Taking bets on the odds of this being disallowed for places where it would be actually useful (for example: airports; municipal buildings; skyscrapers).
How would one disallow this? The DMCA doesn't cover "I don't want that information available".
Google Maps Floor Plans
41–50 of 100 posts
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#42Does anyone have a link to a building with floor plans already uploaded? I'd be curious to see how they've designed the interface but can't easily find one... (i.e., in 2 minutes in downtown SF)
I'm going to take a wild guess that google has probably already made one for their own building.
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#43In the US, "Blueprints" etc. are protected by copyright and the vast majority are provided to building owners under very restricted usage rights which do not anticipate such use. The suggestion that people just upload them is somewhat problematic in so far as it is akin to Napster's approach to music a decade ago.
The upload form clearly states Make sure you have permission to use the floor plan you are uploading.
That's not the same as Google making sure Google has permission to use them.
Standard AIA contract language allows the owner to utilize the plans to construct their project. The author (architect) retains copyright.
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#44A shame that all of this data is collected "free" for Google, then people are made to pay to access it for their apps in the Maps API.
My thoughs exactly.
If I'm contributing such stuff, I'll go with open street maps.
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#45Does anyone have a link to a building with floor plans already uploaded? I'd be curious to see how they've designed the interface but can't easily find one... (i.e., in 2 minutes in downtown SF)
Macy's New York, it appears flat in the web map, but works in Android, although I found it to be quite useless when actually within the store.
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#46A shame that all of this data is collected "free" for Google, then people are made to pay to access it for their apps in the Maps API.
Google is providing a hosted service. They are free to host them themselves if they want.
cool, link me to the dump and web interface so i can run my own!
/sarcasm (you never known)
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#47Taking bets on the odds of this being disallowed for places where it would be actually useful (for example: airports; municipal buildings; skyscrapers).
The competition already has this for airports: http://binged.it/HnKPqO Compare: http://g.co/maps/8e9xp
which is weird, because in the android maps application, SFO is completely filled in with a floor plan (and actually more detailed than the bing version, which appears limited to coarsely positioned rectangles for sections of the floor plan).
Is there some poor UI incantation you need to do to get this to appear on google maps?
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#48I wonder about copyright issues. Aren't the floorplans and directories in malls and such copyrighted? Who has the right to upload them to Google?
Theoretically, businesses have the right to upload their floor plans. And, it's perfectly fine to draw your own and upload those.
[IANAL] If they draw them themselves, yes they can do what they wish.
On the other hand, in the US, using the "blueprints" is probably going to be a violation of the copyright of the design professional who prepared them.
Typical contract language restricts the Owner's use to "this project" and such rights terminate "upon completion of this project." [AIA Document B105-2007]
Upon execution of this Agreement, the Architect grants to the Developer-Builder a nonexclusive license to use the Architect’s instruments of service solely and exclusively for purposes of constructing, using, maintaining, altering and adding to the Project or the Development, provided that the Developer-Builder substantially performs its obligations, including prompt payment of all sums when due, under this Agreement [AIA Document B107 2010].
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#49Ok.....now I see the Google Glasses coming together, and that video doesn't seem as fanciful 'pie-in-the-sky' as I initially thought.
If Google is able to bring it all together, this could be pretty epic!
Re: Google Maps Floor Plans
#50A shame that all of this data is collected "free" for Google, then people are made to pay to access it for their apps in the Maps API.
There's two sides to this. There's the corporate/public-good argument, where wikipedia is probably the best OSM analog, so it makes sense.
But there's also the user generated content argument, where there are plenty of for profit companies that completely depend on content given for free by their users (youtube, reddit, etc), where the users also benefit from having better content on a site they visit and more attention to the content that they post. From that way of looking at things, it makes perfect sense for property owners to want to have their floor plans up on google maps.
In any case, I disagree that paying to access the maps API is necessarily bad...any OSM host will also charge over any trivial amount of traffic because none of them have the (free) infrastructure to handle it. I do agree with other posters, though, that there should be Data Liberation Front coverage for things like this and data contributed through map maker, and that it should have been that way for years now.