Microsoft’s new Bird’s Eye imagery is impressive.
This is my world:
- I live here.
- I used to work here.
- This is my commute.
- My car is here. It’s the blue jeep wrangler on the roof top.
I assumed they would at least park the car indoors as part of the $370 per month rental fee! Oh well… Life in the big city…
This is where I went to school:
Other points of interest:
- I used to live here.
- City Hall is here.
- Brooklyn Bridge: Manhattan side here, Brooklyn side here.
- Old Yankee Stadium is here
- Old Shea Stadium is here
- Washington Square Park (Greenwich Village) here
- Union Square Park is here
- Times Square
- Uma Thurman and Luke Wilson filmed Super-Ex Girlfriend,
on 10th street here. - A famous celebrity’s roof top is here.
- Cooper Union in the East Village is here where Abraham Lincoln
gave his famous ‘house divided’ speech. - McSorley’s Ale House is here. Peter Cooper, of Cooper Union,
toasted Lincoln at McSorley’s after his speech. - Jimmy Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studio is here.
- Central Park West (CPW) – Tavern on the Green
- Upper West Side – Grant’s Tomb
- Fort Tryon Park – The Cloisters
- The Little Red Lighthouse story is about this.
The imagery is provided by a company called Pictometry. The photos are taken by cameras that are mounted in the wings of a cessna aircraft. It’s a system like this.
Pictometry calls the angular image an oblique. Oblique is the term used to describe an aerial photograph that is taken at an angle.
Microsoft has an exclusive deal with Pictometry. So, I don’t expect Google or Yahoo to be offering a Bird’s Eye equivalent any time soon.
Microsoft’s enhanced mapping service is not perfect yet but the development roadmap is promising.
At first glance, some obvious issues are:
- Geographic expansion of the Bird’s Eye Imagery (only ~10 major US cities are covered now).
- Navigation of the bird’s eye images is a bit frustrating (it could use an ajaxed slider control).
- Image metadata should be shown.
I expect all of these issues to be resolved within the next 12 months.
