A New Frontier for Google Maps: Mapping the Indoors

The Google LatLong Blog today had this great post about the most current technology adoption for Google Maps:


“Where am I?” and “What’s around me?” are two questions that cartographers, and Google Maps, strive to answer. With Google Maps’ “My Location” feature, which shows your location as a blue dot, you can see where you are on the map to avoid walking the wrong direction on city streets, or to get your bearings if you’re hiking an unfamiliar trail. Google Maps also displays additional details, such as places, landmarks and geographical features, to give you context about what’s nearby. And now, Google Maps for Android enables you to figure out where you are and see where you might want to go when you’re indoors.


When you’re inside an airport, shopping mall or retail store, a common way to figure out where you are is to look for a freestanding map directory or ask an employee for help. Starting today, with the release of Google Maps 6.0 for Android, that directory is brought to the palm of your hands, helping you determine where you are, what floor you're on, and where to go indoors.


Detailed floor plans automatically appear when you’re viewing the map and zoomed in on a building where indoor map data is available. The familiar “blue dot” icon indicates your location within several meters, and when you move up or down a level in a building with multiple floors, the interface will automatically update to display which floor you’re on. All this is achieved by using an approach similar to that of ‘My Location’ for outdoor spaces, but fine tuned for indoors.

Mall of America in Minneapolis before and after, with a floor selector
San Francisco International Airport before and after, with 3D tilt
We’ve initially partnered with some of the largest retailers, airports and transit stations in the U.S. and Japan, including:

• Mall of America, IKEA, The Home Depot, select Macy’s and Bloomingdale’s, Daimaru, Takashimaya and Mitsukoshi locations and more. Watch an IKEA demo here.
• Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport (ATL), Chicago O’Hare (ORD), San Francisco International Airport (SFO) and Narita International (NRT), among others.
• JR and Tokyu Corporation

For a detailed list of participating locations, please visit our help center. And this is just the start--we’ll continually add new indoor maps to public buildings across the world. If you’re a business owner interested in getting your location’s floor plan included in Google Maps, visitmaps.google.com/floorplans.

We’re thrilled Google Maps continues to provide you with new and helpful perspectives—whether you’re rushing through the airport or finding your way around a mall. To visit our website and learn more about indoor Google Maps and other features, start here.

Posted by Brian McClendon, VP of Engineering, Google Earth and Maps

Introduction Of Usage Limits To The Google Maps API

Strange turn of events in my last two blog posts.  In this post Google announces the introduction of usage limits on their Google Maps API.  This post comes just after the ESRI Insider post highlighting ESRI's effort to offer free web-based GIS For Everyone by Anyone.  Google has made their pile of money through advertizing while offering free services to their many users, and ESRI has made their pile of money through very high priced, but incredibly good, mapping software.  These two posts are opposite of what I would expect.  Kudos to ESRI on making crowd sourcing and community mapping a new part of their corporate direction.  They have talked about it for years and now they have done something about it.  Congrats to Bern Szukalski and the ArcGIS Online Team.

Google has made some changes to their Google Maps API Terms of Service.  Google has added usage limits to the free API and will begin charging for usage that exceeds the limits.  I hope they will reverse this policy now that ESRI'sArcGIS Online offers capabilities similar to those of Google Maps.  Competition is a good thing, something that Google excels at.  Who would have thought with the history of both companies that Google would be charging for a service similar to one that ESRI offers for free.

Here is the entire GeoDeveloper Blog post as written by Thor Mitchell:

When the Maps API Terms of Service were updated in April of this year we announced that usage limits would be introduced to the Maps API starting on October 1st. With October upon us, I’d like to provide an update on how these limits are being introduced, and the impact it will have on your Maps API sites.

The usage limits that now apply to Maps API sites are documented in the Maps API FAQ. However no site exceeding these limits will stop working immediately. We understand that developers need time to evaluate their usage, determine if they are affected, and respond if necessary. There are three options available for sites that are exceeding the limits:

• Reduce your usage to below the limits
• Opt-in to paying for your excess usage at the rates given in the FAQ
• Purchase a Maps API Premier license

To assist in evaluating whether your site is exceeding the usage limits we will shortly be adding the Maps API to the Google APIs Console. Once available you will be able to track your usage in the APIs Console by providing an APIs Console key when you load the Maps API. If you find that your site does exceed the usage limits each day you can opt to pay for your excess usage by enabling billing on your APIs Console project. We will then start billing excess usage to your credit card when we begin enforcing the usage limits in early 2012.

For very popular sites Maps API Premier is likely to be a more cost effective option. It also offers a number of additional benefits, including terms that permit for-fee and internal use, enterprise technical support, a Service Level Agreement, fixed and invoiced annual pricing, and increased quotas for the Maps API Web Services. For more information on how Maps API Premier could benefit your application please contact the Sales team using this form.

We will announce the availability of the Maps APIs in the APIs Console on this blog later this quarter, and provide more details on how to set up an APIs Console account and update your Maps API application with an APIs Console key. We will also provide at least 30 days notice on this blog before enforcement of the usage limits and billing for excess usage begins.

We understand that the introduction of these limits may be concerning. However with the continued growth in adoption of the Maps API we need to secure its long term future by ensuring that even when used by the highest volume for-profit sites, the service remains viable. By introducing these limits we are ensuring that Google can continue to offer the Maps API for free to the vast majority of developers for many years to come.

Posted by Thor Mitchell, Product Manager, Google Maps API

Google LatLong Blog: New 45° imagery available for 16 cities

The Google LatLong Blog had the following post by Bernd Steinert today:


This month’s update to 45° imagery in Google Maps includes U.S. and international imagery.

Let’s just begin with Graz. It’s the second largest city of Austria (behind Vienna), located in Steiermark. It is a typical Austrian town with a vivid university life, a charming historic center mostly of the Gothic period and is significantly influenced by mediterranean climate which manifests being among the sunniest places in Austria due to its location at the southeastern rim of the Alps. Arnold Schwarzenegger - bodybuilding world champion, movie star and former governor of California - was born and raised nearby.

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During September we have launched imagery for some of the major towns in the Midwest of the U.S. like Canton OH, Grand Rapids MI, Kansas City KS/MO, Springfield MO.

Kansas City was founded in 1830 and named after the Native American tribe of the “Kansa” and since then evolved to the largest city in Missouri and the third largest city in Kansas. During the Civil War the city experienced several violent events. In the 1930s, Kansas City was the center of a creative jazz scene and today the American Jazz Museum can be found there. The Irish-American community that numbers around 250,000 includes a large number of bands.

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Canton OH is home of the Pro Football Hall of Fame which opened in 1963 and where the busts of America’s greatest professional football players are enshrined.

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Here is a list of updated cities:

Europe:

Caceres, Spain; Graz, Austria; Montreux, Switzerland; Zurich, Switzerland;

US:

Bakersfield, CA; Boise, ID; Canton, OH; Centennial, CO; Columbia, SC; Davenport, IA; Des Moines, IA; Enumclaw, WA; Grand Rapids, MI; Kansas City, KS/MO; Lawrence, KS; Los Angeles, CA; Merced, CA; New Orleans, LA; Omaha, NE; Payson, UT; Portland, OR; Springfield, MO; St. Louis, MO; The Woodlands, TX;

Posted by Bernd Steinert, Geo Data Specialist

Step Inside the Map With Google MapsGL

Brian McClendon, VP of Google Maps and Earth posted a great post today on the Google LatLong Blog explaining the Google Maps Graphics Library (GL) capabilities.  Pretty neat stuff!


You’re now one step closer to experiencing and interacting with a 3D mirror of the real world within your browser withGoogle MapsGL. Google MapsGL takes Google Maps and harnesses the power of Web Graphics Library (WebGL) to create far richer visuals and animations.

WebGL is a new technology that brings hardware-accelerated 3D graphics to the browser without additional installed software. With WebGL your maps experience is much better with 3D buildings, smoother transitions between imagery and the ability to instantly “swoop” into Street View without a plugin.



Starting today, if you’re using supported browsers (such as Chrome 14+ or Firefox Beta) with compatible video cards, you can opt in to the early beta release. Visit maps.google.com and click “Try it now,” or visit maps.google.com/gl to learn more.

We’ve been using WebGL to create experiences like our Chrome experiments “3 Dreams of Black” and “All is Not Lost,” which happen right in the browser. Previously, such sophisticated 3D graphics have only been possible on traditional desktop applications and have required manual installation. WebGL ushers in a whole new generation of graphics on the web, and with that, we can begin to redefine the expectations of an online map.

Check out Chrome Experiments WebGL for more WebGL-powered applications, and opt in to Google MapsGL to begin using the next generation of mapping today.

Went for a bike ride Saturday through the countryside of Southwestern Illinois. A southern breeze made for some difficult times going up hills on southern legs. All in all, the St Louis Metro East Area is a great place to ride. Lots of roads with wide shoulders and an endless supply of country roads.

This bike ride is a 10 mile ride that starts and ends at the VerticalGeo office in O'Fallon.


View O'Fallon 10 Mile Bike Ride 20111009 in a larger map