger thing if we don't find means of forcing them to support it (like what OpenLayers is doing to Google Maps).

        [ Parent ]
        • Re:MS, Y! and Ask already had that by Satri (Score:2) Thursday November 29, @09:30AM
          • Re:MS, Y! and Ask already had that

            (Score:3, Interesting)

            by lxnyce (1043) on Thursday November 29, @09:40AM (#1989)
            ( http://www.vizure.com/ )

            Part of my consipracy theory comment a couple months back : http://industry.slashgeo.org/industry/07/03/26/132 3228.shtml [slashgeo.org]

            [ Parent ]
• Too bad it sucks

  (Score:3, Interesting)

  by belg4mit (226) on Wednesday November 28, @11:56PM (#1982)
  ( http://pthbb.org/ )

  It provides less information than hybrid mode in my area, and is not a substitute. Terrain seems to be a "make street view look pretty." I imagine many other map makers were like myself and used hybrid to provide context to the satellite view...

  --
  In Bob we trust, all others bring data.
  • Re:Too bad it sucks

    (Score:3)

    by Satri (3) on Thursday November 29, @12:06AM (#1984)
    ( http://alexandreleroux.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Friday March 17, @05:07PM )

    Agreed. Terrain is not a substitute, it's a new offer. And I like it for mainly one reason: at small scales, Hybrid mode sucks badly in Google Maps, same for Google Earth. I still don't understand why they don't use something similar to the Blue Marble dataset by default at small scales. I've been using Yahoo! Maps for demonstration products at small scales because it looks so much more beautiful. Now with the new Terrain feature, I feel I have a viable alternative :-)

    [ Parent ]
    • Re:Too bad it sucks

      (Score:3, Interesting)

      by belg4mit (226) on Thursday November 29, @01:12AM (#1985)
      ( http://pthbb.org/ )

      Except that Googke seems to think it is since there's no more hybrid button :-/

      --
      In Bob we trust, all others bring data.

      [ Parent ]
      • Re:Too bad it sucks

        (Score:3, Informative)

        by redgeographics (145) <hansNO@SPAMredgeographics.com> on Thursday November 29, @04:32AM (#1986)
        ( http://www.redgeographics.com/ )

        If you set it to "Satellite" (or whatever the English version calls it, Google insists on providing me the Dutch language...), there's an option to show labels, that brings the old Hybrid view back.

        This could be an interesting development, with a bit of luck it sparks a lot more interest for custom shaded relief maps, which would be good for the GIS/carto industry in general.

        --
        Hans van der Maarel

        [ Parent ]