If Google Maps wasn’t good enough to begin with, they had to go and add satellite imagery from their Keyhole acquisition. After navigating around on Google Maps to find a location of interest, click on the Satellite link in the top right corner of the screen to switch to satellite image mode. If you’re looking for obvious landmarks, though, sometimes it can be faster to navigate in satellite image mode.
While similar features have been available from websites like TerraServer for many years, Google does a great job of packaging things in a convenient, easy to use interface. I don’t doubt that there is a lot of wizardry under the covers, but the clever UI still comes off as the most astonishing aspect of it all.
wow that is slicker than Terraserver (which I’ve been a fan of for a while now) the only gripe I have is that I can’t seem to bookmark a suburl which is odd… minor detail… Oh and the google watermark all over the place is a little funny looking.
I was able to find my house with mostly satelite zoom/scrolling, occaisionally peeking at the streetmaps when I got lost. I (heart) maps. Definately a new favorite.
Several days back I saw our house and the building where I work (satellite photo must be reasonably recent because it shows the Bullock Texas State History Museum). Amazing! Wish that the arrow keys acted more like cursor keys than page up/down keys, though.
(Yes, I know, arrogant grumbling from a person seemingly expecting an elephant to immediately dance like a ballerina.)