A Hawkes eye view in Google Earth

While some children spend their youth fascinated by model cars and legos, I was always more interested in aerial photography. For years I amassed a collection of books capturing this unique perspective of the world, and it was obvious from looking through my personal library that British aerial photographer Jason Hawkes was a huge influence and hero of mine. Last year, Jason came to the Google office in London to give a Tech Talk, and I was finally able to meet him in person. He mentioned being a big fan of Google Earth, using it to put together virtual flight plans for his trips.

After Jason’s visit, we decided to collaborate on an effort to bring geographic context to his work with Google Earth. By creating a KML file showcasing some of his most beautiful images, we were able to truly capture a “Hawkes eye view” of locations all around the world.

The English coastline, near Sittingbourne, Kent captured by Jason Hawkes
While Jason hails from the United Kingdom, his work spans the globe. Simply open the KML in Google Earth, and you’ll feel like you’ve taken a seat right next to him as he flies over the United Kingdom, New York, Las Vegas, Hong Kong, Budapest and Minorca.

The Great Sphinx at Luxor in Las Vegas, Nevada
Given the excitement around London this summer, we included a variety of photographs that bring the changing face of the city to life, from the addition of The Shard skyscraper to the massive redevelopment taking place in Stratford for the Olympic games.

The Shard and River Thames in London, England

The Olympic Park in London, England
When viewing the KML in Google Earth, make sure the “3D Buildings” layer is enabled in the left hand panel to enjoy a 3D experience of famous buildings. Happy flying!

Posted by Phil Verney, Program Manager, Google Earth and Maps

Read More

Visit global landmarks with photo tours in Google Maps

Every year, millions of people pack their bags and head to far-off places to enjoy sites and cultures different from their own. While there, they snap photos to document their trip and share their excursions online. Yet none of these individual photos captures the experience of actually being immersed in a specific location. With today’s introduction of photo tours, a feature of Google Maps that guides you through a 3D photo scene, we're one step closer.

Photo tours are available for more than 15,000 popular sites around the world, from famous landmarks such as St. Mark’s Basilica in Italy to scenic treasures like Half Dome in Yosemite. They can be initiated from Google Maps in two ways. First, when you search for a place, such as Trevi Fountain, the results in the left panel will indicate if there is a photo tour available: click either the thumbnail image or the link to start the tour. Alternatively, if you’re browsing the map and click on the label for a particular landmark, the info window that appears will indicate if a photo tour is available.

To produce these photo tours, we use advanced computer vision techniques to create a 3D experience from public, user-contributed Picasa and Panaromio photos. We start by finding clusters of overlapping photos around major landmarks. From the photos, our system derives the 3D shape of each landmark and computes the location and orientation of each photo. Google Maps then selects a path through the best images, and adds 3D transitions to seamlessly guide you from photo to photo as if you’re literally flying around the landmark and viewing it from different perspectives.

Every photo is attributed to its contributor, and the more photos people share, the better the tours get. So if you have great photos of places you’ve visited on Picasa or Panoramio, make them public so they’ll be eligible for inclusion in these photo tours!

Please note that using photo tours requires Google Maps with WebGL. Check out a few of our favorites or visit this map to browse all the available tours. Enjoy touring!

Posted by Steve Seitz, Software Engineer, Google Maps

Read More

Easily snap your photos to a location in Panoramio

Earlier this year we improved the uploader tool in Panoramio to make the process faster and more intuitive. Since then, members of the Panoramio photo-sharing community have been simply dragging and dropping their photos to the locations where they were taken, and working together to create a world map of beautiful images.

Today, we’re announcing some improvements to help you even more easily geo-tag your photos in Panoramio. You can now snap your photos to a place on the map. When searching for your photo location, you’ll see a list of suggested places where your photo may have been taken, and you can click “Snap to this place” to select the right location. We’ve also added the ability for users to indicate that a photo was taken indoors. These additional details about where a photo was taken provide all users with more useful information and context.

If you’re not familiar with Panoramio and how it works, get a sense for this powerful user tool by checking out the brief video below. Panoramio is a community site for photos of various places, with the option to share and explore the photos in Google Maps and Google Earth.



Enjoy the improved features in Panoramio and we look forward to seeing more of your photos.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Read More

Panoramio Groups: Join a photo community to match your interests

Cross-posted on the Panoramio and Official Google blogs.



I'm from Barcelona, and once a year I go to Costa Brava on the Mediterranean with my friends to enjoy good food and nice weather. I always carry my camera with me to capture the beach when the light is just right, take photos of my favorite meals or document my latest hike. When I get home, I upload my photos to Panoramio and position them on the map. Pictures uploaded to Panoramio can be featured in the “Photos” layer of Google Earth and Google Maps, which means that I can share my travel experiences with others and, in return, explore places around the world through the eyes of other photographers.



Starting today, you can share your passions through photographs more collaboratively with Panoramio Groups. This new feature lets you create a sub-community within Panoramio around a topic you’re passionate about, so you can easily engage with like-minded photographers and hobbyists.

Panoramio is an online community of people that share and explore photos of the world.

For example, in my trips around the world, I always take the time to enjoy the local cuisine, like Costa Brava’s arròs negre. So I created a group called “Food,” to give others a "taste" of that region and get a glimpse of what fellow foodies are feasting on. My fellow group members—and by all means I hope you’ll become one of them!—can add their own photos, browse others' and get culinary and travel inspiration.

Panoramio Groups allow members to share photos and start discussions on a given topic.

To share your own interests and passions through photos, hop over to Panoramio and create your own group or join an existing one from the Groups Directory. You can show off your photos of your favorite restaurant, the most beautiful sunset you’ve seen, the latest lighthouse you’ve visited, or the cutest dog from each continent. Whatever it is, try starting a discussion about your favorite topics and share what matters to you with others.



Visit www.panoramio.com/groups to get started. We hope you enjoy this new addition to Panoramio—let us know what you think in the Panoramio Forum!



Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Read More

Post Japan Earthquake panoramas in Google Earth

In an effort to continue to help keep people informed about the extent of the tragedy that has recently struck Japan, Google Earth has added panorama photos of post-earthquake zones. These photos come from our partner 360cities and can be found in the “Photos” layer in Google Earth, along with other 360cities and Panoramio photos. These dramatic panorama photos are part of the work of photographer, Akila Ninomiya.

In March 2011, Mr. Ninomiya took his camera and bravely ventured into the heart of post-earthquake zones in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. He documented earthquake and tsunami damages in cities including Rikuzen-Takada, Kamaishi, Osawa, Miyako, Settai, and Omoto.

Mr Ninomiya didn’t just take pictures. He took 360 degree panoramas, which give unique perspectives to the extent and severity of this unprecedented natural disaster.

To see his collection in Google Earth, make sure you have the “Photos” layer turned on. Then fly to any of the cities mentioned above, eg. Ofunato, Japan. You will see a number of orange colored photo placemarks. Click on one of them and you will see a picture like the one below:

To see the 360 degree view, click on the center picture in the balloon and it will take you into the panoramas. If you wish to view the post earthquake panoramas only, download this KML collection and open it in Google Earth.

These panoramas were taken as part of a non-profit Japan Pano Journalism Project, which aimed to document the 2011 Japan Earthquake damage and recovery with 360º panoramic photography.

Posted by Wei Luo, Technical Lead/Manager, Google Earth

Read More

A new photo browsing experience in Google Earth

Google Earth users love flying around the globe and checking out beautiful photographs in the “Photos” layer. Whether you are a photography fan or simply want to check out images of a place you'd like to visit, we’re pleased to announce a new photo browsing experience in Google Earth. With the new photo cluster feature, you can browse through several photos more easily and quickly.

To start, make sure the “Photos” layer is checked in the left layers panel and zoom down to your area of interest.

As an example below, check out the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, CA. You will see photo icons on top of the satellite images. The larger photo icons indicate larger collections or clusters of photos. Click on any photo icon to open the Photos window.

To browse through the images in a collection, click on a photo in the filmstrip and use the “left” and “right” arrow keys on your keyboard to flip through them quickly.

Whether you’re deciding between Paris, Beijing or Venice for a nice vacation or simply want to go on a quick virtual getaway after a long day, we hope this new way of viewing photos in Google Earth helps bring places around the world to your fingertips.

If you’d like to contribute to our efforts of building a virtual atlas of the real world and have amazing photos you’d like to share, you can do so by uploading them to Panoramio.com.

Happy viewing!

Posted by Wei Luo, Senior GIS Specialist

Read More

Geotagging photos with Panoramio and Google Latitude

[Cross-posted from the Panoramio Blog]



It is 9 a.m. and the thermometer shows -15°C. I have a Nexus S with Google Latitude in my left pocket and my new Lumix LX-5 in the right one. I am in Davos and I am ready for a fantastic day of skiing when I decide to use the new feature of Panoramio: geotagging photos with Google Latitude.



Panoramio is a community photos website that enables digital photographers to geo-locate, store and organize their photographs -- and to view those photographs in Google Earth.



Google Latitude allows you to share your location with friends and view their location on a map. When enabled, Google Latitude History allows you to store your previous locations and this allows you to match your photos with the locations stored in Google Latitude History.



By combining Panoramio and Google Latitude your photos get geotagged automatically as the time stamp of the photos is matched with your location record in Google Latitude History. To use this feature you need to explicitly enable it in your Settings page in Panoramio. With your permission, Panoramio will access your Google Latitude History to find out your location at the time when your photos are taken, so make sure the time in your camera is correct and it matches the value you entered in the Panoramio Settings page.



Using Google Latitude while skiing allows you to find your friends when you get lost on the slopes, and at the same time it allows you to focus on taking nice photos not worrying about the location where you are taking them.



Mapping photos within the city is normally not a problem as you can easily remember street names, points of interest, etc. It is much more difficult to do it in the countryside and that is why I decided to give the feature a whirl while skiing in Davos:

Thanks to Google Latitude, my photos were geotagged just after uploading them in Panoramio. The day was great, snow was perfect, weather was amazing and when I arrived home my photos were already geo-positioned.



For more information about this feature please check our help content and as always we will be happy to hear your feedback in the Panoramio forum.

Posted by Gerard Sanz, Panoramio Community Manager

Read More

Share your photos about Places

When looking for information about a place on Google Maps, I immediately look for photos to help decide if it’s the right place for the occasion I have in mind. Whether looking for images of a restaurant’s cuisine, or getting a feel for the ambiance at a local bookstore, photos immediately help me learn more about a place.

A few months ago, we launched an improved photo viewer for Place pages to help you quickly and easily explore images of locations all over the world. Starting today, you can also contribute your own photos of places you've been to the growing collection of high-quality photos across the web.

The “Photos” section of the Place page now includes an "Upload a photo" link. This new link enables you to select an original photo on your computer and easily add it to the group of photos in the gallery.

The most useful photos are descriptive ones that help others experience or envision a place before they visit it in person. It might be a close-up of a popular dish, a wide shot of a business interior, or a picture of the outside of the building.

Photos that comply with our review guidelines will be available in Place page results for that particular business for you and any other potential customers to see. Users will also be able to explore these photos in search results across Google, Google Maps and Google Earth.

We’re eager to see the variety of photo styles and images our users share for everyone to view and enjoy.

Posted by Roland Kehl, Software Engineer

Read More

See more views with the new Google Maps widget

When we launched Google Maps, we had one layer -- the map. Since then, we’ve added more than ten different ways to explore the world around you, including photos, transit and traffic information, as well as satellite and terrain views. We’ve now updated the design so that you can more easily see and switch between the various viewing options that are available.

Suppose you’re planning to meet your friend for a concert at the Greek Theater in Berkeley, and you want driving directions to plan your trip from your apartment in San Francisco. When accessing Google Maps, you’ll see a new widget in the upper right corner that allows you to easily select from either the Maps, satellite or Earth view. In addition, the single widget icon showcases all the different layers available to you, enabling you to quickly see more detailed information just by mousing over the ones you want.

Since it’s nearly rush hour and traffic information would be useful, you select that layer by clicking on it in the widget:

Unfortunately, the traffic layer shows that there are heavy delays along your route. You wonder if taking public transit is a better option, so you turn off the traffic layer by clicking on it again, and turn on the transit layer instead:

Ah, it looks like there’s a Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) station near your apartment and one near the Greek Theatre. Public transit it is! If you also want to find a local spot to grab dinner after the show, you could search for [restaurants] in the same Google Maps window. Your recently viewed searches will appear in the new widget, enabling you to easily see both your destination and search results at the same time. This makes it easy to find a place nearby.

We hope this new all-inclusive widget for accessing map types, layers and recently viewed searches improves your experience exploring and navigating to the places you want to go!

Update (1/20): Sorry for the delay, but the new widget for viewing map types, layers and recent searches will be available soon. We'll update this post again when the widget is live.

Update (1/24): The widget is now live for all users on Google Maps. We hope you’ll enjoy exploring all the useful information available right on the map!

Posted by Amanda Leicht, Product Manager

Read More