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Earth Google Software

Google Maps Now Zooms Out To a Globe Instead of a Flat Earth (venturebeat.com) 123

Posted by BeauHD from the keep-scrolling dept.
Google Maps has been updated to present you with a 3D globe of the planet when you zoom out. Previously, Maps would have shown you a flat map of the world. An anonymous Slashdot reader shares a report from VentureBeat: About two weeks ago, however, Google quietly rolled out (hehe) a change so that the service now presents you with a 3D globe. You can manipulate the globe as you'd expect -- spin it, zoom in, and zoom back out. Google Earth, watch out -- Google Maps is coming for you. Globe mode only works on desktop, but all major browsers are supported, we're told. We tested it on Chrome, Firefox, and Edge -- they all showed the globe just fine. This is all thanks to WebGL.
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Google Maps Now Zooms Out To a Globe Instead of a Flat Earth More

Google Maps Now Zooms Out To a Globe Instead of a Flat Earth

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  • How about any map projection (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dallas May ( 4891515 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @03:05PM (#57064908)

    It would be fun (if unnecessary and nerdy) if Google would let the user select any map projection they want, or even create their own.

    • It would be fun (if unnecessary and nerdy) if Google would let the user select any map projection they want, or even create their own.

      So flat earthers could go on living their fantasy and have a high tech map to show their earthly vision.

      • Ok? Assuming "flat earthers" really exist and aren't just Russians trolling us (I don't believe they actually exist), do you think not having their flat earth projection on Google Maps is going to sway their opinions at all?

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by tsa ( 15680 )

          https://www.independent.co.uk/... [independent.co.uk]

          • Yeah. Still don't believe they exist. No one is really that stupid. No one. She was played by a unreasonably devoted group of trolls.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by meglon ( 1001833 )
              Rule 1: Start with the assumption that all humans are stupid. You will never be disappointed.

              * * * * subsection (a): Never ever underestimate the levels of stupidity humans can achieve, with, or without, effort.

            • What an adorably innocent worldview, never change!

            • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

              by Gojira Shipi-Taro ( 465802 )

              Trump has a loyal following. Of COURSE people are that stupid.

            • Still don't believe they exist. No one is really that stupid.

              What about Apollo hoaxers? Are they too stupid to exist, too, or would that be Apollo denial denial?

              • At least Apollo hoaxers can't physically just purchase a plane ticket and literally go to the moon by themselves. "Flat earthers" (which I still don't believe actually exist) could simply prove their theory by getting their pilot license and flying in a straight line for a few hours. None of them have ever done that.

                • Even if they did go through the non-trivial process of getting a pilot's license, how would flying in a straight line for a few hours prove anything? You would see nothing but virtually flat, featureless ocean until you ran out of fuel and had to turn back.

                  [And you'd spend the rest of your life sitting back in the armchair at your club, sipping your brandy, and claiming that you were only minutes away from seeing the edge.]

                  No, you'd want to go with a rocket, not a plane - which flat earther/rocketeer Mike [wikipedia.org]

                  • I was saying you could just fly around the earth. But I'm not really debating logic with you. There is no logic to debate in the flat-earth theory.

                    • To you there may be no logic in the flat-earth theory, but to a believer, there is.

                      But I wasn't arguing logic, I was arguing logistics. And where is there 'logic' in suggesting that a person "just" do something that is well beyond the means of the average person?

      • In this new version of Google Maps, the turtles are gone too.

      • So flat earthers could go on living their fantasy and have a high tech map to show their earthly vision.

        That's an idiotic thing to say.

        By definition, any map projection is a mathematical transformation from an ELLIPSOID to a plane.

        The problem with google maps is they don't use an actual projection, but a hack [wikipedia.org] which assumes that the earth is a perfect SPHERE, which is just as pretentiously ignorant as assuming the earth is flat, only less funny.

        That kludge was invented in order to simplify the javascript in

        • The problem with google maps is they don't use an actual projection, but a hack [wikipedia.org] which assumes that the earth is a perfect SPHERE, which is just as pretentiously ignorant as assuming the earth is flat, only less funny.

          Why is this a problem (for the vast majority of their users), and how is it "pretentiously ignorant"? As you pointed out, the decision to go with the spherical projection was made to simplify coding - not because they weren't aware of the sphere/ellipsoid distinction.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      It would be fun to see Google's data center energy bill if they did. Google maps uses pre-rendered map tiles.

      • No shit. There is a thing called 'caching' -- they would cache the tiles rendered in the most used projections. And it would make no difference to their energy bill -- It's not like everybody is going to use his special projection just to spite google.

        You're already able to load your own kml tracks & features with the google maps api -- which works by you giving google some publicly accessible url, and they fetching it and on-demand rendering the vector data into semi-transparent tiles just for you.

        And

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          Correctly reprojecting raster data is computationally very expensive.

          I looked into how OpenMaps does this; it doesn't really reproject raster imagees on the fly but rather it breaks the image up into triangular regions an applies a uniform affine transfomation of all the points in the triangle defined by the reprojection of the vertices into the target coordinate system. It's a clever shortcut that's sure to be adequate for many purposes but I suspect it would create noticeable problems with aerial imagery

    • I'd like to see it zoom out to a hollow earth.

    • This is precisely what keeps Linux from going mainstream: it allows every nerd to have their little special option for everything. The sheer volume of options overwhelms even many of us geeks!

      • That's not what keeps Linux from going mainstream.

        First of all, Android is Linux and it is mainstream. It's as mainstream as it can possibly be. I think it might be the most used OS in the world now.

        Second, assuming you are referring to the desktop, it's not the over customization that holds Linux back. It's two things:
        1) The lack of popular software. There is no MS Office on Linux. There is no iTunes. There is no Photoshop, etc. Yes, you can say "X is a great alternative to Y", and that's probably true. B

        • Your reasons are on target. Android may be Linux, but it is completely controlled by Google. Yeah, I know, you can download it and make your own custom version, but good luck getting anyone else to use your custom version! AND it has none of the one-off options of Linux, like "zoom maps out flat or spherical."

  • This has been the case in Satellite imagery view for quite a while.

  • More than a few weeks (Score:5, Interesting)

    by suso ( 153703 ) * on Friday August 03, 2018 @03:07PM (#57064916) Journal

    Maybe they just rolled it out with the street maps view, but it's been doing that with the satellite view for a while now. Another interesting feature of satellite view is that it shows the current cloud coverage, not just an old photo of the clouds. I just noticed that recently, but maybe it's been there for a while.

    • Doesn't work for me. I don't see any clouds at all in satellite view.

      • Zoom out....

        • Zoomed out the globe, there were no clouds. It's pretty cloudy and rainy over me right now.

          • Zoom out further. It only happens in the top 3 zoom levels. The top zoom level also gives you realtime daylight cover.

            • Right. That totally makes sense. Because of course when you zoom *out*, you expect to see *less* detail.

              • Right. That totally makes sense. Because of course when you zoom *out*, you expect to see *less* detail.

                No you expect to see *relevant* detail. E.g. you don't expect to see the country name while you're looking at a street. Likewise it doesn't make a lot of sense to show the global cloud cover while zoomed in at a level where you're probably interested in some detail of the map.

                Plus we're talking global realtime data here. Just how high resolution do you expect it to be?

                • I might want to see local cloud cover though.

                  As for the resolution, does it really matter? Display it minecraft style if you want. It's never going to be pinpoint accurate, since clouds sort of, like, move.

                  Some genius is no doubt going to suggest looking out of the window. Crazy talk!

                  • I might want to see local cloud cover though.

                    As for the resolution, does it really matter?

                    You just answered your own question.

                    It is worth remembering what Google Maps is and isn't. If you're actually interested in cloud cover rather than the geographical features you wouldn't be on Google Maps in the first place.

                    And no, looking out the window won't achieve what you're after, a trip to NOAA's website will though.

    • Another interesting feature of satellite view is that it shows the current cloud coverage, not just an old photo of the clouds. I just noticed that recently, but maybe it's been there for a while.

      That... that is very cool.

      https://i.imgur.com/6N275N2.pn... [imgur.com]

    • It looks like they've changed their whole projection logic at a variety of zoom levels, maybe all of them. If you look near the poles and move the map around, even zoomed in you can see shapes change and things rotate slightly if you move it east/west. The movement appears to be a constrained tip+spin like for a globe on a stand rather than "free axis" movement like a ball rolling across the floor. This makes sense because the latter wouldn't keep north in the upward direction at the center of the map.

  • Clouds are realtime too (Score:5, Informative)

    by fructose ( 948996 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @03:08PM (#57064920) Homepage
    When you zoom out in satellite imagery, the clouds are also realtime cloud cover. Pretty slick.

  • Believe the Earth is flat to own the libs.

    • Since you're the good pontiff, I know you're joking.

      What's amazing is that there are plenty of people here who would say that with a great deal of earnestness.

      • Since you're the good pontiff, I know you're joking.

        I, like God, am what you call an unreliable narrator.

  • Flat Earthers (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Well there goes my best argument that the world is flat. What's next? acceptance of gravity? Thanks Google...

    • Well there goes my best argument that the world is flat. What's next? acceptance of gravity? Thanks Google...

      Well... Maybe you can use Google to find better arguments... And there is no such thing as gravity, it's just a curve in space time.

      • According to Einstein, there is no space to be curved. Space is just the distance between points.

        Imagine the universe depicted as a large flat desert plane, like the midwestern US. The shortest distance between any two cities is a curved line.... and the ground is imaginary.

        This is why scientists didn't like Einstein.

        • flat desert plane, like the midwestern US.

          As deserts go that area's pretty green and agriculturally productive.

          Either your compass is upside down or your pants are.

      • And there is no such thing as gravity, it's just a curve in space time.

        That's like saying there's no such thing as air, it's just atoms.

        That's what gravity *is*. Having an explanation of it doesn't suddenly make it not exist.

  • Don't be fooled by Google-heliocentrists (Score:5, Funny)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @03:30PM (#57065044)
    the earth is a flat disk born atop a giant turtle which is itself on top of a larger turtle.

  • The bad news is... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 03, 2018 @03:44PM (#57065126)

    ...they renamed the planet to "Google." And without asking anybody. And nothing we can do about it...

  • Hardly. No live KMZ support means it's doubly-useless.

  • Let me pick the one I want.
  • Why bother manipulating our flat Earth into a globe shape, it's confusing.
  • These people are determined and unwavering when it comes not to let facts get in the way of their ignorant prejudices.

  • Solar System, inc space station. (Score:3, Informative)

    by Stephen J Sweeney ( 3389523 ) on Friday August 03, 2018 @05:58PM (#57065828)

    I'm surprised no one's mentioned the ability to zoom out in satellite mode and view and planets of the Solar System, including the International Space Station. Or maybe that's always been a thing, but I've only just discovered it. Earth even appears to be shaded correctly depending on the direction the globe is facing the Sun.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by aquabat ( 724032 )
      Looks like they're using the celestia engine for that feature. When I zoom all the way out in satellite mode, I get a sidebar menu with the planets and other things in it. I clicked on Mars, and it went full celestia on me, with the pan and zoom from Earth to Mars. I really hope we get to track SpaceX missions with this in the future.

  • I didnt know that Google Maps was run by people from the Flat Earther Society. I suppose they suddenly realized the earth is actually round.

  • ... as if a legion of Flat Earthers suddenly cried out in terror and started online flamewars. I fear something terrible has happened.

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