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Fly through your town at your desk

By JAY CRIDLIN
Published June 1, 2007

The battle for Tampa, Miami and the rest of the Earth is officially under way.

For a while Google held the lead, with a mapping program, Google Earth, that allows users to see a satellite image of just about any address in the nation.

Then Microsoft unveiled its Virtual Earth software, offering higher-resolution bird's-eye views of many major cities, including Tampa. With it, you can see many places from four angles, not just one.

Then this week both sides fired salvos claiming Earth as their own - and Tampa and Miami were among cities hit.

Microsoft rolled out Live Search Maps (maps.live.com), a program offering interactive, photorealistic 3-D tours of nine North American cities, including Tampa. With Live Search, you can zoom between Tampa's skyscrapers for an up-close look at landmarks like churches, the Tampa Museum of Art and the University of Tampa minarets.

Then Google unveiled Street View (maps.google.com), granting users mind-boggling detailed glimpses of streets in certain cities, including Miami, as viewed from eye level. You can read street signs, license plates and make out expressions on the faces of pedestrians.

Are the programs fun to try out? You bet.

Are they useful? Eh. Maybe.

Do they probe a little too deeply into the world as we know it? Now there's a question.

Microsoft's Virtual Earth is a marvelous time-waster. Look there, along the Hillsborough River - it's graffiti left by Ivy League crew teams! And down there, at MacDill Air Force Base - you can see people putting on the golf course!

The graphics on 3-D Live Search Maps aren't quite as good as the Virtual Earth photos - the program resembles an early first-person-shooter computer game - but it's still a pretty cool program. You can make out the logo atop the Sykes building, the NBC peacock on the WFLA-Ch. 8 tower, and the "Mona Lisard" gecko mural on the Franklin Exchange Building.

Google Street View, on the other hand, might be a case of getting too much information. It's only available so far for Miami, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas and Denver. Most of the astoundingly clear 360-degree photos were captured by a Canadian company using an 11-lensed camera atop a Volkswagen Bug.

Here's a question: Why would anyone need such a hyper-detailed look at the world around them? Technological curiosity? Flat-out voyeurism?

If you're traveling, you could use Street View to see a restaurant's facade before you leave the hotel. And it's always fun to check out a 3-D view of the Las Vegas Strip or Times Square.

As for Live Search Maps, well, using it for navigation purposes might be more trouble than it's worth. The 3-D software is free to download, but the heavy graphics require a lot of RAM and might slow down all but the hardiest of computers.

Still, soaring over UT and cruising Ashley Drive without leaving your desk isn't a bad way to spend a lunch break.

[Last modified June 1, 2007, 07:02:06]