{"id":1132,"date":"2009-02-01T20:30:18","date_gmt":"2009-02-01T11:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-02-01\/1132"},"modified":"2009-02-01T20:30:18","modified_gmt":"2009-02-01T11:30:18","slug":"googles-my-maps-hidden-trove-of-useful-treasures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/2009-02-01\/1132","title":{"rendered":"Google’s “My Maps” : Hidden Trove of Useful Treasures"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
\nNOTE<\/b>: Images with an icon next to them have been artificially shrunk to better fit your screen; click the icon to restore them, in place, to their regular size.\n<\/div>\n\n\n

I've long loved Google Maps, and especially with my travels and photo geoencoding<\/a>, I often<\/span> use it to further explore a place<\/span> I've already visited in person.<\/p>\n\n

For years, though, I wondered<\/span> why a distance<\/span>-measurement feature was not\nincluded, since that would seem one of the first enhancements that would\ncome to mind. I eventually<\/span> created a simple<\/span> distance-measurement tool\nmyself, adding it to my\nonline exif tool<\/a>, so that when you use it to view the data for a\ngeoencoded<\/span> image, you can measure distances from the photo spot (here's an\nexample<\/a>).\nStill, my solution was less than ideal for general use, and so I remained<\/span>\nperplexed and slightly frustrated.<\/p>\n\n

Well as yet further proof that I am<\/span> an idiot<\/a>, I only recently<\/span> discovered that Google Maps has had a distance<\/span>-measurement tool\nfor the last year and a half<\/span><\/i>. It, and hundreds of other built-in\nenhancements, have been hidden behind the easily-overlooked “My Maps” link. The name implied<\/span> to me that it was nothing more than a way<\/span> to save\nlocations I visited<\/span> often, but as I discovered<\/span> last week, it's so very much\nmore.<\/p>\n\n

I used<\/span> the distance-measurement tool while\nwriting my post the other day about Okinawa's little Kouri\nIsland<\/a> when I commented<\/span> that although it's just a mile<\/span> from shore, you\nhave to transverse over five miles worth of bridges and intermediate\nislands to get to it...<\/p>\n\n

<\/div>\n\n

There are so many little enhancements that I stopped<\/span> counting after a\nfew<\/span> hundred. Some are universally-useful tools like the\ndistance-measurement tool<\/a>,\n\nlatitude\/longitude\ndisplay tools<\/a>, and circle\/proximity\ntools<\/a>. Some are sets of marked locations, such as real-time\nearthquake info<\/a>, locations\nin Japan that offer a pretty<\/span> night view<\/a>, or Top\n100 Highlights in Sweden<\/a> (to pick three of hundreds). Some are just\nfun, such as Dig\na Hole<\/span> Through the Earth<\/a> (which tells me that doing so from my place in\nKyoto would put me in the ocean 500 miles off the coast of southern\nBrazil).<\/p>\n\n

I'm probably the only one in the world who didn't know about all this,\nbut I'm posting about it anyway, just in case one or two others hadn't\nheard of it. You can check<\/span> it out by browsing the directory\nof enhancements<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n

Note that to use these features, you have to add it to your “my\nmaps” list, which itself requires that you are registered with a (free)\nGoogle account. Well worth it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I've long loved Google Maps, and especially with my travels and photo geoencoding, I often use it to further explore a place I've already visited in person.<\/p>

For years, though, I wondered why a distance-measurement feature was not included, since that would seem one of the first enhancements that would come to mind. I eventually created a simple distance-measurement tool myself, adding it to my online exif tool, so that when you use it to view the data for a geoencoded image, you can measure distances from the photo spot (here's an example). Still, my solution was less than ideal [...]","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1132"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1132\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1132"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1132"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/regex.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1132"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}