nearby.org.uk blog » maps

Geo Photo Websites

Barry — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 00:48:26 +0000

In my travels I’ve come accorss many different photo websites, many of which I would like to explore further but dont have the time at the time. So as somewhere to keep note:

Geo Photo Websites

Any I have missed or should checkout? Let me know in comments…

Geograph: Watching the Fire build

Barry — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 21:30:55 +0000

As we near the Million mark on photos uploaded to Geograph British Isles, the coverage is really building up; and the project has definitly matured from just capturing a photo of every square (but that is still continuing!), to capturing each square in ‘depth’. We display the current coverage on the site as a depth map, but here we present some animations to watch the progress.

There are a number of interesting artefacts in this, if you are quick you can follow people as the hike long distance paths, but you can also see the people making concerted efforts to knock of hectads.

Of course the raw frames are available under Creative Commons, and a bonus prize to who can make an good mashup of these. The animations include both weekly frames, and monthly versions (labelled quick)

(the fire reference)

Where in the world are people looking? part 2

Barry — Sat, 01 Mar 2008 22:05:35 +0000

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!]