My Google Map Blog

TweetScary stuff at the Museo De Cera in Madrid. LargerContinue reading

TweetThis is inside a museum in Madrid, Spain. Who else is in this image? Elvis, The Beatles… LargerContinue reading

TweetThis apparently is Anthony Bourdain crossing First Avenue in NYC. He’s an american chef hosting culinary and cultural adventure programs on the Travel Channel. LargerContinue reading

+Jens Graikowski is taking a virtual trip down historic Route 66, from Chicago all the way to Los Angeles, by following Street View and using Google Earth to explore the areas along the way.

It's not just a quick fly-by, though. He's taking his time "driving" down the road, connecting with locals via Google+, and sharing ideas, photos and restaurant suggestions as if it was a real journey. By literally working through all of the Street View imagery along the way, he's treating it as if it was an actual trip. For example, he mentions how a bunch of segway riders were following him around for a while, so he "ditched" them on his way toward Soldier Field.

It's certainly a unique way to travel down a highway, and only recently possible thanks to the ever-expanding Street View coverage. His first post is a great example, as he describes sights found in Street View, shares the "road trip" music he was listening to, and makes up a story to go with it.

He's nearly a month into the journey and just a fraction of the way to Los Angeles, so the end result could be quite a comprehensive look at Route 66 through the eyes of the Street View camera. You can follow his entire journey via Google+ by using the #jgroute66 hashtag.

While his trip is something most of us wouldn't do, it helps to show the power of Google Earth and Street View when you want to explore a new area. When meeting a client at a location that I'm not familiar with, I almost always pull it up via Earth and Street View so I can have a good idea of what I'm looking for. As image quality continues to improve in both products (not to mention the new 3D Imagery), this will become an even more useful thing to do.

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Pretty Earth

Google Earth offers an amazing way to view our planet, but when you zoom in closely the surface is actually made up of various tiles from imagery taken on different dates (here's how that works).

For years this created a patchwork effect when you viewed the earth from high altitude, but earlier this year Google unveiled "Pretty Earth", which greatly improved the view of earth from above. The difference is amazing!

Places Layer

When Google Earth was first released, the "Places" layer had huge list of items under it to select sub-categories. In earth 2010, Google removed the sub-items and created the smart "Places" layer that we have today. As you zoom in, more and more places appear, and it choose the most important ones to highlight first.

After quite a bit of user outcry, they added most of the old sub-categories back into Google Earth for power users to access. They can be found under [More] --> [Place Categories].

Panoramio

Back in 2006, Google added the popular photo-sharing website Panoramio to their "Geographic Web" layer. Over the next few months, the increased exposure helped Panoramio grow from 80,000 to over 400,000 photos.

Google acquired Panoramio in 2007, and by early 2010 (when co-founder Eduardo Manchon left) they had more then 20 million photos in their database! You can explore the photos at Panoramio.com or by enabling the [Photos] --> [Panoramio] layer in Google Earth.

Google Earth Plug-in

The Google Earth API was first released at Where 2.0 2008, and has allowed users to stretch Google Earth to do some amazing things. We've seen it used to show motorcycle routes, preview concert seating, assist after the Japanese earthquake, and it powers some awesome games such as Ships, "Drive the A-Team Van" and the GE Flight Simulator. You can see some other great uses of the API over on Paul van Dinther's PlanetInAction.com.

What's been your favorite use of the Google Earth plug-in so far?

360Cities.net has been a part of Google Earth for nearly four years, when their panoramas were first added to the [Gallery] layer of Google Earth (it was later moved to the [Photos] layer). Members of 360Cities.Net have added thousands of panoramas in the 360Cities layer Google Earth, and now have one that shows off a great image from Mars Curiosity!

While the 360Cities panorama isn't in the layer in Google Earth yet, Google has recently added a Mars Curiosity layer to the Mars mode for Google Earth. They have also added different panorama from Mars Curiosity to the software. If you click the planet icon at the top of the screen, then choose [Mars], you'll get a fresh new set of layers. Drill down to [Mars Gallery] > [Rovers and Landers] > [MSL Curiosity Rover] > [Panoramas] and you can see a stunningly sharp panorama in there.

I expect we'll see the 360Cities panorama in the Mars layer at some point, but in the meantime we strongly suggest you check out all of the other amazing layers that are featured in Google Mars to help you explore the red planet. You should also check out the full collection at 360cities.net, featuring tens of thousands of beautiful panoramas from across the globe -- and now across the universe!

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