Discussion: Google Maps now has 45 degree aerial imagery

I can now see all sides of my house on Google maps satellite mode. Not sure how useful this will be to mappers, but it seems pretty cool.

http://www.gearthhacks.com/forums/showthread.php?1...

Right now this is only available in certain cities. The list is slowly growing, it started out with only 4 or 5.

see: 45° Imagery Availability

Also, check out Bing Maps. They've had "birds eye" views for several years here in Seattle, where Google Maps has yet to cover.

Of particular interest to WOC competitors could be the availability of this feature in Lausanne...

Yes, Bing has had this for a while most places I have looked on the east coast.

I find the bing birds eye view in Ottawa to be very beneficial in speeding up the process of creating sprint maps. Allows a lot more work to be done from the computer saving a ton of time when field checking.

nearmap has a similar option called multiview - not sure what the coverage of Australia is like yet, and the resolution is a bit less than the vertical view, but still very useful for urban maps.

The other advantage of nearmap is the frequency & quick turn-around on their photography. I have just finished a school map where the final field work was done using photo images flown less than3 weeks before.

Reminder to US mappers: both high resolution orthophotos and oblique (bird's eye) images have been available to you for a nominal fee courtesy of the Orienteering USA contract with Pictometry, the company behind Bing's images.

Details are at http://orienteeringusa.org/mappers/resources/aeria....

The other advantage of nearmap is the frequency & quick turn-around on their photography.

Not to mention their handy image downloader program that creates GeoTIFFs. :)