Google Maps now cover Europe, including Munich

I've been looking at Google Maps for a while, and now they have added maps of Europe to the Site. You can type in an Address or place and it will show you a satellite picture. They are even annotated with locations of shops and businesses (at least for the US maps) and can give you directions.

Munich satellite image

Auch! There's my house!

Classic link ... that's the afternoon blown away for me!

Awesome!!!

But what is that strange shadow over the airport runway?

Bizarre. Must just be a little fluffy cloud. Like the one below maybe. Although, as it was a sunny day, you should be able to see the shadow of the plane from which the photo was taken. Or are they satellite images?

It's the go-kart track!

resolution is a bit crap outside the city. But good stuff.

Yep, but it just appeared today. Some places in Europe have crappy resolution for big cities, so we are lucky.

I think they will gradually improve it as it gets used.

Yeah, my stinky London suburb is unrecognisable because of the resolution. My house in Freising is crystal clear :-)

the general stuff that covers the whole of europe are satellite images - the little blocks of much better quality / higher resolution stuff (like the centre of Munich) look like 'proper' aerial photos. I guess it's a cost thing - low-res satellite imagery for the whole world probably costs the same as a small bit of high-quality aerial photo!

Thats probably a shadow of the guy taking the photos.

If this kind of detail is in the public domain just think what the military have :-)

Remeber to draw your curtains tonight peeps !

Was he skydiving at the time then?

The highest resolution spy satellite is the KH-13. It can see objects as small as 4cm, for example something the size of a credit card.

KH is an aconym for "Key Hole". The KH-13 is operated by the US security agencies and is shrouded in secrecy. Indeed, it's very existence is not even officially acknowledged. The best resolution is thought to be between 10cm and 4cm. It may be higher or lower.

More info here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KH-13

Google Maps most likely use the Ikonos images of Munich. These have a resolution of 1 meter. This makes it 10x to 40x less detailed than images which could be taken by the most powerful spy satellites currently in operation.

I posted the above previously in a comment here: Images of Munich from Space

Drawing your curtains won't make much difference. Not unless you have windows in the roof of your house. Satellites can only see vertically down (or a few degrees off the vertical). They can't see in through the side of a house.

Ha! That's so cool! I can see my house from here!...sorry, had to be done.

Pretty nifty; I found one airplane in flight.



And one AT-AT Walker near the airport.

I've seen those AT-AT WALKERs all over the place too, good one !

... and I saw this over the Chinese Tower ...

... could it mean an invasion?

Google is also in the process of creating 3D maps. They are starting in San Francisco but plan to expand. That way you can actually see all the cites when getting directions. Here's the article. http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/arc...p_stick_you.php

The Satellite images are there but the maps, local and directions don't work :-( There are some cool websites out there using google maps in the US and existing databases.

Check out...

http://www.floridasexualpredator.com
and
http://www.chicagocrime.org/

also cool is.

http://www.googlesightseeing.com/

am I missing something... is the Allianz Arena to be found ?

EDIT : found it here

I think I took a wrong turn following the road out of the city , typical ! I guess it's ok as I don't drive !

Edit again : anyone know what this is here , big factory to the west of the city.

I BRAU' A MAß !!!



So was this taken in Juli or Oktober?

@false

I found it, but I can't post the piccie due to computer issues at the moment. Will post it later, if nobody else does.

Did anyone find out what false's mystery factory was ... I found it on a normal map ... but am no wiser

If this works, there should be an image of the Arena here:



Edit: Yay! It worked!

I think that's the Messe that you're referring to, aka the old airport.

That would explain why it says Neue Messe München on the map ?

That is not the Allianz Arena. It is the Olymia Event arena thingy.. Or is that the arena you meant?

Damn, it looked bubbly. I'll try again...

No think about it, thats what it is.. and also Reim Arcade

I guess you're right, the arena's not there, but I can find the windmill.

found it ...

I saw that but thought it looked way too small in comparison with the other to be it.

Although not in Europe but the US, the aircraft graveyard... (some scrap, some in storage). It's pretty impressive if you zoom out and just see how many planes are there! Jeez!

Link

another curious thing .. anyone know what this is here

It's the rowing stretch near Oberschleissheim. Built for the 1972 Summer Olympics.

http://www.toytowngermany.com/munich/Googl...Views_of_Munich

Feel free to edit the above linked page and add satellite map links to locations you find interesting.

@6783kqe
Thats the Regatta See (Boat rowing lake), Looks like the 2005 BearingPoint Rowing World Cup Munich was being held there this month (17-19 June)

For the Messe Pix, if you move it towards the right (2 clicks), you will see that part of the old runway is still there...

He said to the west of the city. The messe is to the east.

@FAP

But the link he gave showed the messe...

should have been east. sorry. I meant west of china, aka east of munich

What a strange chunk of runway. Now I have to go check it out...

and on the subject of old runways... this one is quite popular with skaters, kiteboarders (on wheels), windsurfers (on wheels), dog walkers and cyclists.

Just in case no-one has seen this yet, check out http://earth.google.com/

Note: Check your machine against the recommended specs before downloading.

Not in Munich but it looks like a very big bug has been found in Germany on Google Maps.

Google maps now supports the same kml files as google earth, meaning any placemarks you have in google earth can also now be seen in google maps, using only your browser.
I did a google earth munich file ages ago, but its too big for google maps, which only supports kml files smaller than about 100k. I saved a few folders as kml files though, for a few bits of munich.

Bars - City Centre

Bars - Schwabing

Biergartens

don_riina: Excellent stuff, many thanks. When you were previously creating KML files did you plot any Munich restaurants, ie. curry houses? That would be quite nice! If not then I might look into how to do it myself.

Google Map of Munich curry houses. All the TT review pages for Munich bars and restaurants have similar. If you know your way around web technology you should be able to easily extract the coordinates from those pages.

Editor Bob: Thanks, I should of realised something like that was done already.

the kml scripting stuff is completely simple - if you had a GPS unit, with a load of pointers saved around munich, it would be dead easy to create a kml file from it. I have been meaning to get a bluetooth GPS thingy for ages, link it to my PDA, and save any open wifi points co-ordinates using wififofum (wifi network scanner software, free BTW). Then I'D have a map of open wifi points. Would be cool. There are zillions of networks in munich, and I bet loads are not secured. Or, you could use the camera on a PDA to take photos around town, and save the longtitude and latitude at the same places, then put your photos on google maps. Very very cool. I found a google earth file of something similar actually, and its too big to convert properly, but here it is for the general gist. Its good stuff.

Munich City Panoramas

Also of passing interest to some people.

Houses of ill repute

And to others

Munich Clubs