Google earth updated its satellite photos and now we have detailed images of lot of places in india. I was surprised to find that high quality images of devakottai (native village in tamil nadu) . As google satellites take more detailed pictures , more places will be visible in more detail on the web.
Finding places even with very detailed images needs some guidance .. When looking at a map, we will start with a reference point .. If places are not marked on a map, then the map is not quite useful. Google/Yahoo maps comes in handy in US , Canada and Europe where are addresses are marked. All places info is digitized. But for india, we are not yet there.
If we cannot get to a known reference location, we can not browse the map. The same happened to me when i started to explore bangalore on google earth. To start with, i searched for placemarks file (keyhole) which has locations of places. Somebody created a placemark file and he/she shared it on the internet/forums. There are some problems with this approach
1) There is no ONE single placemark file. For Delhi, i got placemark files with 70 , 80 , 100+ locations marked. There is repitition.
2) Different people mark different places.
3) How to share these placemark files ? where are they ?
4) No collaboration
Wikimapia solves all of these easily. Everybody contribute and add places to the google maps. it combines both google maps and wiki system. Everything is marked in wikimapia and is instantly accessible. The idea is just great. i just love it..
There are slight problems with wikimapia. No control even though you can report for deletion of places. You can modify any place marking anonymously. My friend (amit) and i were looking at his college in Orissa. we found entries with vulgar words. Did not like it and corrected them.
Some places ::
Devakottai - My native place - ancestral home (Thiruchiliar house - donno if i got the name right :-) )
The area where i stay in limassol is not fully zoomed in yet .. My office is near the new port in limassol ..
College .. rec warangal (now nitw)
Oracle HQ , OTP (oracle technology park)
CN Tower , Niagara Falls , Kanyakumari , The pyramids , Taj Mahal ,
Explore Wikimapia and keep adding places !!!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
hey man! That's an interesting observation about the local angle of wikimapia...thing is even the sensitive areas can be mapped (even wiht google earth), but the US consulate..that's neatly blanked out right? for security reasons...well...i guess the internet really isn't tht democratic as well...but anyways...enjoyed readin your post...i'm writing an article on wikimapia and so was crawling blogs to see waht turned up...i did hear tho that the activity in mumbai was pretty good...so do check out colleges especially...cos that's where i heard the action just might be...to the universe and beyond and then right into your backyard...from the top!!! ha ha cheers!
Post a Comment