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Satellite Imagery Maps http://www.keyhole.com/ Google owned Keyhole.com offers a both a personal and professional version of a desktop application that will allow you to download and view satellite images with map overlays. With Keyhole you can get imagery resolution at 2 feet for Baghdad and imagery resolution from 1 foot to 1 meter for more than 80 metropolitan areas around the world and in the U.S. Costs and Requirements: Keyhole operates as a subscription service at $24.95/yr for folks with an NVidia video card, $29.95/yr for all video cards, or $599/yr for business use. You'll need an internet connection and probably will want a broadband connection to use this service. Before downloading and using the trial version, you should check out the link "will my computer run Keyhole?" to make sure your computer meets the minimum requirements. Free Alternative: Google Maps offers both standard atlas maps and satellite imagery for free via the web. The free satellite images at Google are crisp and cover the same areas as Keyhole, but at a lower resolution. Keyhole Advantages/Features: Keyhole will allow you to zoom-in closer, tilt images, rotate images, add 3D terrain and overlay information like roads, street names, business names, and more. You can also use the F-11 key to make the image full screen for a single monitor. On a system with three monitors, the application can be made to span all the screens, but the images on the left and right monitors were fuzzy. Annoyances: Although Keyhole is pretty amazing and offers far more than the free Google satellite imagery service, it is not without its quirks and annoyances. The imagery display includes a cheesy looking version of the NVidia logo of poor quality and an overlay with Keyhole's copyright notice and another for the provider of the images that intrude into viewing space. If you use the overlays for businesses, you'll get helpful information. However, if you zoom in after applying the overlay, you'll find the markers for restaurants and retail stores no longer match the actual location of the businesses. Toggling the overlay off and then back on does not fix the problem. From the application you can launch a keyhole community website, but the window cannot be resized horizontally and you'll end up having to scroll horizontally to see the entire page - this is pretty inexcusable bad design. Recommended: Overall Keyhole has much to offer, though it does need to overcome some of its annoyances. Whether you want to see an overhead view of places in the news, check out the neighborhood where you live or have a look at a city, you'll find the images to be pretty outstanding. Posted by WEBnME @ 4/29/2005 07:42:00 AM 
Permanent Link: http://www.webnme.com/2005/04/satellite-imagery-maps.asp SHARE: 
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