Try to find a fantasy novel without a map; but what about what we science-fiction and fantasy enthusiasts call “mainstream” fiction? “My undergrad thesis argued that world-building wasn’t just for fantasy and sci-fi writers — every tale has a setting, every tale creates a world in the reader’s mind — and it explored ways that drawing that world (visual thinking!) can lead to better fiction,” Austin Kleon writes. “Some of my favorite ‘lit’ry’ books are accompanied by maps.” He provides examples, and so do his commenters. Via atlas(t).
Maps of Non-Fantasy Fictional Worlds
June 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · Maps
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1914 Telephone Exchange Map
June 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · Maps
Modern Mechanix reproduces a 1914 AT&T advertisement showing a map of telephone exchanges in the United States. The accompanying text pumps AT&T’s agreement to connect all telephone subscribers “regardless of who owns the exchanges” and notes that the incipient monopoly only owned a minority of the exchanges.
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Banned in Minnesota…New Blog
June 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · Maps
Two more recent Google-related items:
- North Oaks, a rather xenophobic town in Minnesota — the streets are privately owned — has asked Google to remove it from Street View; Google has complied with the town’s request. Google’s gotten into trouble for its cameras trespassing on private property; the twist here is that the whole town is private property.
- The Google Maps API Blog has been replaced by the Google Geo Developers Blog, to reflect the company’s larger scope.
Tags: Google Maps·Google Maps Street View
Earth and JavaScript, Together at Last
June 2nd, 2008 · No Comments · GEO 3D, Google Earth, Google Earth API, KML, Maps
By now, many of you have heard about the new Google Earth API that we announced Wednesday during Google I/O. It’s exciting that you can now enjoy the 3D Google Earth experience in the browser, and you can create your own custom interactive apps on top of it. This new API lets you use JavaScript to programmatically interact with the Earth browser, changing camera views, loading KML or 3D models, or even creating KML objects from scratch.
Here’s your basic “Hello Earth” app:
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><head><title>Hello Google Earth!</title><!-- *** Replace the key below below with your own API key, available at http://code.google.com/apis/maps/signup.html *** --><script src="http://www.google.com/jsapi?key=abcd"></script><script>google.load("earth", "1");
var ge = null;
function init() { google.earth.createInstance("map3d", initCallback, failureCallback);}
function initCallback(object) { ge = object; ge.getWindow().setVisibility(true);}
function failureCallback(object) { // Gracefully handle failure.}</script></head>
<body onload='init()' id='body'><center> <div> Hello, Earth! </div>
<div id='map3d_container' style='border: 1px solid silver; height: 600px; width: 800px;'> <div id='map3d' style='height: 100%;'></div> </div></center>
</body></html>
And, if you’re already a Google Maps API developer, adding Google Earth to your mashup is really easy. Just add the following line:
map.addMapType(G_SATELLITE_3D_MAP);
To view apps written in the Earth API, you will have to download a browser plug-in. Currently, the plug-in is Windows only, and works on Mozilla and Internet Explorer based browsers, including Firefox. We are working to expand the number of browsers, and have announced Mac and Linux plug-ins will be released in August.
Check out the cool sample apps. If you have any questions or come across any problems, post them in our Earth API developer group.
