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Google Maps Mania

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14 mars 2013
12:45
1940's Montreal on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Catbus has created an application that allows you to view 1947 aerial imagery of down-town Montreal on Google Maps.

Using the map it possible to compare the 1947 aerial imagery with Google's satellite view. You can view the map in full-screen mode here.

Also See

Neighborhood Change in Connecticut - historical aerial imagery of Connecticut
The New Jersey State Atlas - aerial photography of New Jersey from the 1930's
Old Maps of Moscow - a large collection of historical maps and aerial imagery of the Russian capital
10:45
Art in Scotland on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

GRID provides a concise Google Maps based guide to Glasgow and Edinburgh's rich cultural landscape.

The Glasgow Art Map and the Edinburgh Art Map both contain updated listings of art events in each city. Upcoming art events are displayed in the sidebar of each map and the locations of the events are displayed on the map. The sidebar contains dates and a brief description of each event and the map information window provides a link to the event or venue's website.

If you select an event from the map sidebar, as you would expect, the map scrolls to the relevant location and opens an information window. What I really like on this map is that it also works the other way around. If you select a venue on the map the sidebar scrolls to display the upcoming events at that venue.
13 mars 2013
20:00
The Buddhabrot on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Buddhabrot Map uses the Google Maps API to visualise a zoombable image of the Buddhabrot map. If you like your fractals more traditional you can also view a Mandelbrot set on the same map.

And, if you like your Mandelbrots you can see another visualisation on the Mandelbrot Viewer.
16:00
Animated Twitter Heat Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Birdplot is a new application that allows anyone to generate an animated heat map of any Twitter hashtag.

If you enter a hashtag term into Birdplot and select a date range you can automatically create an animated heat map that shows when and where people have tweeted about the topic. The application is a great way to track the geographical influence over time of a subject on Twitter. For example at the moment you could use Birdplot to show where and when people are tweeting '#pope'.

Creating a heat map with Birdplot literally takes a few seconds. All you need to do is enter a hashtag and a date range. The screenshot above is of a heat map I created showing tweets mentioning '#SXSW'.
13:20
NSFW Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Last week Google Sightseeing found on Street View something strange going on in a back street of Manchester. Unfortunately the prudes at Google Maps quickly removed the offending images so all you see now in Street View is a black screen with the message "This image is no longer available".

Not to be outdone by Google some scally has responded by renaming the location of the Street View on Google Maps. I'm pretty sure that Google will quickly edit the street name back to the original name. However I suspect that Temperance Street in Manchester will now forever be known as Hand Job Alley.

On a semi-related note I was recently inspired by Gary Gale's Vaguely Rude Places map to create my own version using the Map Label Library. My NSFW Map has a lot fewer locations than Gary's map because I got bored and couldn't be bothered to map all the locations.
10:38
Green Britain on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Friends of the Earth has released a Google Maps that allows users to find nearby green activities in the UK.

The Map of Green Britain shows the locations of Friends of the Earth groups, clean energy businesses and community energy projects. The map also allows users to click on their local election ward and automatically e-mail their Member of Parliament about the British government's Energy Bill.
12 mars 2013
22:19
Chernobyl in Australia
sur Google Maps Mania

The Australian Map of Nuclear and Uranium Sites is a Google Map displaying the locations of more than 50 of Australia's nuclear sites including uranium mines, proposed reactor and dump sites, and British nuclear test sites.

As well as the map of nuclear reactor and test sites you can can also view an interactive Google Map that overlays the nuclear fallout zones caused by the 1986 Chernobyl accident applied to proposed nuclear power sites in Australia.

Users can select any of the proposed nuclear sites and see the Chernobyl fallout zones overlaid on a map of that location. Users can also adjust the wind direction to see how the fallout zones would be effected by different wind directions.
18:26
Do Guns Kill More People than Cars?
sur Google Maps Mania

Mother Jones has created a Google Map to show those states where guns are responsible for more deaths than traffic accidents.

The map uses data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The states where guns account for more deaths than traffic fatalities are displayed in dark and those state where traffic accidents account for more deaths are shown in a lighter color.
14:42
Walk Scores Travel Time API
sur Google Maps Mania

Walk Score's Travel Time API is a great resource to visualise travel times on a map.

Using the API it is possible to display walking distance, public transit times, driving distance, and biking times on a Google Map. There are obviously unlimited possible uses of the API, from showing walking times from individual stores on a store locator to showing travel times from properties on a real-estate map.

I've had a brief look at the API documentation and it looks very easy to implement the API into a Google Map. For example, the map above involves about six lines of simple JavaScript code to display a walking time of about 15 minutes around a given location.

There are currently two API plans available. The Developer Trial is free for 1,000 calls per day. A Premium Plan is also available for developers who expect high-volume usage and is costed on a case by case basis.
11:42
Stompin Tom on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania
Stompin' Tom Connors was a Canadian country/folk singer who wrote many songs about Canadian locations.

CBC News has created the Stompin' Tom's Musical Map of Canada which maps vidoes of Stompin' Toms songs to the locations that are featured in the songs. Users can search the map by location and play and listen to the song videos directly from the map.

Also See
- Copenhagen Music - songs about Copenhagen, Denmark
- ARTE - New York Minute: a Hip Hop Guide - a typographic map of hip hop in New York
- Roadtrip Mixtape - create a play list for a road-trip containing only music by artists that are from the area you are travelling through
11 mars 2013
20:14
Socialist Town Planning in San Francisco
sur Google Maps Mania

Portmanteau.ro has created a nice mapped visualisation that allows users to visualise how Bucharest's huge Centrul Civic would look if it had been built in their own back yard.

The Centrul Civic district was built in central Bucharest in the 1980s under the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu. The creators of Portmanteau.ro believe that the Centrul Civic is "the most violent scar" left by Ceauşescu's regime on Bucharest.

In order to convey the huge scale of the city's communist urban planning Portmanteau.ro allows users to see what the Centrul Civic would look like if it was built in their own towns. For example, in the screenshot above I've attempted to see what the visual effect would be if we replaced San Francisco's wasted empty spaces in the Golden Gate Park with a huge redevelopment of concrete buildings.
16:00
Historic Places on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Historic Places has a huge database of over 100,000 locations in North America with an historic importance. The database includes historic buildings, structures, objects, and sites in the United States and Canada.

Historic Places has used Fusion Tables to create a Google Map of the historic places database. Using the map it is possible to search for historic places by location. It is also possible to view a heat map of the distribution of the locations in the Historic Places database.
13:00
A Social Sharing Google Map
sur Google Maps Mania

Webtomap allows anyone to post their photos, videos or articles to a public Google Map.

Anyone can sign in to Webtomap by connecting their Facebook or Twitter account. They are then free to post videos, photos or even their articles to the map. Unregistered users can still browse the content posted to the map.

It is possible to search the map for specific subjects, by the type of content and by location. Users are also able to rate posts and comment on content posted on the map. It is even possible to search the map based on the ratings of the content posted. You can also share a video, photo or article that you like with your friends on social networks such as Twitter or Facebook.
10 mars 2013
12:58
The Google Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own 3d scale model of the Grand Canyon or the Matterhorn? Well thanks to the Terrainator you now can.

The Terrainator uses Google Maps to help you select your favorite area of terrain. It then creates an accurate scale model and uploads it to Shapeways, ready for 3D-printing. The models are scaled so that the base is 45cm². The cost of the model depends on the volume of material required to make the model. Flatter models are therefore cheaper than mountainous areas, although they are much less fun.

Currently you can buy models from terrain in the western USA, from the UK and from the Alps.

Pursued is a surprisingly fun Street View game from Hungarian independent game developers Nemesys Games. The game is very simple but no less gripping for that. You are placed into an unnamed location in Google Maps Street View and all you have to do is guess the city.

There have been map guessing games in the past that use Google Maps satellite views. The problem with trying to guess a location from a satellite view however is that you either recognise the location shown or you don't. What I find surprising with Pursued was how often I can recognise a country just from the style of architecture and the street furniture in the Street View.

Even if you can't guess the location from the visual clues in the Street View you can move around using the Street View navigation controls and get clues from nearby posters and street signs.

Pursued is fun!

I hope to say it but by far the most popular and most shared post on Google Maps Mania this week was, Paixão Nacional, a Google Map of the world's greatest rear-ends.

The map's designers assure users that this map is not porn and that 'the ass is art', however you should be advised that this map is probably NSFW. As well as submitting your own ass to the map you can vote on the asses already submitted.

Paixão Nacional also includes listings of the 'top asses', the most recently submitted asses and a 'but of the week'.
1:15
McMurdo Station, Antarctica on Street View
sur Google Maps Mania

StreetViewFun discovered today that McMurdo Station in Antarctica is now on Google Maps Street View.

The Street View above is one of a number of Android Photo Spheres taken by Bryan Kiechle. Bryan however was actually with someone with a Google Street View backpack. We can even see the backpack in another of Bryan's Photo Spheres.

From the position of that Photo Sphere it looks like Google was capturing a lot of Street View imagery from the areas around McMurdo Station. However at the moment they have only added a few images inside Hanger 160 and from just outside the hanger.

This is not the first Street View imagery from Antarctica to appear on Google Maps. You can also visit the South Pole Telescope, Shackleton's hut, Scott’s hut, Cape Royds Adélie Penguin Rookery and the Ceremonial South Pole in Street View.
09 mars 2013
12:51
The Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

This week, in my never ending quest to discover new on-line maps, I kept coming across WNYC's Average Commute Times Map.

The map uses data from the last U.S. census to display a heat map of the average commute times for each zip-code area. Using the map you can find out how your commute times compares with the average amongst your neighbors and also visualise the differences in commute times in different neighborhoods across the country.

The Arms Globe is a beautiful and fascinating visualisation of the world's arms trade over the last eighteen years.

Using the interactive globe it is possible to select individual countries to observe their imports and exports of arms and ammunition for any year since 1992. The globe also displays to which countries arms have been sold and from which countries arms have been bought.

On a less sombre note this week I also liked Paris en Chansons, a simple map of Parisienne music.

The map displays 200 songs that are rooted in the geography of Paris, either through reference to a district or neighborhood, or to an individual street, a dock or a bridge of the city. Users can click on any of the displayed songs and listen to the song itself directly from the map.
08 mars 2013
22:22
Google Maps API v2 Reprieve
sur Google Maps Mania

The Google Geo Developers Blog has announced that the Google Maps API V2 has been given a six months reprieve.

This version of Google Maps was due to go to the executioner's chair at the end of this month. Google however have extended the deprecation timeline by six months. This means that Google Maps built with API V2 will continue to work until September 8, 2013.

For the last few months I've been responding to developers who have submitted V2 maps with a polite rebuttal and informing them that their maps will soon not work. I haven't wanted to post maps on Google Maps Mania that were soon scheduled to stop working.

However, in accordance with Google's own extension, I'm willing to continue showcasing v2 maps until the end of April. For example here is a map that I liked that I didn't post because it was created with V2 of the API.

The Joint CAD Incident Tracking System is a map of the location and type of EMS and fire incidents in Portland, Oregon. As well as viewing the latest incidents repored on the map you can listen to the Washington County Fire and EMS radio.
16:30
The Real Heat Map of Sweden
sur Google Maps Mania

Temperatur.nu is a real heat map of Sweden. The map displays current temperatures in the country and a handy heat map overlay provides an overview of current temperatures across the country.

The heat map uses darker shades of blue to show colder temperatures. At the moment Sweden is looking very cold indeed so the colour blue dominates the map. I guess we will have to visit the map again in the summer to find out how the heat map represents warmer temperatures.
12:57
The Street View Car Drag Race
sur Google Maps Mania

The Google Street View car has captured Street View imagery for the Infineon Raceway Drag Strip in Petaluma. Of course, to make the experience a little more fun, two Street View cars decided to have a little drag race between themselves.

Every now and again someone claims to have discovered Atlantis on Google Maps. Saint-Pierre, on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion may not be Atlantis but Google Maps does seem to think it lies beneath the sea.

Every now and again a debate rages about why most on-line map providers use the Mercator Projection. I'm not going to start that argument again but those of you interested in map projections should definitely check out Mike Bostock's Projection Transitions.

And, if you like that, then you should also have a look at Jason Davies' Map Projection Transitions.
07 mars 2013
20:10
Mapping Japan's Radiation Levels
sur Google Maps Mania

Safecast is working to build a radiation sensor network, comprised of static and mobile sensors deployed around Japan. The Safecast Maps page includes a number of Google Maps that have been built to help visualise the radiation data collected by the Safecast sensor network.

The Safecast Map itself depicts over 4,000,000 radiation data points collected by the Safecast team. It provides a heat map visualisation of radiation levels collected by the sensor network. The map includes options to view the data on top of different Google Maps styles and using map tiles from different online map providers.

Amongst the other maps is an Interpolation Map (pictured above) that attempts to fill in the space between the individual measurements using data collected from users of the Safecast mobile apps. There are a number of other maps including individual maps of data collected by Safecast car journeys around Japan collecting radiation levels data.
16:02
Using Image Overlays on Campus Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Angelo State University Campus Map is a nice example of using image overlays with the Google Maps API.

Angelo State University use custom map images of the campus overlaid on top of the normal Google Maps tiles. The custom map image is nicely integrated into the Google Map tiles so that the custom map integrates seamlessly with the Google road map, as you can see in this zoomed out screenshot of the campus.

The map includes a number of other nice touches, such as hot links to individual buildings, which allows users to share a link to a map view of a specific building on campus.
12:30
The Coffee Marketplace on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Coffee Locator is a really nice example of how easily it is to use the Google Maps API to create a unique and attractive map.

By adjusting the colors of the map tiles (using the Styled Maps feature) and by using a custom created map marker the Coffee Locator map manages to create a distinctive looking map that complements the design of the Coffee Locator website. The color of the map tiles and the addition of a compass rose overlay helps to create the overall look of a coffee-colored vintage map.

The Coffee Locator is an on-line marketplace where coffee retailers can set up an e-commerce store and sell directly to customers worldwide. The map shows the locations of those coffee retailers that have signed up to the Coffee Locator on-line store. Users of the map can search for coffee retailers by location and click through to view and buy coffee and coffee related products.
06 mars 2013
22:03
Street View Arrives in Bulgaria
sur Google Maps Mania

Alexander Nevsky Cathedral, Sofia

Google Maps has today added Street View imagery for most of Bulgaria. Most of the images were captured last Spring and Summer.

Chudnite Skali

The Google Lat Long Blog reports that as well as introducing Street View in Bulgaria for the first time almost 200 new towns and cities in Russia have been added, and thousands of miles of imagery in the UK has been refreshed. It also looks like the Street View coverage in Portugal has been expanded.

Via: Google Street View World
19:35
Pursued on Street View
sur Google Maps Mania

Pursued is a surprisingly fun Street View game from Hungarian independent game developers Nemesys Games.

The game is very simple but no less gripping for that. You are placed into an unnamed location in Google Maps Street View and all you have to do is guess the city. If you can't tell by the visual clues in the Street View you can move around by clicking in the Street View image and by using your '+' and '-' keys to zoom in and out.

If you finish all the pre-programmed levels, you can then make and share your own levels.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World
13:55
Air Pollution on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The London Air Quality Network provides information about air quality in and around London.

The site includes a Google Map that allows Londoners to view air quality from monitoring stations positioned around the capital. The stations collect data on London's air quality twice a day and the map is updated hourly.

The London Air Quality Network also includes a Google Map of the annual mean pollution in London during 2008 and a map that shows which areas of London failed to meet the UK government's Air Quality Strategy Objectives during 2012.

Clean Air Asia is a guide to air pollution in Asia with a handy info-graphic guide to how much nose hair you need to live safely in different Asian cities.

If you select a city on the Clean Air Asia Google Map you can get a quick overview of the air quality in the city and a handy little nose hair graphic shows how long your nose hair should be. Clean Air Asia claim that "the more dirty air you breathe, the more nose hair you need".

After checking out how much nose hair you need for where you live you can upload a photo of your face and superimpose different styles of nose hair on your picture to see how you would look with the safe amount of nose hair.
10:41
Satellite Tracking with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Satellite Finder uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to help you quickly find the direction to an orbiting satellite from any location.

Using Satellite Finder you can search for an address or just click on the globe to show your current location. You can then select the satellite you wish to view by selecting its name from a list, sorted by continent. The line of sight to the satellite is then displayed on the map.

ToriSat is an amazing satellite tracking website that allows anyone to track satellites on Google Maps, in the Google Earth Browser plug-in and even in Google Street View.

The Google Map view shows the path of the satellite around the Earth and the Google Earth option allows you to view the path of the satellite as if you were looking down from space. What really impresses me, however, is the Street View option that allows the user to view the satellite superimposed on top of Google's Street View imagery.

The Street View option is really useful as it shows the elevation of the satellite from your point of view and provides a great guide to where you should be looking in the night sky.

Real Time Satellite Tracking lets you track any satellite live on Google Maps.

The application allows you to select any orbiting satellite and view its current position on a Google Map. If you zoom in on the satellite you can actually watch its animated track as the satellite orbits the Earth.
05 mars 2013
17:06
Map Your Ass (NSFW)
sur Google Maps Mania
Paixão Nacional is a Google Map of the world's greatest rear-ends.

The map's designers assure users that this map is not porn and that 'the ass is art', however you should be advised that this map is probably NSFW. As well as submitting your own ass to the map you can vote on the asses already submitted.

Paixão Nacional also includes listings of the 'top asses', the most recently submitted asses and a 'but of the week'.

If you like this sort of thing you might also like:
- The Worldwide Penis Size Map
- The Worldwide Breast Size Map
15:04
Whitespace on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Yesterday Google unveiled its white space spectrum database, which is cataloguing the unused space between television channels. By cataloguing the white space spectrum Google hopes that more of the spectrum can be made available to the public for broadband access.

The Google Spectrum Database includes a Google Map that allows users to see what channels are available for TV WS usage at specific locations. Users can search an address, or a latitude and longitude of a location, and then click on the "search" button to view a table showing how many channels and how much spectrum is available at their location.
10:54
The Guitar Collectors Google Map
sur Google Maps Mania

If you looking for a rare 1955 Gibson Les Paul Jr. the chances are that you won't be able to just walk into your local musical instrument store and find what you are looking for. On the other hand if you are looking to sell a vintage guitar, when collectors are spread throughout the world, how do you find your guitar a loving new owner?

SellThisGuitar.com connects buyers of guitars, basses and acoustics with people interested in buying guitars. Using a Google Maps interface the system allows you to search within your own town or even globally for specific guitars.

Those looking to sell a guitar can add their own guitars for sale to the map by completing a short form. If you are looking to buy a guitar you can search the map by location, by brand or by model.
04 mars 2013
21:43
3d Printing with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Have you ever dreamed of owning your own 3d scale model of the Grand Canyon or the Matterhorn? Well thanks to the Terrainator you now can.

The Terrainator uses Google Maps to help you select your favorite area of terrain. It then creates an accurate scale model and uploads it to Shapeways, ready for 3D-printing. The models are scaled so that the base is 45cm². The cost of the model depends on the volume of material required to make the model. Flatter models are therefore cheaper than mountainous areas, although they are much less fun.

Currently you can buy models from terrain in the western USA, from the UK and from the Alps.

Hat-tip: Google Street View World
19:10
Travel Blogs in Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Big Blog Map is a Google Map of travel blogs from around the world. The site takes the best travel blogs and geotags them based on the locations discussed.

The map provides a great way to get the inside information on locations from some of the best travel blogs. For example, if you want to find out ten great things to do in Madrid you just need to zoom in on the Spanish capital and click on the red map marker.

When you click on a map marker the travel blog itself replaces the map within The Big Blog page. Once you have finished reading the blog you just have to click on the close window link in the site header to return to the map.
14:33
Historical Photos on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Vintage Greece is a Google Map of geo-located vintage photographs and historical maps of Greece.

There are some big players already involved in the mapping of historical photographs, with What Was There and Historypin amongst the most established. However there could be a lot of value for new applications, like Vintage Greece, that concentrate on smaller, specific geographic areas.

I also really like Vintage Greece's combination of historical maps with historical photography. Overlaying vintage photos on top of an historical map is somehow much more aesthetically pleasing than using the normal Google Maps tiles.
12:14
Plans Verden - Helping Children Worldwide
sur Google Maps Mania

Plans Verden is a Norwegian charity which helps donors sponsor children in need around the world. The charity is currently involved in helping children in over 50 countries worldwide.

The Plans Verden website includes a really nicely designed Google Map to help promote the charity's projects across the globe. The map highlights the countries where sponsors come from and also the countries where children are being sponsored.

When the user selects a marker from the map an information window opens which helps to explain the needs of children in that country and the work that Plans Verden is undertaking in that country, including the number of children and communities being helped by the charity.
03 mars 2013
13:58
The Google Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

I was impressed this week by this campus map of Arkansas State University.

The Google Maps API has been used by the university to create a map that has all the navigational controls that users love in Google Maps but doesn't actually look like a Google Map. Custom map tiles have been used to give an isometric view of the campus and custom Street Views have been created to enable visitors to take a virtual tour of the campus buildings.

In truth the ZSL Cat Map doesn't represent a huge jump forward in the design and application of online mapping. However, whilst it isn't going to win any design awards, the Cat Map has proved a hugely effective marketing tool for London Zoo.

The map allows anyone to share their kitty pics with the world and was created to help promote the new enclosure for Sumatran tigers at the zoo. Who knew that pictures of cats could be so popular on the internet?

CTV News has created an interactive Google Earth simulation of how two Canadian CF-18 Hornet fighter jets intercepted a Sunwing Airlines flight in Canadian airspace.

Due to pilot error the Sunwing plane failed to keep contact with air traffic control for more than an hour. In response the two fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the plane, where they finally regained contact with the pilot.

The CTV News interactive uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to create a simulation of the interception. The simulation uses 3d models of the Sunwing aircraft and the two jets and includes audio from radio transmissions between the fighter jets and the Sunwing plane and air traffic control.
02 mars 2013
13:26
The non-Google Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

Development Seed has created an animated map that cleverly works both as a slideshow of their successful projects and as a user interface to navigate around the website.

The map slideshow animates and zooms in on Development Seed's projects around the world. However the user can interrupt the automatic zooming and panning at any time and click on any of the mapped projects to navigate to the project's page on the Development Seed website.

Map Tales is a great application that allows anyone to easily create an animated map tour or story. The app is powered by Leaflet and OpenStreetMap.

The service is a great way for non-programmers to create their own maps. Even if you aren't interested in creating your own maps Map Tales is worth a visit just to browse some of the user created maps, such as the Map Tales of Jules Verne's Around the World in Eighty Days or Homer's Odyssey.

Tweetping is an amazing visualisation of real-time Twitter activity. Whilst the application runs Tweets around the world are added to the map and also added to a dashboard display.

As Tweets are made around the world a picture of current global Twitter activity quickly appears on the map. The dashboard display also allows the user to observe the extent of current Twitter activity across five continents.
01 mars 2013
16:33
The Cat Map - Kitty Pics on Google Maps!
sur Google Maps Mania

It is an indisputable fact that the two most popular things on the internet are pictures of cats and Google Maps. So it seems incredible to me that no-one has ever thought to combine the two.

Until now that is!

ZSL Cat Map is a Google Map to which anyone can add pictures of their cats. The map actually started out as a project just for Londoners but pictures of cats are just so adorable that almost instantly cat lovers around the world started adding the own feline pictures.

What is more cute than pictures of cats?

Pictures of Kittens! Luckily the Cat Map includes some handy search tools to help explore the submitted kitty pics. So the first thing you should do when visiting the Cat Map is select 'Kitten' from the age filter.

It is also a well known fact that the cutest name for a cat is "Squeekers'. So the next thing you need to do is use the name search feature to filter out all those unfortunate cats with other names.
14:17
The World's Largest Street View Word Search
sur Google Maps Mania

We kick off this week's Google Maps Friday Fun with the World's Largest Word Search, care of the indoor Street View from Rack Space Hosting. There are 10 bonus points available if you can find the word 'map' (I promise you it's there).

When you get bored of searching for words on Street View why not pan over to Japan where you can view Street View imagery of the Sakurajima Volcano during an ash eruption.

Quickly moving on from volcanic eruptions, if we pan Google Maps over to Israel we find the town of Rishon LeZion is under attack by marauding dinosaurs.
12:12
The Elephant Map
sur Google Maps Mania

Elephants: Year in a Day shows the patterns of movement of five bull elephants in Laikipia County, Kenya.

This visualisation uses Google Maps with CartoDB's Torque library to animate 34,786 GPS positions. A year's worth of location data for the five elephants has been compressed into a single day on the map to illustrate the general pattern of movement of the bull elephants, regardless of season or individual.

The map also highlights local land use, displaying cultivated land and safe habitats through the use of colored polygon overlays. The land tract overlays help to highlight where the bull elephants have been accessing farmed land and raiding crops under the cover of darkness.
28 février 2013
18:21
Canal Street View
sur Google Maps Mania

DIY Street View sell and rent out camera set-ups to capture interactive panoramic imagery that can then be used with Google Maps to provide custom Street View imagery.

The DIY Street View site includes a number of examples of Google Maps with custom Street Views created with the camera set-up. The examples include a map of Rotterdam with a cool example of canal Street Views. Noorderkanaal lets you navigate around Rotterdam's canals in Google Maps and a series of custom Street Views captured from a boat.

Another good example is this campus map of Arkansas State University. The map itself uses custom map tiles of an isometric map of the campus. If you select a map marker and click on the 'take a tour' option you can then explore custom Street Views of the selected building.
15:00
Find Fast Food Restaurants with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

For those occasions when you need to eat quickly and cheaply then you need to use Combo7 to find all the nearby fast food restaurants.

With Combo7 you just need to enter your address and you will be shown all the nearest fast food joints on a handy Google Map. The locations of the restaurants are displayed using the logos of the popular fast food chains so it is easy to find your favorite chain at a glance.

If the map gives you too much choice and you really can't decide where to eat you can even let Combo7 choose a restaurant for you. Select the 'pick for me' option and Combo7 will spin through all the nearby restaurants before landing on one restaurant at random.
12:43
The USA HIV Map
sur Google Maps Mania

AIDSVu.org is an interactive map illustrating the prevalence of HIV in the United States. The map shows the overall prevalence of HIV down to the county level in U.S. states. The data can also be explored to view maps of HIV prevalence in different age ranges and by race and sex.

AIDSVu.org has also created a HIV testing map, showing locations where you can be tested for HIV, and an HIV Treatment Site Locator, showing the locations of Ryan White HIV/AIDS Medical Care Providers.
27 février 2013
17:54
Airliner Intercepted by Jets - Interactive
sur Google Maps Mania

CTV News has created an interactive Google Earth simulation of how two Canadian CF-18 Hornet fighter jets intercepted a Sunwing Airlines flight in Canadian airspace.

Due to pilot error the Sunwing plane failed to keep contact with air traffic control for more than an hour. In response the two fighter jets were scrambled to intercept the plane, where they finally regained contact with the pilot.

The CTV News interactive uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to create a simulation of the interception. The simulation uses 3d models of the Sunwing aircraft and the two jets and includes audio from radio transmissions between the fighter jets and the Sunwing plane and air traffic control.

Back in 2009 Jeral Poskey created this Google Earth tour of Flight 1549, which crashed into the Hudson River in New York. The tour includes audio from the pilot and air traffic control from FAA recordings. To view the tour you need to have Google Earth installed on your computer.
14:21
Free Wi-Fi Spots on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Shareair.net is a Google Map showing you all the nearby free wi-fi hotspots.

You can share your location with the map or enter any address and the map will pan to your location and display all the nearby free wi-fi spots. The wi-fi locations are care of the free Android wi-fi scanning app Free Zone.

Free Zone itself is a very handy application for your phone that scans and connects you to free wi-fi networks. As soon as you're in range of a free wi-fi network Free Zone automatically connects you. The app is a particularly great tool for those who use their cell phones off contract.
12:10
The First Moroccan Google Map
sur Google Maps Mania

The Carte Vénale de Rabat is a real estate map for the Moroccan capital Rabat. It is also the first Moroccan map that we've featured on Google Maps Mania.

The map allows users to visualise properties for sale in Rabat. The properties can be filtered by type, price and by floor surface area. The map also includes a land parcel layer that allows the user to see how individual building lots in the city are being used.
26 février 2013
20:27
Where to Watch the Bay Lights
sur Google Maps Mania

The Bay Lights website has released a Google Map showing the best places in San Francisco to watch the Bay Bridge light show.

In honor of the Bay Bridge's 75th anniversary, its 25,000 white LED lights are being individually programmed by artist Leo Villareal to create a dazzling light show. San Franciscans can use the Bay Lights Google Map to find the best public spaces, restaurants and hotels with views of the bridge.

The Bay Lights website also includes a programme of upcoming events and a video of the lights on the bridge in action.
14:52
Win a Car in This Street View Game
sur Google Maps Mania

Citroën Seekers is a new Google Maps based competition from Citroën. The object of the challenge is to navigate around Google Maps Street View and find as many Citroën DS3 Cabrios as you can.

Thousands of DS3 Cabrios have been hidden on a Google Map of the UK and using Street View players have to navigate the map and find the hidden cars. The more cars found , then the more points are earned. The player who gets the most points will win a Citroën DS3 Cabrio THP 155 6-speed manual DSport!

The game is a Facebook app, so you will need a Facebook account to log-in and enter the competition. Unfortunately you will also need to be a UK resident to be eligible to win the car.
11:50
French Property Price Heat Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

French real-estate website EffiCity has created a great Google Maps based application that creates property price heat maps for any town or city in France.

The created heat maps show at a glance the relative price of properties in the town or city. Users can mouse-over different neighborhoods on the map to view the average property price in that district and to view the range of prices (from cheapest to most expensive) that properties have been sold for.
8:30
Lots of New Japanese Street View
sur Google Maps Mania

Last week Google made a huge update to Street View imagery in Japan. As well as adding Street Views of lots of new roads and towns they also added a lot of Street View imagery in tourist and heritage locations.

Amongst the Street Views added to the Google Maps 'special collections' in Japan are:

Three floors of the Sapporo TV Tower
The Goryokaku Tower (with a great view of the Goryokaku star fortress
The Niigata Prefectural Museum of History

You can view the full list of Street View updates in Japan on the Google Japan Blog (in Japanese). You can also view the special collection of Japanese Street Views here.
0:06
Remembering the Japanese Earthquake
sur Google Maps Mania

Google's Memory for the Future website was created to help the Japanese people share their photographs and videos and to rediscover lost memories of their homes and towns following the great earthquake of March 2011.

As well as user submitted photos and videos the site features Street View imagery taken before and after the earthquake and tsunami. This week the site was updated to include 36 new Street Views of buildings that were damaged by the quake.

Tokyo Metropolitan University's The Great East Japan Earthquake Archive has also been added to the map. The archive includes the personal testimonies of many Japanese citizens whose lives were effected by the March 2011 earthquake.
25 février 2013
15:57
The Google Maps Bar Crawl Planner
sur Google Maps Mania

The City Swig is a handy guide to the best bar specials, beer prices, and liquor prices in Richmond, Virginia.

If you are heading out for a night on the town then you can use The City Swig to find the best possible route taking in the cheapest beer or liquor. The route planner lets you choose the day of the week and the area of Virginia that you wish to visit and then produces a handy Google Map showing the bars and stores offering the best deals.
11:56
The Wonderful Worlds of Minecraft
sur Google Maps Mania

TopoMC is busy recreating the map of the United States using the online block building game of Minecraft.

A number of American cities and regions have already been mapped using Minecraft and data from the U.S. Geological Survey. TopoMC uses the National Elevation Dataset and the National Land Cover Dataset to automatically generate Minecraft maps of cities and regions.

The TopoMC website includes links to download the already created world files into Minecraft or to view the cities and regions in Google Maps. The screenshot above shows the Google Map of New York City recreated in Minecraft using TopoMC.

Also See

Westocraft Mincraft Map - the fictional world from A Song of Ice and Fire
Crafting Azeroth - the World of Warcraft map in Minecraft
24 février 2013
14:31
The Google Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

The use of timelines can bring another dimension to maps. However creating an effective interface for temporal elements on a map can be a difficult task. This week we saw two Google Maps that have successfully integrated timeline navigation controls.

From the major flooding in Australia to Hurricane Sandy in the US 2012 seems to have been a year when much of the world was effected by extremes of weather of some sort or another.

CBC News in Canada has created a timeline of 2012 that maps occurrences of extreme weather and the natural disasters that struck during the last year. The Extreme Weather and Natural Disasters Map uses the Google Maps API with the Simile Time-line library.

ArtAround is a Google Map of public art in Washington DC.

The ArtAround map allows the user to search by type of art (murals, statues, street art, museums, etc.) and by location. The map also displays current events and festivals and public art venues. Another interesting feature of the map is the ability to filter the results by date.

A slider control beneath the map allows the user to select dates from a timeline which updates the map to show the relevant results. The slider control is a really useful tool for anyone interested in Washington DC's art history.

Tonight is Oscars night and Google has released a special Oscars site for this year's award extravaganza.

The site includes a lot of special features, including a tool to predict the winners (based on Google search volumes) and an option to send in a video of your own acceptance speech. At the bottom of the page you can also find a Google Map that lets you explore locations related to this year's Oscar nominees.

Using the map you can explore where the films take place, the home-towns of the male and female nominees and the countries of origin of the films in the best Foreign Language Film.
23 février 2013
14:36
The Week in Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Creeping in at the end of this week Buzzfeed's 38 Maps You Never Knew You Needed probably just scraped in as the most shared map story on the internet this week.

It is an eclectic and interesting mix of maps, ranging from a map of the world's seas and land masses inverted (pictured) to a Super Mario inspired map of the world.

The Guardian this week posted a map showing The Twitter Languages of New York. The map shows the languages used by New Yorker's when posting to Twitter. The map was created by the University College London and includes a link to view a similar map of London's Twitter languages.

Two of the biggest news stories this week involved meteorites. The Guardian (once again) this time teamed up with CartoDB to create a map of Every Meteorite Fall on Earth. CartoDB has also created a screencast about how the map was created.

The most interesting online map I came across this week however was this Contour Lines Density Map. The map takes an innovative approach to visualising 'stop and frisk' incidents carried out by the police in New York.

To draw attention to the neighborhoods where stop and frisks happened most frequently elevation contours are used to show the density of the stops.
12:39
Top 10 Animals Found in Street View
sur Google Maps Mania

Google Street View World has put together a cool slideshow of the best shots of animals found in Google Maps Street View. They were also kind enough to let me reproduce the slideshow on Google Maps Mania.

Google Street View World has been collecting the weird and wonderful sights that can be found in Street View for a number of years so they have a great back catalogue of amazing finds. I'm hoping that we can turn this into a regular feature of slideshows around different themes.

I've had to reduce the size of the slideshow to fit into a Google Maps Mania post. So to see the skideshow in its full glory make sure you check it out on Google Street View World.
22 février 2013
21:12
The Maths Universe on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Did you know you can use the Google Maps API as a navigation menu for your website? The Khan Academy do. They have used the Google Maps API, with Google Sky map tiles, to create a menu for a series of mathematics exercises.

The sky map is overlaid with a series of maths exercises set out in the form of a constellation. Users can click on any of the maths areas and they will be taken to a number of interactive maths tests in the chosen area.

Also See

Edte.ch Maths Maps

Hat-tip: Google Street View World Map
11:53
America's Gardens on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Find a Garden is one woman's mission to map and visit America's flower gardens. What started out as a personal project to create a map that would be useful in planning garden visits has now become a handy resource for anyone interested in flowers and horticulture.

The map shows the locations of all types of gardens, from small park rose gardens to state botanical gardens. Each of the gardens includes a link to the garden's website and the gardens that are indicated with a tick include the map creator's own photographs and ratings of the garden.
21 février 2013
18:36
Washington DC's Public Art Map
sur Google Maps Mania

ArtAround is a Google Map of public art in Washington DC.

The ArtAround map allows the user to search by type of art (murals, statues, street art, museums, etc.) and by location. The map also displays current events and festivals and public art venues. Another interesting feature of the map is the ability to filter the results by date.

A slider control beneath the map allows the user to select dates from a time-line which updates the map to show the relevant results. The slider control is a really useful tool for anyone interested in Washington DC's art history.
14:38
Dutch Elm Trees on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Planning Department of the City of Amsterdam has created a number of interesting Google Maps, all of which can be found in the Interactieve Kaarten section of their website.

The maps cover a range of subjects of interest to local citizens, including housing, green spaces, climate and building use. For example the Elm Map plots the location of elm trees in the city. It is possible to select to view elm trees in the city by trunk diameter and also to mouse-over individual trees to determine their genus type.

There are a many more maps to explore on the site and all the data used in the maps is also available at Open GEO-Data.
13:01
Living Streets on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Living Streets is a UK charity that promotes the idea of "safe, attractive, enjoyable streets where it’s great to walk". Since 1929 the charity has promoted the rights of pedestrians and campaigned on issues to promote pedestrian safety.

The Living Streets websites features a prominent Google Maps application that allows users to view their own street in Street View. The Street View feature is a great way for the charity to personalise the user's experience of the Living Streets website and I'm sure helps convert casual visitors to the website into registered users.
20 février 2013
20:48
Atmospheric Pressure on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

pressureNET is an Android application with which users can contribute to a global network of user-contributed atmospheric pressure readings.

To use the application users need a tablet or phone with a barometer. However you don't need an android device to view the atmospheric pressure readings, visualisations of which can be seen on the pressureNET website.

The visualisation allows the user to select a location on a Google Map and select specific dates for readings. A graph of the resulting readings are then displayed beneath the map.

At the bottom of the pressureNET website are quick links to view recent notable events, such as Hurricane Sandy (pictured) and Hurricane Issac.
17:22
Contribute to the Maker Map
sur Google Maps Mania

The Maker Map is a Google Map of makers, fabricators, and supply outlets in the San Francisco Bay area.

Users can filter the results displayed on the map by category and can search the map by location or by the name of the maker. Users can also add a resource to the map by completing a short form.

The Maker Map also has a discussion group on Google Groups and the code can be viewed on GitHub (click the 'About the Map' button for the links).
13:23
And the Award for Best Map Goes to ...
sur Google Maps Mania

Google has released a special Oscars site for this Sunday's award extravaganza.

The site includes a lot of special features, including a tool to predict the winners (based on Google search volumes) and an option to send in a video of your own acceptance speech. Right at the bottom of the page is a Google Map that lets you explore locations related to this year's Oscar nominees.

Using the map you can explore where the films take place, the hometowns of the male and female nominees and the countries of origin of the films in the best Foreign Language Film. There is also a place-holder image that promises that you will soon also be able to "take a look inside before the big show with Google Maps". I assume that this means indoor Street View of the Dolby Theatre will be released this week.
11:52
Walkability on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Walkonomics rates the walkability of individual streets, neighbourhoods and cities and presents the results on a useful Google Map.

Locations are awarded a walkability score based on a number of factors, including road safety, sidewalks and attractiveness. Walkonomics also takes advantage of the power of the crowd by allowing users to add a rating for any street.

The reviews for individual streets include a Google Map and the option to view the actual street using Google Maps Street View. The review includes an overall walkability rating and user ratings in a number of categories important to an area's walkabilty.

Walkshed is an incredible walkability map for New York and Philadelphia. Using Google Maps and OpenStreetMap Walkshed lets you calculate a personal walk score for any address in New York and Philadelphia.

Walkshed has some pretty clever algorithms working behind the scenes to help calculate the walkability scores. For example, interstates and rivers adversely effect a walk-score whilst parks have a very positive impact.

Walkshed also allows users to create an individual walkability score by defining the nearby amenities that are important to them. The map lets the user adjust the value that they place on nearby categories of amenity such as restaurants, cafes, bars, subway stops, grocery stores etc.

Walk Score is a great resource to help find a walkable place to live. Using Walk Score you can enter any address and get a walkability score between 0 and 100.

Walk Score's walkability algorithm measures how easy it is to live a car-lite lifestyle at any address, based on the distance to different amenities in a number of different categories.
19 février 2013
16:37
Photos of WWI on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania
1914-1918 Une Effroyable Boucherie is an incredible collection of geo-tagged photographs taken during the First World War. The site is the work of one man, Sylvain Halgand, who actually lives near the battlefields of the Somme.

Anyone can submit photographs or postcards to the site and Sylvain hopes to have collected 1,914 pictures in time for the centenary of the start of the war in 2014. I've linked above to the Google Maps page of the website where you can see the location of all the geo-tagged photos.

You can click on any of the markers and view a thumbnail of the photograph and then click through to see it in full size. It's pretty amazing to see how the cluster of markers is already beginning to represent a pretty accurate map of the Western Front.

Also See
- The Navy of WWI - animated map of 12 years of location data of the Royal Navy
- Map of Toronto's World War Dead - map showing the addresses of those who died in WWI from Toronto
14:30
The Westeros Minecraft Map
sur Google Maps Mania
The seven kingdoms of Westeros, from the Wall in the north to the Summer Sea in the south, is a land that has experienced centuries of dynastic civil wars.

The Westocraft Mincraft Map is a map of Westeros created using the sandbox building game Minecraft. The Westerocraft map uses the Google Maps API to provide an interactive interface to explore this Minecraft world. Using the map you can zoom into the isometric portrayal of locations in Westeros. For example, you can explore Castle Black, the home of the Night' Watch, and even stare over the wall into the Lands Beyond.

Also See
- The Interactive Game of Thrones Map
- Westeros in Google Earth
- Westeros Map
12:43
Extreme Weather on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

From the major flooding in Australia to Hurricane Sandy in the US 2012 seems to have been a year when much of the world was effected by extremes of weather of some sort or another.

CBC News in Canada has created a time-line of 2012 that maps occurrences of extreme weather and the natural disasters that struck during the last year. The Extreme Weather and Natural Disasters Map uses the Google Maps API with the Simile Time-line library.

The time-line is located beneath the map and can be controlled by dragging with your mouse left to right. As you scan through the year on the time-line the map markers are adjusted on the map to show the extreme weather and natural disasters that occurred during those dates.

The markers are colour-coded to indicate the type of weather or natural disaster recorded and you can click on any of the markers to read more about each incident. Each incident also includes a link to click-through and read the CBC News report about the extreme weather or natural disaster.
18 février 2013
15:30
How Big is Google Maps?
sur Google Maps Mania

Recently the Google Maps API added the option to allow polygon shapes on Google Maps to be set to draggable. If the polygon property is set to true, the user can then drag the shape over the map.

Google created a popular game, they called Mercator Puzzle, to demo the new draggable polygon option. The game set the geodesic property of the polygons to true, which means the game provides a great insight into the Mercator projection. It is very noticeable in the game how the polygons resize as you drag north and south on the map.

How big is Lake Tanganyika, Tanzania? also makes use of draggable polygons with the geodesic property of the polygons set to true. In this case it allows the user to drag a polygon of Lake Tanganyika around on Google Maps and see how it compares in size when placed over other locations.

The app comes with all the code so you can create your own example using shape files of other locations. The effect is very similar to (and is even called a 'customisable mimic' of) the BBC's Dimensions project How Big Really?.

The BBC Dimensions projects allows you to move polygons of important places and events around on Google Maps and overlay them on other locations to help give you a sense of scale of these locations.
10:41
Through the Secret Door of Street View
sur Google Maps Mania

The Secret Door is a new and impressively designed Street View portal, that can magically transport you around the world using Google Map's interactive panoramic imagery.

There is nothing particularly revolutionary about The Secret Door and there are already a number of well established sites that allow the user to explore a series of random Street Views. However the Secret Door does have a couple of very nice touches. I really like the background music and in particular the sound effect that is used when you are transported to a new Street View.

My favourite Google Maps Street View slide-show remains MapCrunch.

Like The Secret Door MapCrunch allows you to view a series of random Street Views. However MapCrunch includes the option to narrow the Street Views shown by location and by type of view. You can select to see just urban views, indoor Street Views and to define the time delay before a new Street View is shown.

MapCrunch also includes a View of the Day gallery. The gallery is a great collection of some of the best Street Views found on Google Maps.
8:30
Guild Wars 2 on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Orrmaps is a Google Map for high level players of Guild Wars 2.

Players with a high level in Guild Wars 2 need to gather Orichalcum ore and Ancient wood to create weapons. These materials can be gathered in the Machlor's Leap, Cursed Shore, and Frostgorge Sound. However the locations of these materials in Guild Wars 2 changes every week and are different by server.

Orrmaps keeps track of the locations of Orichalcum ore and Ancient wood by server, and new maps are automatically created each week.

The Guild Wars 2 Interactive Map is another useful map of the fantasy world of Tyria used in Guild Wars 2.

Using the map it is possible to find dungeons, waypoints and other important locations used in the game. The map also includes an editing tool so that users can add and submit their own knowledge of locations used in the game to the map.

The drop-down menus at the top of the map allow users to add points of interest to the map in a number of categories. When users have finished adding their knowledge to the map they simply need to click the 'send for approval' button.

This Guild Wars 2 WvW Map is another Google Map of the world of Tyria used in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game.

The map follows a now familiar pattern for on-line game maps, allowing the user to view important locations in the game using the Google Maps controls. The map allows users to view the locations of Towers, Keeps, Supply Camps, Spawns, Castles and Orbs.

One nice new feature introduced by the Guild Wars 2 WvW Map is the ability to add weapons to the map. When you add a siege equipment to the map the range of the weapon is also displayed which should greatly help players in planning their campaigns.
17 février 2013
10:55
The Google Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

It has been a week where crime maps seem to have been omnipresent on Google Maps Mania. This week we saw three very different approaches to mapping crime, each approach with its own advantages and disadvantages.

The Washintgton Post has used the Google Maps API to create a map based visualisation of homicides in the city between 2000 and 2011.

The interactive map Homicides in the District shows the locations of all the homicide victims.The visualisation includes a number of animated heat maps that allow you to view homicide rates year by year, the number of convictions each year, drug killings by year and victims aged 20-24 by year.

It is also possible to view animations of the homicide rates by year for specific neighborhoods by selecting a neighborhood from the list beneath the map.

Philadelphia Homicides 2006-2012 is a map visualization that uses data from the Philadelphia Police Department to animate all Philadelphia homicides from 2006-2012.

The visualization uses the Google Maps API with CartoDB's Torque library. If you like the visualization then you should check out the screencast by the developer on how he created the map. The screencast shows how easy it is to build a compelling map visualization with Torque and the Google Maps API.

The Berlin Atlas of Crime is a Google Maps based visualisation of crime statistics in the German capital.

The app allows the user to view heat maps of a number of different crime statistics, including burglary, drug offences, vehicle theft etc. For each generated heat map it is possible to select an individual neighbourhood / borough in the city and view a breakdown of all the crime in that area.

The data used in the map comes from the Berlin Atlas of Crime, a biennial report published by the police of the Federal State of Berlin.
16 février 2013
17:58
Cryptic Map Clue
sur Google Maps Mania

Here's a little cryptic map clue. Can you name the song from the map?

The map itself was created using the canvas layer utility library. If you want to use the library yourself Pedro Sousa has written up the steps he went through whilst using the library to create a map of all the localities of mainland Portugal. Here's the write-up and here's the resulting map.

Pedro's map contains about 140,000 points and so is a great example of how the canvas library can be used with the Google Maps API to plot thousands of points on a map. My map contains 4,000 points (there's a big clue to the song)
13:25
A Slightly Rude Best of the Rest
sur Google Maps Mania

Probably the most shared on-line interactive map of the last week has been the Vaguely Rude Map.

The Vaguely Rude Map is a faithful compendium and atlas of rude place names around the world. The map has proved particularly popular with British broadsheet newspapers, so I'm assuming that the map appeals somehow to the British sense of humour.

The map's creator Gary Gale has written a blog post explaining the British love of innuendo and how he created the map (the GeoPlanet API, Stamen map tiles, Leaflet & OSM). The map's GitHub even includes a warning, "

"If you're not British, it might be confusing why this is amusing".

The most shared non-nteractive map this week has to be Neil Freeman's Fifty States of the USA map. This map takes a radical approach to fixing the electoral college.

Freeman argues that the biggest problem with "the electoral college is that the states of the United States are too disparate in size and influence". Freeman has therefore redrawn the map of the USA with 50 new states of equal population.

Somehow I can't see his proposal being adopted any time soon.

My personal favourite this week was Airbnb's mapped visualisation of their growth since 2008.

There are actually a few maps on Airbnb Annual but the first map is the most impressive. I really like how the time-line on the map is controlled by the browser scrollbar. Scroll down on the page and observe how new markers are added to the map as the time-line progresses.
15 février 2013
16:47
Meteor Impact Sites on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania
What with tonight's pass of Asteroid 2012 DA14 and a meteor crashing into the Chelyabinsk region of Russia early this morning I've been spending way too much time Googling celestial bodies today.

My searching on Google did turn up this informative post from the Google Earth Blog about meteor craters. The post includes a link to a Thinklemon.com KML file of 172 meteor impact sites, with a size indicator for the largest ones. You can use Google Maps or Google Earth to browse the KML file. Here's a link to view the list using the Google Earth browser plug-in inside Google Maps.

Also See
- HeyWhatsThat: Close Asteroid Approach - a sky map of Asteroid 2012 DA14's pass of the Earth for later today.
- Impact Calculator. a Google Maps app that allows you to view the potential size of an impact crater, caused by different sized asteroids, at different locations around the world.
- 3d Asteroid Orbit Space Simulation - an amazing WebGL simulation that shows a view of our solar system, with over 580,000 asteroids mapped.
12:17
Plan An Ad Campaign with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

UK software company Beacon Dodsworth has used Google Maps to create an outdoor advertising research and delivery system for the Netherlands.

The Outdoor Delivery System Map includes the location data of the Netherlands' over 85,000 outdoor advertising panels. The map allows advertisers to view heat maps of an advertising campaign's coverage and easily identify specific locations to target.

Advertisers can even identify specific regions in the Netherlands and zoom in to see the location of all the outdoor advertising panels. The panels are displayed on the map with colour-coded markers that indicate the contractor who owns each panel.

One of the main advantages of using the Google Maps API over other on-line mapping platforms is Google's extensive Street View coverage in the Netherlands. The availability of Street View allows advertisers to target specific outdoor advertising panels and to remotely view the panel's position and visibility using Google Maps' interactive panoramic imagery.
0:19
Asteroid 2012 DA14's Path
sur Google Maps Mania

Asteroid 2012 DA14 will pass the Earth on Friday. At around 7.30pm GMT it will be as close as 17,200 miles to the Earth.

The asteroid will be very faint, it will be thousands of times fainter than Jupiter and 250 times fainter than the stars of the Plough. However if you live in a part of the world where it is dark enough at the time the asteroid passes you should be able to see it with a good pair of binoculars or a telescope.

To find out where the asteroid will be in the night sky then check out the HeyWhatsThat: Close Asteroid Approach. The app uses two Google Earth plugins to show the path of the asteroid. You can set your location on one Google Earth plugin and the asteroid's location will be shown on a map of the night sky. A time-line beneath the map allows you to check the asteroid's position at different times.
14 février 2013
19:36
Do You Know Your 'Hood?
sur Google Maps Mania

How well do you know the neighborhoods of your city? Click that 'Hood will test your local knowledge with a fun little neighborhood quiz.

The game presents you with a Google Maps satellite view of your city with all the neighborhoods outlined on the map. You then have to click on the correct neighborhood when prompted by the app. You have to get 20 right in the shortest possible time.

Currently there are 16 American cities to play. Click Your 'Hood also includes instructions on how you can create your own neighborhood quiz. All you need to do is get the shapefiles for the neighborhoods in your city and follow the simple instructions.
14:32
Asteroid Impacts on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Tomorrow Asteroid 2012 DA14 will narrowly miss hitting the Earth. The asteroid will pass so close to the Earth that it will actually pass underneath our communications satellites. The asteroid is about 160 feet across, which isn't particularly large, but if it did hit the Earth (I repeat - it won't) it would cause a huge amount of damage.

You can view the Meteor Crater in Arizona on Google Maps Street View. The Arizona meteor crater was caused by an asteroid which was almost exactly the same size as Asteroid 2012 DA14. The crater is 4,000 ft in diameter and 570 ft deep, and using Google Maps you can actually take a virtually walk right to the center of the crater.

If you want to know what kind of damage an asteroid this size would do to your town then chack out the Impact Calculator. This app allows you to view the potential size of an impact crater, caused by different sized asteroids, at different locations around the world.

The app uses the Google Earth browser plug-in to give you a 3d view of the potential size of an impact crater caused by different types of asteroid.

If this has whetted your appetite to learn more about asteroids then have a look at Asterank's 3d Asteroid Orbit Space Simulation.

The simulation is an amazing WebGL application that shows a view of our solar system with over 580,000 asteroids mapped. It is possible to rotate, zoom and pan the simulation. It is also possible to refine the asteroids shown by most valuable and most accessible (just in case you have plans to get into a little asteroid mining).
12:36
Silicon Fen on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Cambridge Cluster (also known as Silicon Fen) is the name given to an area in and around Cambridge, England where a large number of high-tech businesses are located.

The Cambridge Cluster Map is a Google Map showing the locations of the companies that contribute to Cambridge's high-tech sector. The size of the map marker used for each company represents the number of employees in the company. The size of the circles around some of the companies' markers represent the size of the company's revenue.
10:42
Twitter Activity on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Despite the ugly name Twaps is a useful app for finding what people are saying on Twitter around a specific location.

If you share your location with the app you can view the latest Tweets posted around you. If you want to find out what people are saying around a different location you can just enter a place-name in the search box to move the Google Map to that location.

Twitterfall is an interesting map visualisation of real-time geolocated Tweets being made around the world.

When anyone sends a Twitter message a map marker will fall onto the Twitterfall Google Map. The map is therefore an interesting visualisation of current Twitter activity around the world. However, as the markers begin to accumulate on the map, you might see some drop in performance.
13 février 2013
19:50
Philadelphia Homicides on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Philadelphia Homicides 2006-2012 is a map visualization that uses data from the Philadelphia Police Department to animate all Philadelphia homicides from 2006-2012.

The visualization uses the Google Maps API with CartoDB's Torque library. If you like the visualization then you should check out the screencast by the developer on how he created the map. The screencast shows how easy it is to build a compelling map visualization with Torque and the Google Maps API.
14:55
Free Custom Printed Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

KLM have a new Google Maps based application that allows you to create a map for an upcoming trip that includes all the places that you want to visit.

KLM Pack & Go enables you to create a map of places that you wish to visit and KLM will then send you a high-quality printed map of your selections - for free. You can share your on-line Google Map with your Facebook and Twitter friends and they can also add tips to your map of the places that they recommend you visit.

The terms and conditions of the offer mention that the free map offer only runs 'while stock lasts'. So if you want a free custom printed map you had better move fast.
12:14
The Washington DC Homicide Map
sur Google Maps Mania

The Washintgton Post has used the Google Maps API to create a map based visualisation of homicides in the city between 2000 and 2011.

The interactive map Homicides in the District shows the locations of all the homicide victims.The visualisation includes a number of animated heat maps that allow you to view homicide rates year by year, the number of convictions each year, drug killings by year and victims aged 20-24 by year.

It is also possible to view animations of the homicide rates by year for specific neighborhoods by selecting a neighborhood from the list beneath the map.
1:53
The Campaign for a Better Tibetan Map
sur Google Maps Mania

The Tibetan Youth Association in Europe has started a campaign to try and persuade Google to use the traditional place-names of Tibetan towns and landmarks rather than the names imposed by China.

The Put Tibet Back on the Map campaign is accompanied by a Google Map. Starting from February 13th 2013, exactly 100 years after Tibet’s declaration of independence, the association are collecting all the information about Tibetan landmarks on this map.

The association are calling for all those who support their campaign to share the map and to tweet #tibetonthemap.
12 février 2013
17:12
Do You Live in a Ghetto?
sur Google Maps Mania

The Global News Income by Postal Code Map shows income levels in 1,576 postal areas in Canada.

Using the map it is possible to visualise which are the richest and poorest districts in your city. It is also quite interesting to click on a neighbourhood and see whether you earn more than the median family income or, as in my case, you earn less than your neighbours.

If you live in the US then you can check Rich Blocks, Poor Blocks to find out how much money people make in every neighborhood in your city.

If you want to know what the average income is in your neighborhood, or you want to see which are the wealthiest neighborhoods, you can search the map by address or use the drop-down menu to view the data for a whole state.

If you live in Scotland then use the Deprivation in Scotland Map to see how your neighbourhood compares, wealth wise, to other areas of the country. Deprivation in Scotland 2012 is a Google Map of data from the Scottish Index of Multiple Deprivation.

The colours on the map display each area's rank within Scotland as a whole, with the most deprived in red and the least deprived in dark blue. Using the map it is easy to spot large concentrations of areas with similar deprivation levels.

Residents of London can use the excellent London Profiler to view data from London's Index of Multiple Deprivation to find out whether they live in a rich or poor neighbourhood.
14:50
Sim City Chicago Google Map
sur Google Maps Mania

2nd City Zoning has taken a little inspiration from Sim City for the design of their new zoning map of Chicago.

The map uses the red, yellow and blue colors, that will be familiar to any fans of the long running computer game, to show the zoning patterns throughout the city. Green zones are residential, blue are commercial and yellow signifies industrial.

It is even possible to select from a number of songs from the Sim City game to listen to as you browse the map.
13:35
Berlin Crime on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Berlin Atlas of Crime is a Google Maps based visualisation of crime statistics in the German capital.

The app allows the user to view heat maps of a number of different crime statistics, including burglary, drug offences, vehicle theft etc. For each generated heat map it is possible to select an individual neighbourhood / borough in the city and view a breakdown of all the crime in that area.

The data used in the map comes from the Berlin Atlas of Crime, a biennial report published by the police of the Federal State of Berlin.
11:15
The Best Locations for Alfresco Sex
sur Google Maps Mania

Map Channels is a Google Maps creation tool that allows anyone to easily create their own Google Map. It is a great way for non-programmers or those who don't want to mess about with the Google Maps API to create a map.

Map Channels lets you embed a custom map into your website or blog without the need for coding. The service is also free and can be used to create maps for personal use or to embed on a commercial website. It is therefore a great way to enhance a website with a map that provides useful information for a target audience.

A good example of this is the Truck Stops Map created by Commercial Motor. The map lists truck-stops, lorry parks and other overnight HGV parking areas in the UK. It is a map that might have limited appeal to the general public but provides a useful service to the truck driving readers of Commercial Motor.

Another interesting example is a map created by the French magazine website Rue69. In a risqué article about the best locations for outdoor sex in France, Rue69 asked their readers for their input on their favourite romantic outdoor locations. They then used Map Channels to create a map of the locations to complement the article.

The map lists the pros and cons of each location and the contributors also rate their personal 'experience' of the location.
11 février 2013
15:50
Where They Hide Your Money
sur Google Maps Mania

98% of the UK's biggest businesses are using tax havens, where you'll find 8,492 of their overseas companies. Actionaid believe that "one of the main reasons companies use tax havens is to dodge their taxes".

Actionaids FTSE 100 Tax Haven Map shows the locations of these 8,492 companies around the world. It is possible to explore the map by location, individual company and by sector. If you select an individual company you can view a list of all the overseas companies that they have established.
14:37
Control Street View With Superman Vision
sur Google Maps Mania

Street Facing is an amazing experimental app that allows you to control the point of view on Google Street View with movements of your face and head.

The application uses a webcam to track the movements of your face to move the Street View image on your browser's screen. Look right and the Street View pans to the right, look left and the Street View will pan left.

At the moment the app only works in the Chrome browser. I also found that your face has to be well lit for the app to work. The app is hosted on GitHub so you can even delve into the code if you want to know how the app works.
13:24
Google Maps Borders
sur Google Maps Mania

We don't see enough Google Maps with interesting frames. Reclame Erfgoed (now sadly demised) imaginatively framed Street View images of vintage hand-painted wall advertisements with an actual image of a wall. But I can't think of many other great examples of framed Google Maps.

Design and Such have created a slide-show of interesting satellite images found on Google Maps. The Google Map's division element is creatively framed by a photograph of a man holding a canvas.

The map element is actually an interactive map and not a still image, so the map can be panned around and you can use your mouse's scroll wheel to zoom in and out on the map. The chosen satellite views are rather attractive as well.
11:33
Environmental Toxins on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Swedish Newspaper Aftonbladet has used Google Maps and CartoDB to create a map of the locations of environmental toxins in Sweden.

On the map are over 7,000 areas where there may be environmental toxins and the newspaper's readers can enter any address to find out which toxic areas are nearby. Readers can then click on the individual map markers to find out details about the polluted location and the level of risk.
10 février 2013
13:23
The Google Maps of the Week
sur Google Maps Mania

How do you know that a road is safe for cycling before you have ever ridden on it?

Cyclodeo helps solve the problem by letting you view a video of a suggested cycling route before you undertake your journey. The application uses Google Maps and videos of a cycling route to allow you to watch the route before setting out.

The videos are even synced to the Google Map of the route so that you can click anywhere on the route and the video automatically jumps to the footage at that location.

This is very impressive. The DTS Dallas Theological Seminary has used polygons to create the effect of 3d buildings on its campus map.

The effect is partly possible because of Google Map's 45 degree aerial view. This bird's eye view imagery is perfect for creating polygons for the roofs and the visible walls of building, which combined create the visual effect of a 3d building.

The DTS campus map has also made the 3d buildings selectable, so you can click on each building to find out which department is housed there.

Zeptoblaster also deserves an honourable mention this week. This Google Earth browser game may not be perfect yet but its collision detection system does hint at a future for Google Earth as a 3d gaming platform.

Zeptoblaster itself is a two player game that involves hunting down your opponent and blowing them to smithereens. You can jump to anywhere in the world in the game. So you can fight your battle around the Egyptian pyramids, in the Colosseum in Rome or anywhere else in the world that takes your fancy.
09 février 2013
15:29
Winter Storm Nemo Power Outage Map
sur Google Maps Mania

Google Crisis Response has created a Google Map for winter Storm Nemo.

The map includes a number of weather layers (including cloud cover and radar imagery). The map also includes useful information on power outages and links to power outage maps in the north-east. It is also possible to view public alerts and the latest disaster alerts on the map.
14:00
The Best of the Rest
sur Google Maps Mania

Stately is a symbol font which can be used to quickly create a static map of the United States using only HTML and CSS.

Once you have downloaded the font you can create a map using uppercase A-Z and lowercase a-z to add states to the map. The font can then be styled as normal in CSS to adjust the size and color of the map. Individual states can also be styled making it possible to easily create a map where individual states or groups of states are highlighted.

OSM Buildings is a very impressive JavaScript library that can be used to create 3d models of buildings from Open Street Map data. The library uses a clever shading technique to make buildings appear 3d on a map.

The effect is very similar to the WebGL 3d buildings on Google Maps. The library comes with documentation and support for using the library with Leaflet and OpenLayers.
08 février 2013
16:15
Creating 3d Buildings with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

Update: John Dyer has now posted a full tutorial explaining how he created 3d buildings on the DTS campus map. John's method is a lot more elegant than mine.

I had one of those 'I wish I'd thought of that' moments this week when I saw the awesome DTS Dallas Theological Seminary campus map. The map uses polygons and the Google Maps 45° Imagery view to create the impression of 3d buildings on Google Maps.

Today I had a little play with the Google Maps API to see if I could reproduce the effect. The result is this little 3d Polygon demo map. My solution to creating the polygons differs a little from the DTS map (see the comments on this post for some clues as to their solution).

In essence I simply create four different building polygons, one for each heading in the 45° Imagery view. So when the user rotates the map only the correct building polygon is displayed on the map. To achieve this you have to use getHeading() with an event listener to detect when the map view has been changed.

My solution is to have four different building polygons and then create an if...else statement to load the correct building polygon. Here's the important part of the code:

       if (heading == 0) {
       buildingOne.setMap(map);
       buildingTwo.setMap(null);
       buildingThree.setMap(null);
       buildingFour.setMap(null);
       }

       else if (heading == 90) {
       buildingOne.setMap(null);
       buildingTwo.setMap(map);
       buildingThree.setMap(null);
       buildingFour.setMap(null);
       }

       else if (heading == 180) {
       buildingOne.setMap(null);
       buildingTwo.setMap(null);
       buildingThree.setMap(map);
       buildingFour.setMap(null);
       }

       else if (heading == 270) {
       buildingOne.setMap(null);
       buildingTwo.setMap(null);
       buildingThree.setMap(null);
       buildingFour.setMap(map);
       }
12:46
Snowstorm Tracking on Google Map
sur Google Maps Mania

A heavy snowstorm affecting the north-east of the US could lead to the the heaviest snowfall for some cities a century. WNYC has created a Google Map to track Storm Nemo.

The Storm Tracking Map displays a radar mosaic over a map of the north-east. Snow bands are shown on the map in gray and rain bands are colored according to intensity. The radar imagery updates every two minutes.

The National Weather Services new Enhanced Data Display is another Google Maps based weather map that is also useful for tracking the snowstorm. This isn't just your average weather map but a full GIS-centic interface with hundreds of weather related layers that can be viewed on the map.

Users can add a number of NWS data layers to the map, including radar, cloud cover and webcams. Forecasts for any location can be accessed by right-clicking anywhere on the map. Hundreds of other weather data layers can be accessed by clicking on the 'more layers' link in the map sidebar.
11:46
Some Friday Fun with Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

xkcd: Expedition

This week xkcd featured a funny Google Maps related comic strip. I think quite a few of us identify with the idea of getting lost in Google Maps.

There is also a little Easter egg on the original strip. If you click on the original image on xkcd you get taken to Google Maps.

If you do click on the image and go to Google Maps remember real virtual explorers don't cheat by using the scroll wheel.

If you do want to get lost on Google Maps then you should head straight to Parvis de Saint-Gilles in Brussels on Street View.

Somehow Google has managed to splice together three seaprate images into one shot in this Street View image. Either that or Google has managed to capture some kind of rupture in the space-time continuum.

The Latest in Cat Hat Fashion

Meanwhile, over in New York, Street View has managed to capture the latest in hipster cat hat fashion.

I'd tempted to say that wearing this hat will leave you feline purr-fect.

But I really shouldn't. Instead I will just leave you with this cat wearing a hat link from Vanished Americana.
07 février 2013
21:52
DC Rental Priced Heat Map
sur Google Maps Mania
A couple of week's ago Jeff Kaufmann created a series of heat maps visualising the cost of apartment rentals in Boston, Boston Apartment Price Maps. Other developers, inspired by Jeff's map, quickly created rental heat maps for their own cities:
- Toronto Apartment Prices
- San Francisco Apartment Prices
- Chicago Rental Heat Map
WeLoveDC has now released a rental Google Map of Washington DC. Like the other maps the Washington DC Rental Map uses data from Padmapper. The map also includes the locations of Metro stations.
18:40
Real-Time Vine Video Map
sur Google Maps Mania

I would normally wait until Saturday to post this in the weekly Best of the Rest post but this is so addictive and frankly I've got bored waiting for someone to do this with the Google Maps API.

Vines Map is a real-time map of videos posted to Vine (if you have been off-grid for the last month then - Vine is a new app that lets you post 6 second videos to Twitter). Just fire-up the map and sit back as Vine videos posted around the world open up and play. If you get bored with a video don't worry as you only have to wait six seconds for another video to come along.

Vines Map was created by @benmarsh, creator of the awesome UKsnowmap.
13:21
Spanish Hiking on Google Maps
sur Google Maps Mania

The Gipuzkoa is one of Spain;s most beautiful and picturesque regions. The mountains and rugged terrain make it a popular destination for hikers and fans of other outdoor pursuits.

RutasporGipuzkoa is a website that shows popular hiking and climbing routes in Gipuzkoa.

The site uses Google Maps to show the locations of popular routes. The results displayed in the sidebar can be filtered by the latest routes to be added or the most popular. If the user selects a hiking location on the map they can click through to view further details.

The full details not only explain the difficulty, distance and estimated time of the hike but give detailed guidance and directions for the route.

Sierra de Aralar is a dedicated Google Map, from RutasporGipuzkoa, showing hikes, points of interest and mountains in the Aralar range of mountains.

Users can link on any of the hikes indicated on the map and view the hike's route and altitude chart. Accompanying the route are details on the walk's length, an estimated time for the walk and a difficulty rating.

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