Earlier this week I switched to Earth View to see the satellite imagery and noticed that Google has made its online maps 3-dimensional. View this map for example (note that I was able to see Earth View in “3D” when using Safari and Firefox on macOS Sierra, but I was not able to see this on any browser using Windows 10, although I'm not sure why):
If you zoom in to locations near the equator, grabbing and rotating the “3D” map seems to move the map in plain horizontal and vertical axes. However, as you move toward the North Pole or South Pole, you can clearly see the earth spinning on its axis. Very cool.
Based on some online forums, I've deduced that most mapping web sites use rectangular map grids which are a good approximation of locations near the equator, but near the poles the longitudinal spacing is exaggerated, making the land area appear larger than reality. I suspect that Google has implemented its “3D” maps by representing grids as trapezoids to account for the curvature of the longitudinal lines when transforming a 3-dimensional globe to a 2-dimensional computer screen.
Does anyone know the proper terminology to describe the “3D” effect or a description of its underlying technology to render its Earth View?
Tangentially related article: https://ww2.kqed.org/mindshift/2017/03/22/students-see-a-new-world-with-more-accurate-maps/ If schools have computers or tablets, maybe they could also move beyond 2D maps and more toward 3D rendered maps.
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