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Bing Maps Imagery Editor API License FINAL.pdf (262 KB)

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Google Earth 6 is out. Go get it here. Google Lat Long has the announcement.

So what’s new?

1. Seamless Street View: Wherever LIDAR has been used, Street View has now turned into a seamlessly navigable 3D mirror world. No longer do you “hop” from panorama to panorama in discreet steps — instead, you can now glide through a world where the Street View imagery has been painted onto a LIDAR model of the surroundings; as you navigate around, whichever panorama is closest gets used automatically as the backdrop. It’s a really cool effect and it will likely grab all the headlines. To get started, drag the yellow pegman to a place on Earth that has LIDAR-enhanced Street View.
2. 3D virtual trees: A cosmetic addition that doesn’t do much for me, but if you’re going to build a faithful mirror world, you’re going to need virtual trees, right? There’s plenty of different species to reflect the local flora, but that doesn’t stop it from obscuring the satellite imagery, which is what I came for. This feature will be turned off in my copy of GE6.
3. Accessible historical imagery: Easily the single greatest improvement to Google Earth since its launch in 2005 has been the addition of historical imagery, added in February 2009 with the release of GE5. Google Earth 6 doesn’t have anything new of this caliber but it does make the historical imagery more accessible to casual users by placing pointers to the data front-and-center on the screen. Until now, the forensic neogeographer had to use the historical imagery tool to see what if any older imagery was available; in GE6, the year of the oldest imagery for any given view is visible below the scale legend; click the year to be taken directly to that imagery.

The rest of Google Earth is pretty much the same, a sign that this application is maturing. I’m still hoping for a future release where the KML files in Google Earth’s My Places sidebar sync through the cloud with Google Maps’ My Maps and mobile Google Earth for iOS and Android. This has the added benefit of making hosted publishing possible — you could just choose to “share” a particular KML file with the world and get a URL in return, just as you do with My Maps now.

In the meantime, however, you won’t find me complaining about the greatest piece of free software this side of NCSA Mosaic.

You may have noticed something new in your OpenStreetMap editing
today. Potlatch 2 has now gone live on OpenStreetMap.org. Potlatch 2
is a complete rewrite in ActionScript 3 using the free Flex 3
compiler. Potlatch 2 rendering uses MapCSS and RichardF’s halcyon
rendering library. It’s new. It’s Open Source. And it’s on
OpenStreetMap.org

But, why didn’t I notice it?

That’s a fair question. You might not have noticed Potlatch 2 on the
main OpenStreetMap.org web site because it is now an editor option.
That’s right. If you hover over the Edit tab, you can select from
Potlatch or Potlatch 2. JOSM is also an option if you have JOSM open
with the remote control plugin active. You can set a default editor
in your API user preferences. [Support for the Merkaartor remote
control plugin is coming soon.]

Potlatch 2 may not be the right editor for everybody. There will be
bugs discovered, and removed as development continues. Consider
adding Potlatch 2 to your editing arsenal, and be sure to report any
bugs you find.

The amazing team behind Potlatch 2 and this update to the web site
includes some of the same people who keep OSM running and have been
making OpenStreetMap great for years.

Richard Fairhurst http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Richard
Andy Allan http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Gravitystorm
Tom Hughes http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:TomH
Dave Stubbs http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Randomjunk
Matt Amos http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/User:Matt

And thanks extend to many others including all of those who keep OSM
running day to day, all of the Potlatch 2 testers, documenters, and
MapQuest for sponsoring Andy’s development time over the past few
months.

You can see a graphical representation of the development of the
Potlatch 2 code here:

Congratulations to the entire Potlatch 2 team and thanks for this new editor!

Developers wishing to contribute to Potlatch 2 will find the code in
svn and can hack on it with the Open Source Flex compiler.

http://svn.openstreetmap.org/applications/editors/potlatch2/README.txt

Open an editing session in Potlatch 2

http://www.openstreetmap.org/edit?editor=potlatch2

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