Google Maps gets some perspective

New features mimic Google Earth

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31 July 2009 17:49 GMT / By Duncan Geere

Google's added some rather impressive new controls to its API that allows the use of 3D viewpoints and perspective. The results are pretty spectacular, as can be seen in the demo above.

Google says: "With a perspective map, the map is projected on a viewport (the screen) using a virtual point of reference in front of the screen (the camera). These three components (the map, the viewport and the camera) form a perspective on the viewport which gives the illusion of depth perception to the map".

So there you go. Control of roll, pitch and yaw is available, and all can be employed using the mouse and combinations of shift and ctrl. Those are similar to the controls available in Google Earth, which begs the question - how long will it be until Google Earth is viewable in a browser?

There's already a shipping simulator for Google earth. Now that roll, pitch and yaw are possible, surely a flight sim is in the offing, too?

Via: insideria.com

Full tags

Software, Online, Car And GPS, Google, Google Maps, Google Earth