Caligari- Virtual Earth

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Caligari- Virtual Earth // Roundtable

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Post by jamesmc // Feb 6, 2008, 11:10am

jamesmc
Total Posts: 2566
Congratulations Roman!

All sorts of ideas popping into my head about now about the possibilities.

The Virtual Earth Satellite pics have to be among the clearest I've ever seen, excellent quality!


http://maps.live.com/

Post by Burnart // Feb 6, 2008, 12:09pm

Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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I went and checked out the maps live page - I was pleasantly surprised to see that it took me straight to my state in Australia with the capital, Adelaide highlighted. I decided I would zoom in and see what businesses were indicated and discovered that all the ones indicated were way off location.


As a cartographer (that's my job) it looks to me as though the whole thing is set up using a world projection which is not appropriate to Australia. I assume it is for the USA. Unfortunately the world is not a perfect sphere so if you stretch your map out across a perfect sphere its going to veer away from actuallity the further away you get from the axis of orientation. A smart system would swap to relevant map projections depending on the location you are examining.


If this isn't a projection issue then the data is simply wrong for my location.


BTW Google earth is pretty off in lots of locations in my home state.

Post by trueBlue // Feb 6, 2008, 12:34pm

trueBlue
Total Posts: 1761
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Maybe this will help:
http://dev.live.com/virtualearth/mapcruncher/

Post by Bobbins // Feb 6, 2008, 12:56pm

Bobbins
Total Posts: 506
Hmm, just checked the aerial view for where I live in the UK. The images are lower resolution than Google Earth and look to be about 6 or 7 years old, so not impressive!


<Edit> - just checked the Birds eye view and oddly those images are newer and roughly the same resolution as Google Earth. Odd there is a disparity.

Post by mykyl1966 // Feb 6, 2008, 1:47pm

mykyl1966
Total Posts: 221
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For where I live they are very clear but for my fathers place just place holders.


Mike

Post by Burnart // Feb 6, 2008, 5:13pm

Burnart
Total Posts: 839
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A map showing street level detail that claims to portray information at marked points but which is in fact 2 streets/100 metres out is not a map worth consulting. I say that as a map user not just as a map maker. (Also if you scan a chunk from a map using a grid projection and Map Cruncher uses a lat/lon spheroid you could get some unpredictable results.)

This is a point from the Map Cruncher page:
"MapCruncher is not geographically perfect. It uses an approximation to transform maps, and thus sacrifices some precision in feature location."

Being a cynic I'm reading that as a statement saying they have indeed used a map projection which makes it unsuitable for the display of street level detail in some parts or perhaps most of the world.

Kind of defeats the purpose. :rolleyes:

edit:If they want to hire professional cartographers to check these things out on the ground we are available - for a suitable fee of course!
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