With integrations from these additional acquisitions, Google first released Google Maps in February Google Earth was also launched the same year, providing 3D views of the planet. Two years later in , real-time traffic updates, Google Street View , and the first Google Maps mobile app was introduced. Turn-by-turn navigation first debuted in About five years later business listings, ratings, and reviews were introduced.
In offline maps were introduced, and in , Live view was introduced, which used Augmented Reality to assist navigation and exploration. Very recently Indoor Live view was also added, for navigating indoors in certain places in the US, including malls and airports.
Now in , Google Maps keeps rolling out updates and adding new features. Recommended blog - 7 Top Trends in Augmented Reality. Google Maps lets you find the nearest coffee shop or hospital, but also lets you explore the solar system when you have the time.
Getting stuck in traffic is a horrible experience. Google Maps helps you to avoid that hell-hole of automobiles letting you know which routes have the most traffic and which routes have the lightest traffic. Google Street View tries to offer you an experience that emulates being at a place as close as they can. Google Maps offers degree panoramic photographs at the street level at various locations all around the world.
Being listed on Google Maps with accurate information is now a crucial factor for any company with a brick-and-mortar location. The free advertising is amazing. And users get to find what they want along with the directions to it. Users can add reviews and photographs to the listing.
But one of the most beneficial features is that people can see what time a place opens and closes, and even what time and day is the busiest at that place. If you open Google Maps on your computer and go to Globe View, you can see the Earth as a satellite would. You can spin it and zoom into places, and even look at other planets in the solar system.
Google Maps work because of what Google does best. Data collection. The working of maps is based on the simple principle of collecting an exhaustive amount of data and then processing and presenting it to the world. From government agencies to end users, Google Maps uses the data collected from a massive amount of sources to keep the system up to date. Different components that contribute to the working of Google Maps. No projection is perfect — they all stretch, tear or compress the features of Earth to some degree.
However, different projections distort different qualities of the map. Creating a map projection is often a highly mathematical process in which a computer uses algorithms to translate points on a sphere to points on a plane. But you can think of it as copying the features of a globe onto a curved shape that you can cut open and lay flat — a cylinder or a cone.
These shapes are tangent to, or touching, Earth at one point or along one line, or they are secant to Earth, cutting through it along one or more lines.
You can also project portions of Earth directly onto a tangent or secant plane. Projections tend to be the most accurate along the point or line at which they touch the planet. Each shape can touch or cut through the Earth at any point and from any angle, dramatically changing the area that is most accurate and the shape of the finished map. Some projections also use tears, or interruptions , to minimize specific distortions.
Unlike with a globe's gores, these interruptions are strategically placed to group related parts of the map together. For example, a Goode homolosine projection uses four distinct interruptions that cut through the oceans but leave major land masses untouched. Different projections have different strengths and weaknesses. In general, each projection can preserve some, but not all, of the original qualities of the map, including:. You can learn more about the specific map projections and their strengths and weaknesses from NASA , and the U.
Geological Survey. The National Atlas of the United States ended in , but much of their work is available at other websites. Choosing the right projection is just one part of creating a successful map. Another is finding the right data. We'll look at where map information comes from in the next section. At their core, maps are visual expressions of measurements. The measurements for the first maps most likely came from mapmakers' exploration of the local terrain.
Eventually, more people traveled and documented the locations of distant land masses and bodies of water. Mapmakers compiled these in-person measurements, sketches and notes into representations of more of the world.
Cartographers also built on the knowledge of their predecessors, a trend that continues with today's derivative maps, which use other maps as sources. Some of today's maps also rely on physical measurements taken by real people. Surveyors use instruments to take precise measurements of land and water, as well as the positions of man-made features.
This information is vital to accurate topographic maps. Similarly, geological maps also rely on geologists' field studies. Improved instruments, including GPS receivers and electronic data collectors, have made such field research increasingly accurate. Researchers can also study deeds and sales records and interview local residents to determine the correct place names for maps of previously unmapped areas.
Today's technology also makes it possible for cartographers to make detailed maps of places they have never been. The field of remote sensing , or aerial and satellite photography, has given cartographers a vast amount of new information about the Earth.
Remote sensing isn't particularly new — the first use of aerial photography for mapmaking took place in However, its use in mapmaking wasn't widespread until after World War II, when cartographers started using reconnaissance photographs as map data. Most of the time, converting satellite and aerial images to maps requires the skill of a human cartographer.
Cartographers can measure the features of an image at regular intervals, or they can trace entire outlines. These two methods are known as raster and vector encoding, and both can be time consuming. Computer programs can help with the process, and some can even recognize differences in old and new photographs.
This may eventually automate the process of updating map data. We'll take a look at thematic maps in the next section. Cartographers and computers can also use parallax, or the difference in angle between two images of the same subject, to measure altitudes. The process is similar to the way your eyes perceive depth.
It allows cartographers to use remote sensing imagery to create physical and topographical maps. For thematic maps, the shape of the world is just the beginning. When making a thematic map, cartographers have to find accurate, up-to-date sources of information for a range of social and environmental phenomena. The new census data will be made available to the public, and we'll be able to take that information and make new maps from that.
Cartographers must also determine which source of information is the most current, accurate and complete. Most thematic maps contain a citation explaining where the information came from. A few common sources are:. Along with data about the size and shape of the planet, much of this thematic information is stored in databases. The cartographer's job is to combine the information from the various databases and existing maps to create a new, understandable map. We'll look at how this happens in the next section.
Sometimes, it can be difficult to tell exactly how a map projection distorts the shape of the Earth's features. One tool for examining distortions is Tissot's indicatrix , a series of small, identical circles drawn on a globe.
On a projection, you can see how the size and shape of the circles change, which corresponds to the type and direction of the distortion. Humans have been making maps for thousands of years. Babylonians etched maps into tablets as early as B. Some older paintings may also be examples of maps, but archaeologists and anthropologists disagree about whether the artists intended to make a map or paint a picture.
Google Maps has been a staple of the internet for over a decade now, but few actually know how it works. For the rest of us, Google Maps is pretty much one step away from magic. For example, how does Google create such accurate maps for so many different regions? How can it collect so much data about so much of the world? Who works to keep the maps maintained and updated? And what about real-time traffic conditions, temporary speed limits, and operating hours for nearby businesses?
Somehow all of these complex features work damn well, which is why so many of us have come to rely on Google Maps for everyday navigation. So isn't it about time we learned how it all works? Keep reading to see the magic behind the curtain. Google's public mission is to "organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful".
Many, but not all, of the company's present-day projects focus on this mission -- a mission reliant on gathering, organizing, and interpreting millions of gigabytes of data.
But the information Google is trying to organize isn't only online. Much of it's offline. Speaking with The Atlantic , Manik Gupta, senior product manager of Google Maps, explained: "Increasingly as we go about our lives, we are trying to bridge that gap between what we see in the real world and [the online world], and Maps really plays that part.
At a very basic level, Google Maps has taken a huge amount of offline information and published it online. We're talking things like highway networks, road signs, street names, and business names. But as I hint below, Google hopes that Maps will be able to do a lot more in the future. When it comes to collecting data to help maintain and improve Google Maps, it seems there can never be enough -- and the impressive bit is that none of that information is over three years old. This is a project of immense scale.
To help with this endeavor, Google partners with "the most comprehensive and authoritative data sources" via its Base Map Partner Program. This data is used to demarcate changing boundaries and waterways, display new bike paths, among other things, and this helps to keep the "base map" as up-to-date as possible. Google Street View is a never-ending road trip.
And Google Maps is part of that endeavor. By collecting massive amounts of geospatial data and making it all available through the medium of a mobile application, Google is trying to realize its concept of bringing the world closer together, of serving as an information hub in the massive library that is the internet.
Of course, Google, a private corporation, cannot possibly expect to gather all this data on its own. For its basic geological map, Google depends on its Base Map Partner Program , which collects information from a range of credible organizations, such as the US Geological Survey, Forest Service, city and state councils and so forth, using them to construct everything from massive freeways to remote lanes and stitching them together into the comprehensive digital image that we call Google Maps.
The idea here is to run cars, motorboats, snowmobiles and other assorted vehicles through every possible road and alleyway, taking degree images everywhere they go. The images thus obtained are then plotted on to the base map using GPS coordinates, leading to the end result that is Google Street View. Initiatives like Project Tango are taking map digitization inside our buildings and offices. If people are spending 17, minutes a year on the road, just think about the impact potential of indoor mapping, the next frontier for digital navigation.
While there is no direct equivalent to a satellite GPS, we are now seeing scalable deployments of the required infrastructure for indoor positioning that can deliver accurate location to indoor maps in real-time.
When combined with the vast amount of data available, there are huge new opportunities for improving experiences and operational efficiencies. The satellite view available via Google Maps is created through collaboration with Google Earth, depending on images from third-party satellites to be stitched into the mainframe to provide high-resolution photographs of the world taken from above.
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