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I love Google Maps (1 Viewer)

Jay H

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Man, the google satellite imagery is sooooo useful for paddling backwater marshes and estuaries. I went paddling over memorial day weekend at a friend's place down by Cape may, did various backbays and brackish rivers and just checking them out via google maps. They are soo useful for navigation and other things as water charts dont exist for many small places where kayaks/canoes can go, but boats don't.

Like checking out the Oswego River between Oswego Lake and Harrisville Lake in Wharton State Forest, you can use google maps and see how the small backwater meanders and get data on islands and stuff. it's so useful as a paddler!

Jay
 

Michael_K_Sr

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I agree that the satellite imagery is great. Unfortunately, if you are in any backwater areas outside a metropolitan area then the high resolution images are likely not available.
 

Lew Crippen

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I live in a small village in Mexico, about an hour from Guadalajara and I could easily locate my home and see detail as small as my swimming pool, outdoor kitchen and casita.

The scale had one more level of detail that was not accessible in my area.
 

Lew Crippen

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I tried the same thing with my prior home in Dallas and the last level of detail was present. So there is a difference between Dallas and a Mexican village. But not very much.
 

Adam Lenhardt

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Google Maps are good for directions, but for me Google Earth has been the real lifesaver. You can overlay a public transportation layer including one with all of the subway stops, which makes getting to previously unvisited places a much less arduous task.:emoji_thumbsup:
 

Scott L

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Agreed! I wanted to take my friends to this Indian restaurant in DC but I forgot the name and its location. I vaguely remembered which area it was in so I had GE highlight the restaurants, and after a quick 2 minute search I found it. What a cool tool!
 

Jay H

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As a bike commuter, I also use google maps to plot routes to and from work to various places, I can use it to see if a map that shows Road XX crosses highway XX does so at a bridge, underpass or intersection... the only thing it does show is elevation and hills... But you can get topo via Google Earth or topozone.com or places like that.

Jay
 

Jay H

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Cool, makes you kind of bring up "where were you in ...."

I wonder if the RAF can figure out which Lancaster is that by the image date...

Jay
 

Michael_K_Sr

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The coverage may be excellent in Mexico Lew, but I was looking for a couple of lakes in Michigan that we used to visit when I was a child and the satellite photos could not display images below 2,000 sf. Still, it is fascinating to use in more populated areas. I was able to spot the Mark Twain Zephyr sitting idled in a railroad yard where it is (supposedly) being restored.
 

Jon_Are

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Go to the Vegas strip and zoom in all the way - the detail is astounding.

( I think I see a dude who just lost his whole bankroll wandering aimlessly :) )

Jon
 

Mark Hayenga

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Have you guys seen the google maps of the crop fields that people wrote profanity in, just to be seen on google maps? It's awesome.
 

Dave Poehlman

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Have you guys tried Google Mobile Maps?

It's basically google maps for your cellphone/PDA. It's like it turned my blackberry into a GPS... without the actual GPS part. ;)

But, I can look up directions and search for nearby restaurants.. I can even view satellite images in case I need to find a good place to dump a body or stash a stolen car. It's awesome.

[EDIT]Here's info:
http://www.google.com/gmm/index.html
 

Abby_B

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May 2, 2005
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I have to also admit that I really enjoy Google Earth - I love the pictures (I saw one this morning of the Bahamas and turned green with jealousy it looked so pretty!), and I have fun looking up people I know (especially if they live in new cities that I *don't* know!), places I went to school, whatever.

And I've always been fond of Google Maps (heck, I think I like anything Google!). Mostly I know they are really serious about keeping their maps up to date - which i appreciate - one of the companies that supplies a lot of the map data (Tele Atlas) actually has employees that take cars out and drive them around to collect information to update the maps with. I like that kind of dedication!
 

Paul D G

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I love Google Earth :) Used it just the other day to locate a sod farm I couldn't remember the name of but had a general idea where it was located. Saved me an hour of driving down country roads.

aeroseek allows real time flight tracking on google maps. When my wife had to go to New York on business last month I had it tracked on the computer so our son could see where the airplane was, then I used it to show him the hotel where she was staying at, etc. Way cool stuff.

-paul
 

Abby_B

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Paul, that real time flight tracking thing is awesome! I didn't know you could do that - I am totally going to use it!

I found the coolest thing on another board- like I said before Tele Atlas has drivers that actually drive around to collect the info for their map data, and a little car and everything - check it out there's a clip of it going around doing its thing, taking pictures of all kinds of things - http://www.clubtomtom.com/video/teleAtlas-med.mov - I wanna see one in my neighborhood! (The little car is cute!) :)
 

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