Cool Google Tools for Aus
Being a really big country with a lot of sea between it and Google's main headquarters can mean that new Google Map and Street View functions take a while to roll into Australia. But there are a couple of new elements for Australian mappers to interact with. The first one is the Building Maker tool, which has included Melbourne in the list of 70-odd cities that can take virtual building work. Construction in Building Maker is done in block form, so you arrange correctly shaped blocks into place on the aerial images after choosing your building site - not sure if you can build your own house, or even make virtual home improvements: most people seem to have opted to rebuild interesting public buildings.
I hate to hear about Australian cliches proving to be all too true, but one of the first structures to go up in Melbourne was the footbridge over the Melbourne Grand Prix Circuit. If you look at it in Street View you're looking from underneath the bridge so you have to virtually back up to compare the Building Maker footbridge with the actual footbridge.
Which brings us nicely to the next bit of Google Aus news – they've brought a Street View trike over – which is a creature half bike and half traffic camera on wheels – which they use to get Street View imagery from places those little cars can't go: trails in National Parks, beaches, bike tracks, that sort of thing.
They launched it at Taronga, which would have been my number one recommendation for its use – can't wait to paw over Taronga Street View – but they're asking for people to recommend other off-road Street View fodder. You can vote for the recommendation you'd most like to see mapped here. The track along the coast between Bronte and Bondi got my vote.
