The Diamond Jubilee on Google Maps

Google and Historypin have created an interactive archive of photographs and videos from Queen Elizabeth's visits and jubilee celebrations over the six decades of her reign.

For the project Historypin want to collect as many contributions as possible, from individuals and archives all around the world. So if you have any Queen Elizabeth related photographs or videos you can add them to the Historypin - Diamond Jubilee Album.

Historypin, if you still haven't seen it, is a great collection of user submitted historical photographs and videos which can be viewed on Google Maps. One of the stand-out features of Historypin is the ability to view the photos and videos superimposed on the modern Google Maps Street View image.

Another stand-out feature is the ability to create your own album. This Golden Jubilee album is a great way to promote this feature. I'm sure Historypin will be getting a lot more UK users due to this new project.

Instagram Photos on Google Maps

Foodogram is a real-time Google Map showing the location of the latest food related photographs submitted to the Instagram photo-sharing website.

As a new food photograph is added to Instagram it is displayed beneath the map and the map itself moves to the photographer's location. I do love maps but I can't help thinking that the map is given too much screen real-estate on this app and more prominence should be given to the photographs.


Mapstagram is a super-fast real-time Google Map of photos taken with the Instagram iPhone app.

When the Mapstagram map first loads it displays the most recent photos from a number of U.S. cities. After the initial photos have loaded Mapstagram goes into real-time mode. As photos are uploaded by users in these cities, they are immediately displayed on the map in real time.

World Tourism Heatmaps

The World's Most and Least Touristy Places Google Map shows a heatmap of the most photographed places based on photographs submitted to Panoramio. The analysis takes into account how many photos and by how many authors there are in any given area.

On the same website the Interesting Remote Places Map provides a heatmap of interesting places away from urban centres that have a high number of photos submitted to Panoramio. This map shows only places that are away from cities; usually outback, hiking destinations, or remote tourist attractions.


The Tourism Map for France and Southern England takes the same approach but provides a heatmap of Panoramio photos by location for a more localised area. The same author has also created a heatmap of Tourist Areas in Estonia.

San Francisco 1930's Aerial View

The ever excellent David Rumsey Map Collection has put online a huge collection of aerial photographs of San Francisco taken in 1938. They are also working hard on creating a composite image of all the images joined together.

So far 46 of the images have been stitched together and you can view the resulting aerial map of 1930's San Francisco with the help of the Google Earth browser plugin.

The images are also available as a KML which means you can examine the photos on Google Maps as well.

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Historical Weimar on Google Maps

Zeitsprung uses historical photographs from the Weimar city archives to allow users to see how the German city has changed over time.

The site uses a jQuery slider control that allows the user to compare a historical photo with a photograph of the same view today. The photos can be browsed by location with the help of a Google Map. Alternatively it is possible to organise the photos by date or by title.

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Two Great Google Maps for Photographers

Nucuo is a Google Map and online database designed to help photographers search and find shooting locations around the world. Registered users of Nucuo can even add their own great locations for taking photos to the database and map.

Locations are displayed on the map with thumbnail images of a photo taken at each location. Using the map it is possible to search for great shooting locations by place and by a large number of tags, categorised into 'Outdoors', 'Feelings' and 'Style'.

Nuoco is a great tool for finding the right location for your photo shoot. If you do find the right location with Nuoco you could then use The Photographer's Ephemeris to find the right time to visit for the perfect light.

The Photographer's Ephemeris is a free sun and moon planning tool for outdoor photography. The application uses Google Maps to show sunrise and sunset times and indicates the current direction of the sun based on your location. The application includes some really advanced features, including automatic time zone and elevation detection, correction for atmospheric refraction and height above the horizon.

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Historical Photos of Philly on Google Maps

PhillyHistory.org provides access to the incredible collection of historic photos of Philadelphia held by the City of Philadelphia, Department of Records.

Users of the site can search for photos based on geographic location, subject matter, or date. The location of the view depicted in individual photos is marked for reference on an interactive map. Whilst the map itself doesn't use the Google Maps API PhillyHistory.org does make great use of Google Maps Street View.

When you select an historical photograph there is the option to see the same view portrayed in the picture using Google Maps Street View (where available). This provides a great way to see how Philadelphia has changed over the years.

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Google Maps - Your Vacation Photo Album

Travelogic is an experimental website by Gabe Morton-Cook. Gabe says the project "is intended to bring together three of my passions: Travel, Photography and Interactive Design/Development".

The application plots Gabe's travels on a styled Google Map. If you click on any of the map markers for a trip you can view a selection of beautiful photographs taken at that location and Gabe's blog post about the journey.

The map includes forward and back buttons to help the user navigate through each journey and also includes a handy time-line below the map.

Via: TNW

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Create a Google Map Based Photo Album

Codrops has created a very nice template and tutorial for a Google Maps based photo album.

This multi-level map and image gallery displays images related to their location. The first level of the map shows the location of places that have a set of images. If you click on a marker on the first level the map will zoom in and also display thumbnails of the photos at this location.

Clicking on a marker in the second level will result in the photo being displayed next to the map. The images can also be viewed in a lightbox and the map can be viewed in full-screen.

Check out the demo to see the map in action.

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1930's Connecticut on Google Maps

Neighborhood Change in Connecticut lets you view aerial imagery of Connecticut from 1934 side-by-side with the modern satellite view on Google Maps.

This map, created by the Trinity College and University of Connecticut Libraries Map and Geographic Information Center, lets you explore the changing landscapes of Connecticut from the 1930's to the present. The dual map control allows you to zoom in on different areas and compare the past and present views. For example, in the picture above you can see commercial development on formerly rural farmland.

As well as imagery of Connecticut from 1934 the map includes aerial imagery from 1990, 2004 and 2006.

Also See

• The New Jersey State Atlas - aerial photography of the entire state taken in the 1930's
• Sasgis.by.ru - World War II aerial photographs of Russia
• Declassified Military Aerial Images Map - Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monument of Scotland's declassified military aerial photographs of Europe

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Throw a Dart at Google Maps & Take a Snap

In April 2011 over 250 creative St. Louisans gathered to throw darts at a huge map of the City of St. Louis. Participants then had one month to visit the area where their dart landed and take a photograph.

DART St. Louis 2011 is a Google Map of the resulting collection of photographs. It provides a wonderful snapshot of St. Louis as it is today, one random block at a time.

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Historical Views of San Francisco

Old S.F. is a great Google Map of thousands of historical photographs of San Francisco. The map provides a great way to browse the San Francisco Public Library's Historical Photograph Collection by location and by date.



The map includes a slider navigational aide that allows you to select a date range for the photographs you wish to view. For example, if you are interested in viewing photographs taken after the 1906 San Francisco earthquake you can set the slider to 1906 to view only the photos taken in that year.





Time Shutter is another great Google Maps based website that allows users to view historical photographs of San Francisco. Users can upload historical images to the site and browse through the images submitted by others.



The site includes many postcards of San Francisco from around 1900 and includes a historical map overlay featuring the Chevalier Commercial, Pictorial and Tourist Map of San Francisco from 1903.



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After the Bomb - Hiroshima Panoramas

360Cities has posted five amazing and shocking 360 degree panoramas of Hiroshima in Japan, taken just six months after the USA dropped an atomic bomb on the city.



Panning the photos around 360 degrees and viewing the total destruction as far as you can see powerfully conveys the effect that the bomb had on the city. According to Wikipedia '4.7 square miles (12 km2) of the city were destroyed (and) Japanese officials determined that 69% of Hiroshima's buildings were destroyed and another 6–7% damaged.'







The panorama taken by Shigeo Hayashi clearly shows what is now the Hiroshima Peace Memorial. Last week Google released imagery of the Peace Memorial that allows you to view the interior of the memorial on Google Maps Street View.



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Google Map of the Week

Historypin

Historypin isn't a new map exactly but this week's release of some exciting new features is enough to make it my favourite map of the week.

There is a new Historypin mobile app. The mobile app and the desktop version have a new augmented reality view in Street View that dispays thumbnails of nearby photographs. If you click on one of the photographs you are immediately transported to that photo superimposed on the present day view in Street View.

Even more excitingly you can now view historical video clips superimposed on Street View. For example you can watch a 1903 film of the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in New York superimposed over the Street View of the bridge.

Another great new feature is the ability to create your own tours. You could create a tour of photographs of San Francisco taken before the 1906 earthquake. Alternatively take a tour created by others. For example this tour of photographs of Gandhi's visit to Britain in 1931.

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Google Map Your Instagrams

InstaEarth

InstaEarth lets you discover and view beautiful Instagram photography taken around the world on a Google Map.

If you log into InstaEarth with your Instagram account you can also view your own feed and your friends' feeds on the Google Map. You can also view Instagram photos taken close to your current location and view Instagram photos that you have 'liked' directly on the map.

Mapstagram

Mapstagram is a super-fast real-time Google Map of photos taken with the Instagram iPhone app.

When the Mapstagram map first loads it displays the most recent photos from a number of U.S. cities. After the initial photos have loaded Mapstagram goes into real-time mode. As photos are uploaded by users in these cities, they are immediately displayed on the map in real time.

Gramfeed

Gramfeed uses the Instagram API to present the best photos from Instagram on Google Maps. It also allows users to view their own photos, a time-line of those they follow, read comments on photos and Tweet about photos and much, much more.

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Historypin Goes Global

Last year Hitorypin launched in beta in London. Its use of historical photographs with Google Maps and Street View proved instantly very popular. Today it has officially launched with a new mobile app and global coverage.

As well as the new mobile app the desktop version has a number of exciting new features. When you a view a historical photograph superimposed on Street View in Google Maps now you can also pan the Street View around and view thumbnails of nearby photographs. If you click on one of the photographs you are immediately transported to that photo superimposed on the present day view in Street View.

Even more excitingly you can now view historical video clips superimposed on Street View. For example you can watch a 1903 film of the opening of the Williamsburg Bridge in New York superimposed over the Street View of the bridge (view the film here on Historypin) .

Another great new feature is the ability to create your own tours. For example you could create a tour of photographs of San Francisco taken before the 1906 earthquake. Alternatively take a tour created by others. For example this tour of photographs of Gandhi's visit to Britain in 1931.

All-in-all Historypin 2.0 is a massive achievement. Take a look. I don't think you will be disappointed.

Historypin

Via: Google LatLong

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Some Solstice Sun with Google Maps

The Photographer's Ephemeris

The Photographer's Ephemeris is a free sun and moon planning tool for outdoor photography. The application is available as a free download for the desktop (Adobe AIR required) or as an iPad app.

The application uses Google Maps to show sunrise and sunset times and indicates the current direction of the sun based on your location. The application includes some really advanced features, including automatic time zone and elevation detection, correction for atmospheric refraction and height above the horizon.

Photographers can use this invaluable tool to plan the best times that they should visit a location to get the best light for the shot required.

SunCalc

SunCalc is a great Google Maps based tool for finding the position of the sun and the sunrise and sunset times for any location on the Earth. The application auto-detects your current location but you also can drag the marker or use the search function to move to a different location.

A really great feature on this app is the time of day slider. The slider lets you view the position of the sun for any time during the day. You can even change the date to see the sun's position at different times of the year.

I can see this map being very useful for photographers, who may want to know the sun's position at different locations and at different times of the day. I also think this is a great tool for house buyers, who can check out when gardens and different rooms in a house will get direct sunlight.

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D-Day on Google Maps and Street View

Yesterday was the anniversary of D-Day. On the 6th June, 1944 the Normandy landings commenced when Allied troops began Operation Neptune.



Google Sightseeing has posted a special round-up, called D-Day: The Monuments of the Normandy Landings. The post looks at the Google Maps satellite imagery and Street Views of the five main beaches where the landings took place, codenamed Juno, Gold, Sword, Utah and Omaha.

Google Sightseeing also take a look at some of the monuments that have been created to commemorate all those who lost their lives in the D-Day landings.

Historypin

Google Sightseeing also Tweeted today that Historypin has a few colour photographs of the landings, which you can view superimposed on the modern view of the beaches in Street View.

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SS Endeavour on Google Maps

Endeavour Image Maps

Microformats.dk has created a couple of interactive image maps from two spectacular photos of the space shuttle Endeavour.

The two images are Endeavour Passing Over the Rhine and Endeavour Docking with the International Space Station.



The maps were created with the CASA Image Cutter.

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360 Degree Panoramas on Google Maps

360verse

360 Panorama is an iPhone app that lets you create 360 degree panoramas with your phone's camera. 360verse is the app's website where users can showcase their captured interactive panoramas on a Google Map.

The map does a good job to show the location where panoramas were taken. Strangely however there is no way to explore the submitted panorama's geographically. The only way to explore the panoramas is chronologically via the map's 'previous' and 'next' buttons.

Why present the images on a map if you don't allow the user to select to view the panoramas by location? Looking at the map I can see that someone has submitted 360 degree panoramas of Cambodia but I can't view them except by repeatedly clicking the 'next' button until I get to them.

This map has the potential to be a great showcase for the 360 Panorama iPhone app but it still needs a little work on the user interface.

Hat-tip: Street View Funny

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