Maps

gsalr.com is a garage sale, yard sale and estate sale listing service with a handy Google Maps interface and trip planner that can help you plan your weekend garage sale trips. If you select a sale's marker on the map you can view details of the sale and click on the 'add to trip planner' button to add the sale to your personal trip planner. After you have selected all the sales that you plan to visit you can then click on the 'View Route and Directions' button in the side panel to open another map with a planned route and the directions to all your planned sales.

The Galapagos Islands are some of the most biologically unique ecosystems in the world. Explorers and scientists alike have long studied and marveled at these islands—made famous by Charles Darwin. The Ecuadorean Government, local conservation groups and scientists are working to protect the Galapagos from threats posed by invasive species, climate change and other human impacts. It’s critical that we share images with the world of this place in order to continue to study and preserve the islands’ unique biodiversity. Today we’re honored to announce, in partnership with Charles Darwin Foundation (CDF) and the Galapagos National Parks Directorate (GNPD), that we’ve collected panoramic imagery of the islands with the Street View Trekker. These stunning images will be available on Google Maps later this year so people around the world can experience this remote archipelago. Daniel Orellana of Charles Darwin Foundation crossing a field of ferns to reach Minas de Azufre (naturally-occurring sulfur mines) on the top of Sierra Negra, an active volcano on Isabela Island. The Google Maps team traveled for more than 3 hours, hiking and on horseback, to reach this remote location. Images, like the one you see above, are also an important visual record that the CDF and GNPD will use to study and protect the islands by showing the world how these delicate environments have changed over time. Daniel Orellana of the Charles Darwin Foundation climbs out of a lava tunnel where he was collecting imagery. The dramatic lava landscapes found on Isabela island tell the story of the formation of the Galapagos Islands. Our 10-day adventure in the Galapagos was full of hiking, boating and diving around the islands (in hot and humid conditions) to capture 360-degree images of the unique wildlife and geological features of the islands with the Trekker. We captured imagery from 10 locations that were hand-selected by CDF and GNPD. We walked past giant tortoises and blue-footed boobies, navigated through steep trails and lava fields, and picked our way down the crater of an active volcano called Sierra Negra. A Galapagos giant tortoise crawls along the path near Googler Karin Tuxen-Bettman while she collects imagery with the Street View Trekker in Galapaguera, a tortoise breeding center, which is managed by the Galapagos National Park Service. Life underwater in the Galapagos is just as diverse as life on land. We knew our map of the islands wouldn’t be comprehensive without exploring the ocean that surrounds them. So for the second time we teamed up with the folks at the Catlin Seaview Survey to collect underwater panoramic imagery of areas being studied by CDF and GNPD. This imagery will be used by Catlin Seaview Survey to create a visual and scientific baseline record of the marine environment surrounding the islands, allowing for any future changes to be measured and evaluated by scientists around the world. Christophe Bailhache navigates the SVII camera through a large group of Sea Lions at Champion Island in Galapagos. Image courtesy of the Catlin Seaview Survey. We truly believe that in order to protect these Galapagos Islands, we must understand them. As they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words.” We hope this Street View imagery not only advances the important scientific research, but also inspires you to learn more about this special place. Stay tuned for updates on this collection—the first time we’ve captured imagery from both land and sea! We can’t wait to share this amazing imagery with you later this year. Raleigh Seamster, Project Lead, Google Maps

Today I came across this Open Street Map of aerial imagery showing the devastating damage caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma. Unfortunately the map doesn't have any zoom controls or an option to view aerial imagery of the same location before the tornado struck. The map, however, does include a dynamic URL that gives the latitude and longitude of the current view. Therefore, if you want to compare before and after views of the tornado, you can grab the latitude and longitude of a view and paste it into Google Maps. The aerial view above shows Plaza Towers Elementary School. Below is the aerial view of the same school on Google Maps, taken before the tornado. Update: Google Crisis Map now also has the same post-tornado imagery. The Google Crisis Map also includes aerial imagery taken at the end of April, so users can compare the pre and post-tornado imagery on the same map. The New York Times has also created two evocative custom Street View images of the devastation caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma - Before and After: 360° Views From Moore.

Since 1997 German artist Gunter Demnig has been creating memorials for individual victims of the Holocaust. Demnig's stolpersteine (stumbling blocks) are small, cobblestone-sized memorials for individual victims of Nazism. Each stolperstein is placed in the sidewalk outside the victim's home. Stolpersteine Online is a Google Map of the memorials that have been erected. The project has created about 35,000 stumbling blocks so far. This is a very small percentage of the total number of victims of the Holocaust, however if you zoom in on any German city on this map you still can't be overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the Nazis Holocaust.

Trimble (the company that purchased SketchUp last year) has just released SketchUp 2013 with a variety of upgrades and enhancements. Extension Warehouse The new Extension Warehouse is designed to be a “one-stop shop for anyone looking to customize their copy of SketchUp”, with tons of new features included. LayOut in SketchUp Pro 2013 New in 2013 they’ve “added hatching and other pattern fills, speedier vector rendering, better zoom, more useful callouts and other improvements we think you’ll love”.  Here is more info about LayOut from the SketchUpdate Blog. SketchUp Make The free version of SketchUp now has a new name: SketchUp Make.  The word “SketchUp” now refers to the family of products, with includes the “Pro” and “Make” verions. All told, there are quite a few great updates in the latest releases of SketchUp.  While SketchUp isn’t being used for Google Earth as much as it used to (due to the automated 3D Imagery continuing to be rolled out), it is still an amazing tool for creating 3D models. You can read more about this update in the SketchUpdate Blog. The post SketchUp 2013 released appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Map of the Week: Cambridge Cluster Map Why we like it: The Cambridge Cluster Map is a simple, visually appealing map that shows off the power of using a map to make a meaningful data visualization. According to their site, “The Map is designed to open the Cambridge technology cluster to the world. Through visualisations, reports and directories the Map paints a vivid picture of the business community that’s grown up over forty years.“ The map uses Circles, custom icons, InfoWindows, and Styled Maps to show data in various data sets, including fast growing companies, billion dollar companies, spinouts from Cambridge University, and much more. One interesting feature is the use of circles, which the map places under a marker to show the amount of revenue generated in that location. The bigger the circle, the bigger the revenue. The custom icons serve double purpose, showing both the number of employes and the kind of building, with multiple companies or a single one. All in all a beautiful map which also manages to convey a lot of information. Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Map of the Week: Planefinder.net Why we like it: Planefinder uses all three Google Maps API platforms, web, Android, and iOS to enable beautiful visualizations of flight routes. And recently they used the visual refresh to update their map to the latest look and feel. They use our WeatherLayer to show clouds and weather forecasts, and offer a Styled Map background to make the planes stand out. The mobile apps use the Google Maps Android API v2 and the Google Maps SDK for iOS. They use Markers to update the location of the planes, and Polylines to show their routes. This is a great use of all three platforms for the Google Maps API to show a compelling visualization of planes in flight. Posted by Mano Marks, Maps Developer Relations Team

Street View Quiz is a series of quiz questions based on Google Maps Street View. In each quiz question you are presented with a Street View and then have to answer a question related to the view presented. The questions might ask you to name something seen in the Street View or you could get a more general question about something that happened at the location. Street View Quiz includes a simple interface that allows users to create their own questions by providing a link to a Street View and submitting the question and answer. GeoGuessr is a Street View geography quiz that sets you the challenge of guessing the locations of a series of random Street View images. Using visual clues, such as the fauna, landscape and street furniture you have to place a pin on a global Google Map indicating where you think each Street View image was taken. The closer your guess to the actual location then the more points you win. Locatestreet is a very similar game that presents a series of random Street Views and the player has to guess the country where the image was captured. The featured terrain, architecture, street furniture and modes of transport all provide clues that can help the player guess the country of origin of the random Street View image. The game also includes three clues for each image, but be warned - if you use a clue you will win less points.

The New York Times have created two evocative custom Street View images of the devastion caused by the tornado in Moore, Oklahoma -Before and After: 360° Views From Moore. The custom Street Views were captured on Tuesday and have been synced with the Google Maps Street Views that were captured in December 2007. If you pan either Street View both the before and after image moves so you can compare the images around the whole 360 degrees. The Times captured two custom Street View images, one at South Avery Drive, between Southeast 4th and 8th Street, and the other at Southeast 4th Street and Heatherwood Drive.

I've long been a fan of Vasile Cotovanu's polygon masking effect that allows you to highlight a particular area on Google Maps. Vasile has now released a wizard app that can quickly create the GeoJSON, KML, or Google Maps API polygon code needed to create your own polygon mask. Geomask allows you to simply draw around an area on Google Maps and just press a button to generate the polygon to create this neat masking effect. You aren't even restricted to one area and you can highlight as many areas as you want on the map. The tool is really easy to use. I created a polygon mask to highlight the London Olympic Park and then created a map with the mask in under two minutes using Geomask (you can see the result in the screenshot at the top of the post). Using a polygon mask is a very effective way to highlight a specific area on a Google Map. Here are a couple of Google Maps applications that have used a similar polygon masking effect to highlight regions on the map. Der Bayerischer Wald is a great Google Maps guide to hiking routes, accommodation and events in the Bavarian Forest region in Germany. Ourense en Verde is using the Google Maps API to map the natural beauty of the Ourense region in Galicia, Spain.