NearMap: New Kid on the Map
NearMap is a new way to explore the world from a bird's eye view. Its high resolution aerial photo maps are created using an innovative technology that basically involves flying over areas photographing them, but the way they do it is cost effective enough for it to be updated on a monthly basis, which is something none of the other aerial maps can currently do, and means you can use it to watch building work and traffic conditions change the layout of a place.
The service launched at the end of last year, and they're based in Australia so that's where they've started collecting images from, but their eventual plan is to cover the inhabited 20% of the world's surface.
NearMap is created in a different way to other online aerial maps, but it looks quite similar. This has been a conscious decision so that people find it familiar to use, but it does have some unique features, the main one being the slider that allows you to scroll back and look though images captured in the past.
My favourite place in Perth: the Indiana Tea House, Cottesloe Beach, from the air
They also have a Terrain view option:
One of the examples of NearMap's images being used to improve OSM data can be seen in the area around Wallan, just north of Melbourne. This town is growing pretty quickly, which means the street grid is changing quickly as well, and instead of OpenStreetMappers going out and doing the plotting in person, they're using the aerial imagery – with regular monthly updates expected – to keep the OSM maps up to date using JOSM and other mapping tools. Here's a series of OSM shots taken after NearMap imagery was first released for Wallan on the 22nd of April:
The OSM community is also keeping track of NearMap's expanding coverage – NearMap policy is not to promise to cover particular areas in advance, just to cover them and them make them available, but they do let people know where and when they're flying via twitter.
You can already embed NearMap pages into your own site if you want an alternative view to Google or Bing – or if the historic imagery is useful. And the resolution is good – typically 7cms in the cities, which is almost good enough to literally look over your neighbour's fence... I haven't heard of any privacy complaints yet though.
