Author Archives: Jesse

Google Map creation tool

This tool allows you to build custom Google Maps apps without knowing the intricacies of the Google Maps API. I didn’t test it, but the concept is great.

ZeeMaps

Clouds on Google Maps

OK, it is late I probably shouldn’t blog just before sleep, but I figured I would forget this link in the morning. The Digg submission linked below is a person who found clouds on the aerial imagery when they were on Google Maps. They don’t say whether they think this is good or bad, but being sleepy I am going to assume they were incredulous at the least. My problem with this? One contracts for US government agencies the company flying the data is required to have the images be 85-90% cloud free for an acceptable product…satellite imagery, you hope for 60-70% cloud free if you are looking for something in a certain time range (if you aren’t picky about when it is usually easier to find cloud free data). So a couple of clouds in a commercial product that has little to no orthorectification (though pretty good georectification) isn’t something I would find note worthy.

Well that isn’t true, it gave me a chance to share you lovely people why a cloud isn’t a big deal.

So follow the link to see the cloud (it is quite a nice cloud in fact). Clouds on Google Maps

HiRise high-resolution camera set to depart for Mars

Continuing my obsession is an article regarding NASA’s new instrument for capturing the martian surface. Please not that they talk about the number of pixels the instrument will collect at a time, but not what the spatial resolution of each pixel will be, which is actually more important for the end-user. The other important information, that could help us determine the spatial resolution of the imagery, is anticipated scale.

HiRise high-resolution camera set to depart for Mars – Engadget – www.engadget.com

Welcome to a new contributor

Frank will be joining us to offer a column on the state of web mapping and any other matters he thinks are relevant to the topic of Geography and geospatial technologies.