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GIS

Google Earth PhotoOverlay tool

mosque.jpg

Seems that everytime I’m in Mountain View, Andy and the guys at CASA build a really useful tool, (so I need to do this trip more often) their PhotoOverlay tool, is a great help in exploiting my favourite feature of Google Earth 4.2 as demonstrated by one of my holiday pictures above.

Now if someone could come up with a method of automating the calculation of the bearing a geocoded photo was taken on, we could have millions of these PhotoOverlays available to us.

Written and submitted from the Googleplex , Mountain View.

5 replies on “Google Earth PhotoOverlay tool”

Ed, calculating the bearing of a photo is exactly what the Pict’Earth software is doing in order to make ImageOverlays. I suppose it could easily be modified to work with ground based shots and turn them into PhotoOverlays … one catch … you gotta be moving. The bearing measurements on a GPS aren’t very accurate unless you are moving.

Is it possible for Google to stimulate GI development in the wider sense on issues like this? Why not lay down the gauntlet and invite folks to develop solutions for problems such as you have raised in the context of a competition et al? Maybe Google could develop an annual industry awards for GI innovation, or similar.

I reckon if Google were to create an annual award/s framework and make a massive fuss about it; it would be the next rung on the ladder in making GI progress in the wider conciousness of the everyday public. I’d love an annual GI industry affair that rewards those that think outside of the box and help push the boundaries. ESRI missed the boat. Google need to step up. Let’s have it.

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