Google Maps (Google Maps). Google Maps (Google maps) Activate the Google Maps satellite view

Google Maps Service (Google Maps) is one of the most powerful mapping services in the world. Its capabilities allow you to enjoy satellite images of the surface of our planet. You can also use the capabilities of an interactive map, easily build a convenient route from point A to point B, get up-to-date information about traffic jams, and much more. At the same time, not all users are fully familiar with the capabilities of this service, which in a certain way prevents its full use. This material is designed to eliminate such "white spots", in which I will talk about Google maps, which are available online in real time and in excellent quality, and explain in detail how to use their capabilities.

Capabilities of the map service Google Maps

"Google Maps" is a web service that provides detailed visual information about geographic regions and places around the world. In addition to displaying a conventional road map, the service also offers aerial and satellite imagery of various locations, and there are images taken from various vehicles.

Google Map includes several popular services:

• The route planner offers the creation of routes for drivers and pedestrians who want to get from point A to point B;
• The Google Maps API makes it possible to embed maps from Google maps on various sites;
• Google Street View (Google StreetView) allows users to view the streets of various cities of the world, virtually moving through them;
• Google Maps for mobile platforms offers the use of GPS navigation of mobile devices to position the user on the map;
• Auxiliary services offer images of the Moon, Mars, clouds, and so on. for astronomers and just amateurs.

To start working with Google maps in full screen, launch the service google.com/maps. You will see a schematic map of the world (depending on the user's location, usually a map of Europe).

Instructions for using the map from Google

The Google Maps service interface looks like this:

Additional options in the Menu item

Also in the Google Maps menu bar, which opens by pressing the menu button at the top left, the following useful options are presented:

• « Satellite» - Switches to photographic map display mode, created using satellite photos. Pressing this option again switches the map back to schematic mode;
• « Traffic jams» - shows current traffic jams in major cities. The color gradation from green to red shows the speed of traffic in the specified traffic jams;
• « Transport» - allows you to display the schematics of public transport in the right place;
• « Relief» – allows you to display the terrain of the area
• « Transfer of geodata» - allows people to follow the location of each other using Google Maps;
• « My places» - allows you to move between the places you added in the Google Maps service;
• « Your impressions» - allows you to add some textual impression about any of the places on the map (as well as attach a photo of this place).

Activate Google Maps Satellite View

Displaying Google maps using satellite photos is one of the most popular forms of working with the Google Maps service. It allows you to enjoy the view of the desired geographical location, created using satellite images, as well as images from special devices operating at a bird's eye view (from 240 to 460 meters).

The received photographs are regularly updated (their age is no more than 3 years). They enable each user to enjoy the view of the desired places from the satellite, visually pave the most convenient road from one place to another, and so on.

Google Earth - allows you to enjoy high-resolution images

Among the features of the Google Maps service is the Google Earth service. In addition to the technology of the already well-known satellite mapping of the surface of the globe, Google Earth allows you to view 3D images of many colorful places, while photos of some famous tourist sites have the highest resolution.

A feature of this service is also two, in our opinion, the main functions:

Conclusion

The Google Maps service (Google Maps) allows you to both view satellite maps in real time for free, and use various forms of navigation to plot a user-friendly route. At the same time, Google Maps competitors - Yandex.Maps, Bing Maps, Apple Maps and other analogues are generally inferior to Google maps both in coverage area and in general functionality. Therefore, we recommend using Google maps to search and visually view the geographical object you need.

What are Google Maps? It is a service that consists of several applications provided free of charge and includes the mapping site Google Maps and a route planning program (Google Transit). Maps from Google offer a satellite view of many cities on the planet and include a detailed layout of streets, houses, ways to travel by public transport or car, a guide to various objects, and more.

Features of work

The Google Maps map is displayed in two variations:

• conventional traditional map (similar to Mercator maps)

• and satellite images (not online, but taken a certain time ago).

The scale of the maps is also based on the Mercator projection, that is, it is constant and changes from the poles to the equator in the direction of decreasing.

Another separate project of the corporation is closely connected with Google Maps - Google Planet, corresponding to the globe, on which the regions of the Earth's poles are clearly visible.

For which places are satellite images offered? Not for everyone, but only for big cities in Russia, England, America, Canada and others.

Not all governments have approved such posting and use of images. That is why many objects on the maps are shaded. Such "secret" objects include, for example, the White House or the Capitol.

Different places on satellite images are given in different resolutions - the less populated the area, the less detailed it is. Also, some places in the pictures may be hidden due to the shadow of the clouds.

Google maps online

• switch to satellite mode- lower left corner;
• zoom in/zoom out- lower right corner.

As soon as the company introduced a new service, a wave of interest in satellite images swept around the world.

The creation of sites began, on which satellite images of interesting places, unusual architectural sights, stadiums, and anthropogenic formations began to be freely available.

Since 2008, the US Weather Service has been using Google Maps to prepare its forecasts.

It should be noted that not all images are made from a satellite - most of the images were obtained thanks to aerial photography from a height of 300 meters.

Google Maps online maps make extensive use of JavaScript. As the user moves around the map by dragging it, new parcels are loaded from the server and displayed on the page.

If the user is looking for specific objects, then the search result is inserted in the sidebar, and the page itself does not require a reload. The location on the map is displayed dynamically through a red marker icon.

• In 2006 The first version for mobile phones appeared in 2007, and the second version appeared in 2007. A service similar to GPS is used to determine the location of the phone.

• In 2008 year Google Maps could be used for Android, Windows Mobile, Symbian, BlackBerry, Java (from 2+), IOS (Apple), Palm OS (Centro+).

• In 2011 In 2008, the corporation announced that it was providing mapping services to more than 150 million customers.

So that third-party site owners could use Maps, Google announced in 2005 the free Maps API (Application Programming Interface) service.

The map can be placed on any site using this technology for software interaction. To date, there are more than 350 thousand such sites around the world.

Google Maps is a leader among modern mapping services that provide satellite interactive maps online. At least the leader in the field of satellite imagery and in the number of various additional services and tools (Google Earth, Google Mars, various weather and transport services, one of the most powerful APIs).

In the field of schematic maps, at some point, this leadership was “lost” in favor of Open Street Maps, a unique Wikipedia-style mapping service where each volunteer can enter data on the site.

However, despite this, the popularity of Google Maps remains perhaps one of the highest of all other mapping services. Part of the reason is that it is in Google Maps that we can find the most detailed satellite photos for the most extensive regions of any country. Even in Russia, such a large and successful company as Yandex cannot surpass the quality and coverage of satellite photographs, at least in their own country.

With Google Maps, anyone can view satellite photos of the Earth for free from almost anywhere in the world.

Image quality

The highest resolution images are usually available for the largest cities in the world in America, Europe, Russia , Ukraine , Belarus, Asia, Oceania. Currently, high-quality imagery is available for cities with more than 1 million inhabitants. For smaller cities and other localities, satellite images are only available in limited resolution.

Opportunities

Google Maps or "Google Maps" was a real discovery for Internet users and indeed for all PC users, giving an unheard-of and previously unseen opportunity to look at their home, their village, cottage, lake or river where they rested in the summer - from a satellite. To see it from above, from such an angle, from which it would be impossible to see it under any other circumstances. The discovery, the very idea of ​​giving people easy access to satellite photos, fits harmoniously into the overall Google concept of "easy access to all users to any information on the planet."

Google Maps allows you to see from the satellite at the same time those things and objects that cannot be observed at the same time when observed from the ground. Satellite maps differ from conventional maps in that on simple maps, the colors and natural shapes of natural objects are distorted by editorial processing for further publication. However, all the naturalness of nature and shooting objects, natural colors, shapes of lakes, rivers, fields and forests are preserved in satellite photographs.

Looking at the map, one can only guess what is there: a forest, a field or a swamp, while on a satellite photo it is immediately clear: objects are usually round or oval in shape of a unique marsh color and there are swamps. Light green patches or areas in the photo are fields, while dark green are forests. With sufficient experience of orientation in Google Maps, you can even distinguish between coniferous forest or mixed: coniferous has a more brown tint. Also on the map you can distinguish specific broken lines piercing forests and fields of vast Russian expanses are the railroads. Only by looking from a satellite can one understand that railways affect the natural landscape that surrounds them much more than roads. Also, in Google Maps, it is possible to overlay maps with the names of regions, roads, settlements on a national scale and the names of streets, house numbers, metro stations on a city scale on a satellite image of an area or city.

Map Mode and Satellite View Mode

In addition to satellite images, it is possible to switch to the "map" mode, in which it is possible to view any territory on the Earth's surface or to study in detail the layout and location of houses in any more or less large city. In the "map" mode, it is especially convenient to plan moving around the city if you have already seen enough satellite views of your city.

The search function by house number will easily point you to the desired house, giving you the opportunity to "look around" the area around this house and how you can drive up / approach it. To search for the required object, it is enough to type in Russian in the search bar a query like: "City, street, house number" and the site will show you the location of the object you are looking for with a special marker.

How to use Google Maps

To get started, open a location.

To move around the map, left-click on the map and drag it in any order. To return to the original position, press the centering button located between the four direction buttons.

To enlarge the map - click on the button "+" or roll the mouse roller when the cursor is over the map. You can also enlarge the map double click mice in the place you are interested in.

To switch between satellite, mixed (hybrid) view and map, use the corresponding buttons in the upper right corner of the map: Map / Satellite / Hybrid.