Aug 03 2006

Digimap Google Earth

Published by at 2:22 pm under Guernsey News

This is an old article and the information contained within it may be out of date, not reflect my current views and/or contain broken links. If you feel this article is still valid and requires updating, you can use the contact form to let me know. However, I make no guarantee that it will get updated.

Digimap LogoThe Google Earth layer for Guernsey that I created has finally been updated a bit. This update just adds a couple of extra images and straightens up a couple of the existing ones. I’ve also added a new layer that contains a network link to the layer, if you use this new network link you will always get the latest version of the Guernsey layer as I update it.

I’ve been meaning to blog about Google Earth, Guernsey and Digimap for a couple of weeks now – yes I have seen you Digimap guys visiting my site! What I wanted to blog about was a mysterious meeting I had at the Digimap offices. A while back I was contacted (via a third party) by Digimap and was asked if you want to go for a meeting with them. No information was given as to what the meeting was about so, like the curious person I am, I went along.

Not knowing whether I was going to get a rollicking for using thier images, a job offer (for my great work on the Google Earth layer ;)) or some other reason I was, understandably, rather aprehensive. In the end it turn out to be them wanting to get to know the person behind the Google Earth layer and also a bit of a PR excercise… if I’m writing about Digimap they want to make sure that I know that they’re the good guys.

A couple of interesting points did come up in the meeting however:

  • Digimap is (I think) a subsidiary of the States of Guernsey but has to be completely self funding, therefore they need to sell the data in order to cover the cost of collection the data – no open source mapping in Guernsey using Digimap data then!
  • Digimap has contacted Google and Navteq offering Guernsey data but both turned down the offer saying they had sufficient coverage of Guernsey to not need new data.
  • Google Earth is soon going to have 60cm (IIRC) images of Guernsey – lets hope half the island isn’t going to be covered by cloud again!
  • Digimap try to do as much imagineering as possible – again this si contrained by the need to be self-funding.
  • Digimap will continue to monitor this blog for new ideas for them to try.
  • I can continue with the Google Earth layer using their images.
  • If I was I can host their images stitched together on my site for better alignment in Google Earth (I have written conscent).
  • If I wish they will try to provide better images for me to host for my Google Earth layer.

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