7/18/05 | 1:06 pm | Google Maps Scale Feature
The other day when I was trying to come up with our first Scavengeroogle Bounty (collected by Judy B from Indiana, by the way), I noticed that there seemed to be an addition of a dynamic distance scale at the bottom of Google Maps. Now, I wasn’t sure if this was new because those ravenous Google Engineers tend to release new features left and right. But as usual the roogler Trecherus was on the ball and also noted this feature as new. So I decided to post about it.
I don’t believe this will have too much effect on the game, but it is a rather cool addition and one that I thought they would have added long ago. Thoughtfully, the map has both metric (kilometers and meters) and the U.S. stone age units (miles and feet). I would like to “convert” myself to metric but it’s just so difficult growing up with inches and feet. You can imagine how slow I drove when i was on vacation a few years ago in Canada where its km/hr. I just kept thinking I was going 150 miles an hour… LOL.
The most interesting part of the new distance scale is that it is DYNAMIC based on where you are in the current Google Map. That is, it updates automatically even while you are dragging the map around.
I found that quite interesting because you might think first that it should only change when zooming, not scrolling. However, Trecherus noted that perhaps it changes in order to account for the inherent differences from this 2-D map depiction versus true distance on a 3-D globe map. This does seem to match up, because the dynamic nature of the map is most notable when you are zoomed farther out. When you’re close in, the 3-D vs. 2-D differences are not on a scale that is as noticeable.
I think it’s great that Google makes changes to their maps as they go. It almost feels like one continuous beta test..
P.S. I chose this particular screengrab, because I was looking around and saw what seems to be a brushfire?? I dunno, some of the area around here (I-40) seems to be red or orange rock/soil, so maybe it’s not… sure looks like it though.
