Archive for the ‘Nearby’ Category
Wednesday, July 15th, 2009
It’s about time did some Google Earth hacking, so thanks to the people at Geocubes, have made a new interactive layer for Google Earth.
Geograph Google Earth Clusters
This works in a similar way to the Geograph SuperLayer, by showing coverage overview, and then zooming in to reveal more detail. The Geocubes layer has the advantage that the clusters work into a closer zoom, and updates to the geograph database make it into the layer within hours. The SuperLayer is slower updating (weeks), but navigating should be much quicker being as its based on KML regions.
You can view also a Google Maps based version of the layer, using the Geocubes API directly.
This is only version 0.1 – there is more to be done – including being able to filter the results based on words and contributor, but this is exciting enough on its own. Once done a bit of work on tidying up the code plan to release it so others can use the geocubes service to create their own layer like this 
Watch this space!
Tags: clusters, Dynamic Layer, Geocubes
Posted in Experimental, Geograph, Google Earth, KML, Nearby, SuperLayer | 5 Comments »
Monday, June 22nd, 2009
Want to quickly access location based websites, while on the go?
Then enter:
m.nearby.org.uk
into your mobile browser.
Very privative, only goes to the nearby location links service, and a few pages on geograph. But between them give access to a fair number of (UK esp) websites.
Disclaimer: Only tested on a Google Android phone so far. Doesn’t seem to pickup GPS position (yet). To be honest surprised not found something like this in the Android Market.
If works out will probably add direct links to other websites, and possibly make it configurable so can choose which sites to show
Posted in Experimental, Google Maps, Location Links, Nearby, geo, maps | No Comments »
Friday, May 8th, 2009
There is a tool on nearby for taking a multi destination route – and loading it into Google Earth. It was also used to load directions into a “My Map”, but thats basically redundant now, but as the script just converts the directions to a KML file, there are many useful things that can be done with it…
Such as plotting an altitude profile with gpsvisualizer.com***, but to make it even easier, have added a button to the page, that links direct to the form on gpsu with the data prefilled as well as the ‘add altitude’ option enabled.
Enjoy! (Oh and let me know if there are any other interesting destinations would like to load the KML file into!)
Multi Destination Routing Toolkit
*** which Adam recently added the functionalty to add alitude automatically – previsoully a problem as the KML files from Google maps dont include altitude
Posted in Experimental, Google Maps, Nearby, network-link | No Comments »
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
I made this ages ago, but forgot about it. And as I havent said anything on here for a while, I’ll post it now just to fill the void. Its a simple mapplet that allows jumping to the location on Google Maps by Grid reference, as well as displaying the GR of the clicked point. KISS
GB and Ireland Grid References Mapplet
Thanks to Lordelph for the Javascript (but I notice that links to a version hosted here!)
Tags: Google Maps, Grid reference, gridref, mapplet, OSGB, OSGB36, WGS84
Posted in Google Maps, Nearby | 6 Comments »
Friday, August 1st, 2008
A while ago released a Compass Overlay, which (hopefully) makes reading directions of the navigation control easier. Well this new version does the same, but its (mostly) correct for the Magnetic Direction!
Magnetic Compass correct link this time!!
Note: its positioned to fit the navigation control of Google Earth 4.3, not the separate compass, which has only recently begun working for me… Updates a few seconds after stopping moving.
Now have a way to determine the magnetic variation at a location have some other ideas for using this in Google Earth, eg magnetic bearing along a line, but this is a starting point. For example in the uk the variation is often too small to be really seen on the tiny control.
Thanks to heywhatsthat.com for the pointer to a webservice that gives the variation.
Update: Rather embarrassingly just noticed the link above was wrong! It was to a static compass. The link above has been updated, and it should now rotate! Sorry for confusion… (always wondered why this didnt get much traffic!)
Tags: compass, Declination, direction, magnetic, variation
Posted in Google Earth, KML, Nearby, network-link | No Comments »
Saturday, July 26th, 2008
Behold a new network link from nearby.org.uk:
Google Earth GPS
Once you have chosen a destination point, a small arrow will be shown in the bottom right of your Google Earth window, which points towards your destination! Ideal for use in the flight simulator, where you can play follow the arrow.
Note it only updates every 5 seconds, and comes with all sorts of disclaimers such as don’t use in life or death situations.
Tags: arrow, direction, GPS, pointer
Posted in Experimental, Flight Simulator, Google Earth, KML, Nearby, PHP, network-link | 7 Comments »
Friday, July 11th, 2008
Sorry that nearby.org.uk and related services have been offline for most of the past week. I am currently away for a trip in (not so) sunny Ireland, and the first halve was camping so was away from Internet connectivity.
Anyway minutes before I went away I got a deluge of emails saying the site if offline? what?? It turns out my generic credit card had expired, and without warning (feck) the machine was switched off. But this was 12am so their phone lines where closed (billing at least) – so a hasty phone call on the move in the morning and with the new card details they said be back within a few hours – not ideal but the best could do. I carried on my merry way and didn’t think any more of it (my mistake!), but the real feck up was that yes they had re-enabled the machine, they just forgot to re enable it at the switch…
It appears to be back now after much international phone calls….
btw – feck isn’t considered a swear word in Éire, and when in Ireland, do as the Irish do. (which is use it a lot!)
Update: as an amendum to the above, it turns out that on wednesday (3 days after it was switched off) a letter did arrive at home stating that they intended to turn off the server unless payment was received – and that it would take three days to reactivate the server. Which is at least factual.
Tags: sorry tale
Posted in Nearby | No Comments »
Sunday, March 2nd, 2008
Just spotted a proposal for a standard icon to represent geotagged content, the homepage is at geotagicons.com, can’t say a big fan of the icon itself, but the idea is great.
<OT>Was sort of involved in trying to find a standard icon for GeoRSS (in fact they use my icon as the favicon 
), but not sure (in hindsight!) if that a good idea, really it just saying this is a geotagged feed, which really shouldn’t mean much different to the end user than the standard feed icon. If their feed reader is geoenabled – great, if not tough, although it can help people specifically looking for geo-content.</OT>
Anyway to try the waters, have enabled it for geotagged content on this blog, see the PhotoSpot category for example
(via)
Posted in Coordinate Converter, Nearby, maps | 4 Comments »
Saturday, March 1st, 2008
Following part 1 yesterday, have now plotted some maps per individual service.
Flash Earth Layer
Conclusions
- Google Earth does request a link for the initial view on startup – that point in the Atlantic.
- I guess North American installs have two slightly different default placemarks; has it changed, or maybe Canada gets a different one?
- But that doesnt explain the lines from there – people must have their links set to periodically refresh?
- Germany likes FlashEarth (or rather people like looking at Germany with FlashEarth link enabled)
- Many people leave the links open even when not in use – e.g. the British Isles links show worldwide usage, notably over Russia.
- MGRS notably has high usage in two areas.
- The Far east likes to know what direction they facing.
Update: In a total forehead slapping momont realised these unprojected whole world images, are exactly what is used in GroundOverlays, so the the pages now include links to view the higher resolution images directly in Google Earth, duh!
Example: View In Google Earth (don’t forget to try adjusting the tranparency slider!) [Update, to fix broken link, sorry!]
Tags: Coverage Maps, Google Earth, maps, Network Links
Posted in API, Coverage Maps, Experimental, Google Earth, KML, Nearby, PHP, Web Services, maps, network-link, online maps | No Comments »
