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> Students (or whoever else) who might have previously gone to look up a region of the world on a globe, large paper map, or atlas are now turning to sites like

• jacobolus 11y ago
  There are orders of magnitude more users of services like Google Maps, Bing Maps, and OpenStreetMap than separate apps like Google Earth. If a non-savvy map user has a simple question, they’re unlikely to turn to Google Earth. Anyhow, I think the “earth” view of Google Maps is a “let’s make something that looks cool in a 2 minute demo” gimmick, not a serious tool. When zoomed out, it adds fake atmosphere, arbitrary static clouds which entirely cover some countries, and silly reflection effects. Its user interface is laggy and glitchy as heck, even on top-of-the-line current hardware. It’s impossible to look at either the arctic or antarctic head-on, as the rotation of the globe is strictly constrained. More generally, orthographic projections have a place as a reference to compare maps to a view on a 3D globe, but they make it impossible to answer many kinds of questions because they involve severe distortions in any particular view, and it’s impossible to see more than about 40% of the globe at a time. Even a draggable orthographic projection makes it difficult to make inferences about distances, directions, and areas that are easy on a physical globe or on the appropriate flat map. Furthermore, satellite pictures are a wonderful tool sometimes, and a nearly useless tool other times.
  • deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]