See 3D buildings in a whole new way with Google MapsGL

In March, we shared news of a significant improvement over our previous 3D buildings in Google Maps, providing a much more recognizable view of thousands of important buildings around the world. Now, we’ve brought this enhanced 3D experience to Google MapsGL as well.

Google MapsGL is a true 3D experience affording a perspective called “parallax”, so you can get different views of a building depending on where you pan. Here are a few comparisons of this 3D upgrade for some landmarks around the world:

Here’s Big Ben before and after

the Eiffel Tower before and after

the Piazza del Duomo before and after

and the Seattle Space Needle before and after.

But those are just a few of the many improved 3D landmarks now available around the world. Along with our recent launch of Google MapsGL photo tours we hope you enjoy these more realistic perspectives and tours of buildings you might want to visit or see in your own neighborhoods!

Posted by Sean Egan, Software Engineer, Google Maps

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New 45° imagery available for 19 cities

The latest 45° imagery update in Google Maps features new imagery for 8 international locations and 11 U.S. locations. This also marks the first time we're publishing 45° imagery for France.

Avignon, France
The city of Avignon is the first place in France where 45° imagery will be available. Classified as a world heritage site by UNESCO, Avignon is full of history. The famous bridge “le pont d’Avignon” (referenced in the well-known French song “Sur le pont d’Avignon”) provides a spectacular view of the old city, including the “Palais des Papes” where 7 popes have resided.

These days, the city is well known for the “festival d’Avignon”. Every summer, Avignon becomes a city-theater transforming its architectural heritage into venues to host a contemporary performing arts festival.


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Rotterdam, Netherlands
Starting as a dam constructed in 1270 on the Rotte River, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial center. Its strategic location at the Rhine-Meuse-Scheldt delta on the North Sea and at the heart of a massive rail, road, air and inland waterway distribution system extending throughout Europe is the reason that Rotterdam is often called the "Gateway to Europe".


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Miami, Florida
This imagery update also includes the southernmost 45° imagery in the United States so far: Miami, Florida. Besides its status as a popular tourist destination, there are several interesting tidbits about Miami. Since permanent weather recordings started in 1900, Miami has experienced snowfall only once. Moreover, the Port of Miami is also currently the world’s busiest in terms of passenger traffic and cruise lines.


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International: Avignon, France; Reus, Spain; Rotterdam, Netherlands; L'Alcudia, Spain; Gandia, Spain; Sueca, Spain; Burgos, Spain; Los Palacios Y Villafranca, Spain

US: Albany, GA; Omaha, NE; Baytown, TX; Miami, FL; Amarillo, TX; Monroe, LA; Manchester, NH; Alexandria, LA; Rapid City, SD; Loudon, TN; Farmington, NM

Happy exploring!
Posted by Gwen Cossoul, Maps for Business Technical Program Manager

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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

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Street View comes to Ukraine

You can now visit the country of Ukraine through Street View in time for the 2012 European Football Championships. Located in the geographical center of Europe, Ukraine has many fascinating sites to explore.

At more than 1500 years old, the capital Kyiv is the oldest city in Central and Eastern Europe. You can know take a virtual stroll around the historical center of the city refereed to as the ‘Cradle of Slavic civilization’, including the UNESCO World Heritage listed sites of Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra and Saint Sophia Cathedral.

Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra

You can also explore the historical center of Lviv, another UNESCO World Heritage Site. The city dates back to the 14th century and features the Ploshcha Rynok central square.

Lviv historical center

The Odessa National Opera and Ballet Theatre is also now available, where artists like Tchaikovsky, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Enrico Caruso, Feodor Chaliapin performed.

Odessa National Opera and Ballet Theatre

Freedom Square in Kharkiv is the largest square in Eastern Europe and is home to the Derzhprom buildings. Constructed during the Soviet era, the ‘Palace of Industry’ was the tallest structure in Europe for its time in 1928.

Derzhprom

Whether you are planning your visit for the European Football Championships in June 2012 or you simply want to explore our beautiful country, we hope you enjoy these special views of Ukraine. To learn more about Street View, visit the gallery.

Posted by Marina Tarasova, Communications Associate, Google Ukraine

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Exploring Jerusalem’s Old City streets with Street View

Cross posted on the Official Google Blog

Every year, 3.5 million people come to Israel to visit ancient sites that are holy to billions of people, to walk among the unique stone of Jerusalem, or to relax on the beaches of the Mediterranean.

Inside Jerusalem's Old City

To help you explore Israel’s history and present, we’ve launched imagery of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Jaffa and Haifa on Street View. You can explore the narrow streets of Jerusalem’s Old City and each of its four quarters, walk along the Via Dolorosa and see the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, visit the Western Wall and the Mount of Olives. You can stop by the Biblical Zoo, then visit the Israel Museum and the Yad Vashem Holocaust museum—and explore more with the Art Project and the Yad Vashem photo archive. Or you can stroll through Tel Aviv’s bohemian Neve Tzedek neighborhood and the ancient port of Jaffa, and take a virtual trip to some of Tel Aviv’s scenic beaches or to Haifa’s Baha’i Gardens.

We hope you’ll use Street View to discover, explore and more. Some are already using the new imagery to help others—for example, Access Israel, an organization working to make Israel more accessible for people with disabilities, has embedded Street View in its accessibility mapping project of Israeli cities (note: in Hebrew).

We’ll be adding more Street View coverage of sites and streets in the coming months, and are hoping to bring Street View to more places around the region soon. To see more, go to the Street View gallery.

Posted by Gadi Royz, Product Manager, Google Maps

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Planting some green this Earth Day

Cross-posted from the Official Google and Google Green blogs

Since 1970, people all over the world have recognized April 22 as Earth Day, an opportunity to appreciate and generate awareness about the natural environment. Here at Google we strive to do our part to make sure our planet is healthy for years to come. From investing in renewable energy to building products that help people be greener in their own lives, we’re building a better web that’s better for the environment.

Today, we’re celebrating Earth Day in a variety of ways. The coming of spring inspired us to grow our annual Earth Day doodle right in our backyard. We planted seeds on a balcony at our Mountain View headquarters and watched them grow into what you see today. We’re also partnering with Friends of the Urban Forest to help make San Francisco schools a little greener.

To help you start a garden of your own, we’ve put together an Earth Day resource page. Explore community gardens and farmers’ markets on our interactive map, get discounted seeds to plant flowers, herbs, and vegetables in your own backyard and connect with other gardeners for planting tips and inspiration.

We hope you find these resources useful and enjoy gardening as much as we do. On our Mountain View, Calif. campus, we have community gardens where Googlers can grow and harvest their choice of herbs and vegetables. Company-wide, we focus on getting organic, locally-grown produce for our cafes. We purchase food directly from farms near our campuses, and learn about how our suppliers raise, farm, and harvest their food—all to ensure that we’re eating sustainably and being good to the environment.

We hope this Earth Day you are inspired to add a little green to the planet. Earth Day may only be a single day, but the actions we take can last for years to come.

Posted by Erin Reilly, Google Green Team

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Imagery Update: Week of April 16th

The Google Earth and Maps Imagery team has published another batch of aerial and satellite imagery. In this post, we’ll look at newly released imagery that reflects the themes of past, present, and future.

2011: In the U.S., federal and state taxes were due this week as they are every year in mid-April for the previous year’s income. So in our first aerial example shown below, the structure on the left is the Sun Trust Bank Building, which houses the Internal Revenue Service’s Local Tax Assistant Center in Macon, Georgia. There, you can acquire previous tax returns and transcripts, as well as pay your Federal Tax bill; but keep in mind that exact change is required. On the right is the Macon City Auditorium and it’s famed copper dome, which is claimed by many locals to be the largest in the world.

Downtown Macon, Georgia
2012: Spring is here and that means the start of baseball season for the Chicago Cubs. A new season means another chance to win it all. Will this be the year? With motivated ownership, a newly hired proven General Manager and a revamped line-up, they’ve definitely got a shot (just like everybody else). One thing is for certain, as you can see in the aerial image below, Wrigley Field, home of the Chicago Cubs, is in game-winning shape!

Wrigley Field, Chicago, Illinois
2013: Baseball isn’t the only sporting event eagerly anticipated by fans. Next year marks the official kick-off (no pun intended) of the countdown to the 2014 FIFA World Cup. These dress-rehearsal matches comprise the FIFA Confederations Cup and are held in 2013 by Brazil, host nation of the 2014 World Cup. The aerial image below shows the Governor Magalhães Pinto Stadium, under construction in preparation for the upcoming 2013 and 2014 matches.

Governor Magalhães Pinto Stadium, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
If you’d like to receive an email notification when the Google Earth and Maps Imagery team updates your favorite areas(s), we’ve got just the tool: The Follow Your World application!

These are only a few examples of the sites that can be seen and discovered in our latest batch of published imagery. Happy exploring!

High Resolution Aerial Updates:
USA: Aberdeen, SD; Amarillo, TX; Billings, MT; Bismark, ND; Cape Cod, MA; Chester, SC; Chicago, IL; Clemson, SC; Columbia, SC; Glasgow, MT; Havre, MT; Jamestown, ND; Lake of the Ozarks, MO; Long Island, NY; Macon, GA; Pierre, SD; Red Lake, MN; Sheridan, WY; Ulysses, KS; Wenatchee, WA

Avignon, France; Belo Horizonte, Brazil; Mar del Plata, Argentina

Countries/regions receiving high resolution satellite updates:
Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Antarctica, Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Bhutan, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Bulgaria, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Cameroon, Canada, Cape Verde, Chad, Chile, China, Cook Islands, Croatia, Cuba, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, Eritrea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Europa Island, Falkland Islands (Islas Malvinas), Fiji, Macedonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Guatemala, Guinea-Bissau, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Iran, Italy, Japan, Kenya, Kuwait, Lesotho, Libya, Madagascar, Malawi, Malaysia, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Mauritius, Mexico, Morocco, Mozambique, Myanmar, Namibia, Nepal, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Niger, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Palau, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Qatar, Russia, Samoa, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Spain, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Thailand, Timor-Leste, Tunisia, Turkey, Uganda, United Arab Emirates, United States, Venezuela, Vietnam, Western Sahara, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe

These updates are now available in both Google Maps and Google Earth. For a complete picture of where we updated imagery, download this KML for viewing in Google Earth.

Posted by Eric Kolb, Geo Data Strategist

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