Another toy from google.

This one is called 'Google Earth', and if you happen to live on any of the medium/big sized cities on the US, or any of the big cities anywhere else in the planet, then you will be able to fly/zoom/see your street with this tool.

It also has driving directions  

click the thumbnail for an example (JPG compressed at 25% to keep filesize down, but original quality is much higher).



the tool is at: http://earth.google.com/

the satellite photos are available in google maps, too.  You can look at the map of your destination or directions, and then click over to a satellite view of the same area.  Much more "cool" than usefull, generally...but very cool.

That program is amazing. You can go to literally anywhere and zoom in on someones backyard... or take a surreal trip through the grand canyons or rockies...


Google is so good to us all .     Two thumbs up!

Surprisingly, you can get aerial views of many military installations.  I worked at the Washington Navy Yard, and was shocked that fairly detailed satellite imagery of the base was available.  It won't take long before somebody argues that these kinds of tools are dangerous because they could help terrorists plan attacks.

Not saying they would be right, but it is a plausible argument.

There are a number of 'sensitive' locations in the USA which are considered off-limits when accessed through a number of free satellite photo providers, such as:

http://jdmcox.com (USA Photo Maps)
http://earth.google.com

I work very close to the capital building in Albany, NY (42deg 38'54.28" N 73deg 45'31.31" W) -- plug those coords or 'Albany, NY' into Google Earth to see a 1 km by 0.7 km blotch of 'heightened security'.

It's a bit silly.

C

Edit: Fixed link for USA Photo Maps.

It fun to tilt the axis forward and fly around all the twisty roads in the Malibu mtns.

I can see my car, LOL.

how big is the program, the requirements show 2GB is that right, and how long does it take to dl

The actual program isn't that large - the download is about 10 MB. However, the program requires broadband internet connection for downloading the actual satellite images.  I guess some of the images are stored to your HD, too.

NASA has a similar program, Worldwind I think it was; anyway that's some 200MB download (requires some .NET tools to be installed, too). They also have a similar program for space-travelling too

I live and breathe at 60D18'56.83"N 25D00'25,44"E. Unfortunately you can't see my bike, the images are several years old...

Cheers,

the program itself it's 10 megabytes. However, you probably need a broadband connection, since every time you zoom in, content (as in: maps) is streamed on demand (high res).

Looks like a fun toy but I have to agree...to many free ones out on tne net to pay for one off eBay.....but still cool.

Try this site for satalite photos of any area.  //www.terraserver.com.

Damn nevermind they went and made that a pay site.

I mentioned it above, there's a free (shareware, actually) tool available at http://jdmcox.com called USA Photo Maps -- it's very cool, you can toggle between USGS aerial images, topgraphical map, and TIGER data (street details).

It's very easy to integrate it with most models of gps devices, too.

- cay

At work I sit at 38*52'59.49" N 77*13'31.75' W .. give or take a few feet  I'm going to try and see if I'm sitting at my desk now.