Very cool! It's always seemed a shame to me that we stick with highly-inaccurate projections when we have the tech to do much better, simply out of inertia. Double-cheers as well for ignoring the weird convention that you shouldn't care about accurate sizing when looking a political rather than satalite map.
Google Maps is no longer a flat map
21–30 of 173 posts
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#22If there's a job where I just get to explore the wonder of Google Maps all day, I want it.
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#23I wonder what the long term geopolitical consequences will be when we all stop looking at projected maps. That small peninsula to the west of Asia just got a little smaller. A certain island kingdom is now more clearly the size of Uganda. Maybe Google can also flip the globe "upside-down" for all users "below" the equator.
Honestly, I doubt there will be any long-term geopolitical consequences. It's comforting to imagine that we can change the world just by more correctly representing a map, but I suspect the reality is that we can't.
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#24Openlayers Cesium provides a globe view for map tiles (or other data), it's it not to much work to transition to a flat projection at a high zoom.
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#25Looks like this isn't rolled out to everyone. I'm not seeing the 3D version (logged in & incognito).
on my work computer, which is tunneled through san francisco, so i show as in USA, i can see the 3D map. checking maps on mobile which is on Canadian ISP, in chrome and the google maps android app, i can only see the "flat" map.
Thanks. I thought it was a "browser thing". My desktop firefox shows flat maps only.
-ss
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#26Apple Maps used to do this too. They took it away a few versions ago for reasons I don’t quite understand. I really liked the “Pale Blue Dot”-like overview of the Earth when zoomed out all the way.
Apple Maps (desktop version) still does this, but only in Satellite mode. Which feels very intuitive, to be honest.
Of course, the definitive pale blue dot image was not taken by a satellite, but rather a spacecraft on a hyperbolic trajectory.... ;).
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#27"On flat maps, it’s impossible to represent land mass size on a relative scale." Um, no it's not. TechCrunch needs better editors. You just need to use a non-Mercator projection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gall%E2%80%93Peters_projection
That's still not an accurate map. 3D maps don't have projection issues, they can have near perfect representation of the world.
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#28The visualization is really cool but for daily use seems more practical being able to plot long trip routes without them disappearing on the back of the globe than being able to assess the true size of landmasses: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Madrid/Sydney,+New+South+Wal...
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure if planning trips to the other side of the globe qualifies as "daily use" either :-) I think it's neat to see that the route is along a great circle -- that wasn't clear at all before this change.
Millions of people do it everyday, so it seems right to call it daily use: https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1018260113814061057...
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#29Very cool. However it's not using great circle routes for airline directions, for example ask to go from Calgary to London. It should go well over Greenland, but instead just follows the same path you'd get from drawing a line on a Mercator map.
Re: Google Maps is no longer a flat map
#30The visualization is really cool but for daily use seems more practical being able to plot long trip routes without them disappearing on the back of the globe than being able to assess the true size of landmasses: https://www.google.com/maps/dir/Madrid/Sydney,+New+South+Wal...
I get what you're saying, but I'm not sure if planning trips to the other side of the globe qualifies as "daily use" either :-) I think it's neat to see that the route is along a great circle -- that wasn't clear at all before this change.
Unfortunately, the line drawing doesn't make this as cool as it could be. The line representing the flight from BOS to PEK is drawn due west, as would look natural on a 2D map. The real flight (and shortest route) heads north and passes near the north pole.
Hope they can update this, which would make international flights seem even more impressive than they already do.