Comments on: The Dames Point Bridge

By: Rick

Rick — Thu, 18 Oct 2007 00:35:49 +0000

Look Northeast of the bridge. Thats thousands of Toyota’s.

By: Kelly Chasse

Kelly Chasse — Thu, 02 Feb 2006 14:24:33 +0000

I love this bridge.

By: Luke Sleeman

Luke Sleeman — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 02:42:29 +0000

Now, normally I would be backing google over microsoft any day, but I am very impressed by windows live local. Google has nothing that can match the birds eye images. Where else can you see things like this:

http://local.live.com/default.aspx?v=2&cp=40.764389~-74.00077&style=o&lvl=2&scene=329932

- Luke

By: Bryce

Bryce — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 22:10:26 +0000

D-FENSE!

By: Steve Lombardi

Steve Lombardi — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 17:33:37 +0000

“More importantly, I think Microsoft are missing the point slightly, as one of the reasons I like satellite maps is the geek factor”

I think we get the geek factor of Satellite maps pretty well. Tom Barclay has been serving free Satellite and aerial maps for years for free at http://terraserver-usa.com/ Tom is now working on Windows Live Local. Our users keep telling us they want better and better quality imagery, and Satellites just simply can’t capture imagery at the resolution, fidelity and angle that can be achieved from an orbiting Satellite. As has already been pointed out on this thread, a lot of the imagery that you see on google local and live local that is often referred to as ‘Satellite’ is actually taken from planes - just at a much higher elevation than the 2000 feet used to capture Birds Eye images. But here’s the rub - no one really cares how an image was captured. they care about what they can do with the image and how it looks. An image of my roof at 90 degrees from Space isn’t as useful as the image captured at 45 degrees from 2k feet.

Coincidentally, i posted some related info yesterday on the VE blog at
http://spaces.msn.com/members/virtualEarth/Blog/cns!1p1jUqsfPsDJ0sEPuZ997-OA!436.entry

By: Chip

Chip — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 15:38:43 +0000

The bird’s-eye images are taken at a fairly low angle, which means it’s impossible to stitch them together for seamless scrolling The high-res aerial shots in Google Maps are orthophotos, which are taken vertically and adjusted to map precisely to objects on the ground (including, I believe, adjusting for the earth’s curvature).

The thing that annoys me about the bird’s-eye images is that there are a lot of holes in the coverage of a given area, and in some places the thumbnails point to the wrong image.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 12:45:20 +0000

What’s this thing being moved in the water just to the east of the bridge?Placemark: Google Maps / Google Earth

By: David Patrick

David Patrick — Wed, 11 Jan 2006 10:07:38 +0000

@timhogs: Looks like some kind of dredging operation to me - which kind of makes sense that close to the bridge piers and the river bank.

By: Timhogs

Timhogs — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 22:34:08 +0000

What’s up with the larger of the two boats approaching the north end of the bridge; the one with the bizarre-looking wake. Is it discharging something, is the pilot drunk, or is there a more logical explanation?

By: Veronica

Veronica — Tue, 10 Jan 2006 18:21:57 +0000

There’s no denying that Live Local gets some great images with the bird’s eye feature… but what is with the inability to scroll around? You have to click a thumbnail to get the next view… if you’re looking at something like a neighborhood, it’s too easy to lose your place. I love the clear images, but damn, that thumbnail thing sucks.