cool. instead of the Hybrid
button, which used to display an overlay of map info over satellite images, Google Maps now has a Terrain
button, which displays shaded terrain data. not too shabby, Google is getting close to the point where you can just use screen dumps instead of traditional maps.
i use the map/satellite hybrid view quite a bit, mostly to see how the landscape looks like where a road is going through. now it is available as a little Show labels
pop-up box under the Satellite
button.
the terrain view works with the My Maps
stuff as well, the little sample shows Berkeley's terrain view with a map of the UCB campuses and some campus buildings i created.
really good maps such as the swiss topographic maps probably have a little more time to think how to respond to this, but seriously crappy maps such as the USGS topographic maps probably can very soon stop printing their products.
and of course, no terrain view on the iPhone, until apple decides to upgrade the mapping application. it would be interesting to find out at which point apple realizes that it might make sense to stick to a web-based solution, if there is one that is useful and popular and well-done and backed by a big company...
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