I, mapper

[kip_w]

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While walking yesterday morning, I thought about how nice it would be to have a neighborhood map with me so I could pick streets to go down and so on. I basically thought up the whole thing at that point, and later in the day I implemented it.

I opened a popular search engine and called up a map of the vicinity. I tried different magnifications. Too big, and the street names would be too small when I try to use them. I found a size I liked. Then I made a screen shot and took it into Photoshop, where I reduced it a little bit -- as much as I was comfortable with. I copied it to the clipboard.

Then I made a new document the size of my iPod screen -- 320 wide by 240 high -- and pasted the clipboard to it, slid the picture this way and that until it was framed just right, flattened the layers, and saved the file.





First I saved the street maps of each little section, sharpened just a tad.



I also repeated the process with the hybrid map so I could place buildings and such.



Lastly, I did it with the satellite view for comparison.

And there it is. I can look at the streets on my pod while I'm out walking. If I broaden my horizons and widen my range, I'll just add more maps.
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Comments

Home sweet map

[ssprince.livejournal.com]

I'm faunching desperately after aerial photos of my neighborhood as good as those the county has for its new E-911 dispatch system. There was my car in my yard with the tailgate open... the complicated roofscape that has just been demolished... (the county is only paying to refresh them every 3 years) none of the online services seem to have anywhere near the resolution for boondocks like this.

Here's Terraserver's take from 2003:
http://tinyurl.com/2x93ap

the bluish rectangles in the lower center are "clay" tennis courts and a parking lot of the material recycled; below the "ra" of the watermark that crosses them, alongside the state highway, there is a row of dark trees which are our alien Abies Concolor from out west, and below them our house named Sunny Jim. Scroll up once, back, and down once, and that's our hamlet.

Re: Home sweet map

[kip-w.livejournal.com]

I keep wishing they'd update online satellite maps more often, though on the other hand, it's sometimes nice to see things that aren't there any more, like Whalom Park. I sometimes wonder if they're ever going to update the photos, or if things will continue to be shown the way they are forever.