Google Maps: Navteq Out, Tele Atlas In

Still showing a TeleAtlas copyright on the Google Maps road maps in and around southern Saskatchewan. I also checked Red Deer, Alberta, and surrounding area and it's still showing the TeleAtlas copyright.

Where are you seeing something else?

...ken...

Ken, scroll down the map south of the U.S./Canada border.

Okay, I see it. As soon as I get the window completely south of the 49th it switches to copyright Google.

...ken...

My area has dropped to base TIGR coverage. The data comes from the last census in 2000. You can see that recent roads do not show up.

Essentially, Google has been marching down the quality scale over time. Navteq to Tele Atlas, and now Tele Atlas to its own stuff.

The question is whether you really can do a good mapping job by capturing video and doing the annotation later. Some funny OCR errors made it into the Google data.

Navteq does the annotation at the same time as the drivethrough, with two trained employees in each car. So, for example, if something is not clear, they can decide, on the spot, to redrive it and get it right.

I see that Bing Maps Canada is using Navteq 2009 data. It also has some good aerial imagery in my area. The satellite stuff is pretty awful. But overall it's good enough that I might have to make it my default for visual browsing if Google drops Navteq for the Canadian coverage.

There are some awfully good mashups for Google Maps. Do you suppose that will ever happen with Bing Maps? Is there an API for doing that stuff with Bing Maps? Or is Microsoft going to keep all that to themselves, do you think?

...ken...

Bing Maps has had an API for years. I'm not sure this latest maps change will make any difference in the consumer market. Google has been using Tele Atlas in North America for a year now. If anyone wanted to switch, they had a year to do it.

There are some business applications where Bing Maps is gaining traction, for example, ESRI ARCGIS Online. For general consumer use, however, Microsoft has negligible mindshare compared to Google. Also, there's a strong cultural bias among many Web 2.0 developers against using any Microsoft technology.

Traditionally, Microsoft has always opened an API to developers. It's the source code that's been kept proprietary. The general-interest press has done an excellent job of conflating the two -- I read articles all the time about how open source is so great because it allows people to make mashups. If all you're doing is making mashups, then you don't need open source.

You mentioned the difference between aerial and satellite imagery. Most imagery on all mapping websites is aerial -- there is very little satellite imagery, except in areas of low population density. Perhaps you mean that the oblique views (Bird's Eye) are better than the overhead view (Aerial). Of course, it's harder to navigate the Bird's Eye view, and fewer people know it exists.

Like "Ken in Regina" I live in an area of "low population density" where there only partial coverage in aerial imagery. The majority of Cape Breton Island (probably 80%) has no aerial photography, only satellite imagery. (Actually, I think I can say that about most of Canada). I realise the more populous areas of North America have extensive amounts of aerial imagery giving seamless coverage but most of my region has only satellite in both Google Maps & Earth & Bing maps.

On the other hand, the DEM data for the entire island is complete and quite accurate.

Bing Maps has more recent areial imagery of my town (Sydney, Nova Scotia) and has a fair amount of "Birds Eye View" imagery available right in town as well. I can see my house at least...

Nope, that's not what I meant.

Check this link:

Your web browser and the Maps site are incompatible

Hmmmm.... Bing Maps Canada doesn't seem to like IE8. One of the many reasons some folks just try to steer clear of anything that comes out of Redmond if they can.

Well, if that link is truly screwed, go to Bing Maps Canada and locate Regina, SK, Canada. Click to turn on "Aerial" view.

If you are zoomed out to 1.6km or more you will see a very poor image of the area. I'm pretty sure it's a sat photo. If you zoom to 0.9km or tighter you will see the aerial imagery and it's nice and crisp.

...ken...

Your link works fine here in IE7 and IE8 even though the link in your post says it doesn't.

Terry

The link works fine in IE7 and IE8.

What's happening is that the forum engine attempts to retrieves link titles. It's actually pretty annoying, and I'd prefer it to be off. When it goes to the Bing Maps, it reports itself as some weird web browser, i.e., not IE7, not IE8, not Firefox, not Safari (all of which are supported browsers). Hence, it gets back a page that says "Your web browser and the Maps site are incompatible," and decides that this must be the title of the page.

The satellite imagery at zoom level is a longstanding issue that's also been around for years. Google avoids this problem by downsampling the aerial imagery instead. It's probably a better approach.

Both issues (link title and satellite imagery) are prime examples of poor fit-and-finish in Microsoft products. It's the little things that matter. People get proportionally much more ticked off by small problems than by big ones.

Doesn't matter to me either way. I was just responding to your comment that there's no satellite imagery on Bing Maps when it seemed pretty clear that when you zoom out far enough that's what you get.

I'm fine with it, especially since it gets better when you zoom in far enough to get the aerial imagery. When you see that sort of thing on Google you know there's no point in zooming in because it just gets blurrier and then it tells you it can't zoom any more.

I think Bing Maps has the better approach (replace blurry sat image with sharp aerial photo imagery as you zoom in).

Yes. That's because when the problem is big you can usually expect a solution some day. When it's small, you despair that it won't even be acknowledged, let alone fixed.

...ken...

The problem is not the idea of transitioning between satellite and aerial data at high vs. low zoom levels. The problem is that the satellite data is still shown at the city zoom level, where people can reasonably expect to see aerial imagery. All they have to do is move the transition point up two levels.

I remember seeing this complaint the week that the first beta for Bing Maps (then called Virtual Earth) came out. Still hasn't been fixed.

Just for the record, I wasn't complaining. It was actually by way of a complement to Bing Maps, versus Google. After living with Google's limitation -- that when you see a blurry sat image it's just game over for being able to see any ground-level detail no matter how tight you try to zoom -- discovering Bing Maps ability to zoom "through" that blurry sat image to nice crisp aerial details was a very pleasant, very welcome surprise.

I suppose if I start using Bing Maps more I might become critical of fine points like what zoom level it "breaks through the blur".

However, the biggest impediment to my use of Bing Maps is the current interface. Like, I have to go to Bing Maps Canada to search for stuff in Canada.

...ken...