Google Maps Street View

[Mister Johnny]

Have you seen Google Maps Street Level View? Today I was looking at my home and it looks like the images were taken between January 2008 to mid April 2008. I then looked at my parents home in Illinois and due to my training, I was able to deduce that the pictures were taken between 15 September 2007 and 30 September 2007. (color of grass, leaves on trees, condition of landscaping, etc and the local gas station had gas at $2.88 a gallon!) The main Google maps overhead Satellite view of my house was take prior to Hurricane Wilma in October 2005, because it still showed a tree that came down along with my pool screen enclosure that ended up in the pool.

[Eclipse]

Yes, it is a really neat idea / feature which has questionable actual value and has caused some issues with the encampment I command.

Thanks to some goober who drove a Google Street View truck onto a military installation, they are all super-tight now with any outdoor photos.

As avid a user/ lover of most Google products as I am, I rarely click the Streetview button.  I personally think its more of a gimmick than a feature.

IMHO the 4-direction, low-altitude-pass offered by local.live.com's Bird's Eye View is much more useful.

I will admit, though, trying to figure out when a respective photo was taken is a nice time waster.

[RiverAux]

Yes, it is a really neat idea / feature which has questionable actual value and has caused some issues with the encampment I command.

These street views are a great potential asset for planning urban photo missions for CAP.  In the past when given a task to photograph some hospital or courthouse I'd have to go searching the internet in hopes of maybe getting a ground-view photograph that would help the aircrew identify it, along with an aerial view from Google Earth.  Now, at least in the larger towns, there is a chane that I'll be able to grab a ground view right out of Google.