The Elite Forum
The Big Three Plus One => General Chat => Topic started by: NathanStinson on March 26, 2012, 11:30:08 am
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Hello all,
I thought this could be a fun little game. Simply put:
Open up google maps and scroll all the way out on the world map. Then grab, the streetview person and try to drop it as close to your home as you can. Then you save the picture and show it to us.
If you don't want to shoot for your home (or don't live in an area that streetview covers), pick something else to shoot for. You can then use google maps to see how far off you were.
Have fun!
P.S. if you hold the little street view man over the map it will have a popup box. Try not to use that to guide your shot:-p
The first image is one I just randomly dropped and I thought it was pretty cool: http://goo.gl/O1WSo (http://goo.gl/O1WSo)
The second image was me trying to hit where I live. I actually got ~51 miles off. So not bad! The funny thing is that is a restaurant out in the middle of nowhere that I have been to! and I hit it: http://goo.gl/hYAEo (http://goo.gl/hYAEo)
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Cool idea.
This was my first attempt (http://bit.ly/GUMO68) (seriously) which is 49.8 miles from my house.
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That's a pretty cool picture. Ever been there?
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OK, I tried this several times and it seems that Google sort of defaults to this location if you pick anywhere near the LA area from that far zoomed out. So, it seems like for some people this idea doesn't really work that well. :-\
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ok, try zooming in a bit better:-p
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Your pointer makes discrete movements that Google can interpret as a position on the map, so when you're zoomed that far out, I'm sure the smallest move you can make is actually quite large. Possibly could get other locations by refreshing and coming into the map at another angle, I'm not sure, but I bet once you're stuck in a location near your house it would be impossible to actually get your house without zooming in.
I did pitifully, but a cool pick right on Monterey Bay Cannery Row. Very famous / touristy area 74 miles from my house
http://g.co/maps/8cesa (http://g.co/maps/8cesa)
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R.I.P
Can't get better resolution
Something like 200m from my house
http://g.co/maps/8m4zy (http://g.co/maps/8m4zy)
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What is that?
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Cemetery
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Your pointer makes discrete movements that Google can interpret as a position on the map, so when you're zoomed that far out, I'm sure the smallest move you can make is actually quite large. Possibly could get other locations by refreshing and coming into the map at another angle, I'm not sure, but I bet once you're stuck in a location near your house it would be impossible to actually get your house without zooming in.
I did pitifully, but a cool pick right on Monterey Bay Cannery Row. Very famous / touristy area 74 miles from my house
http://g.co/maps/8cesa (http://g.co/maps/8cesa)
I thought the same thing but even moving your cursor by several pixels still results in the same SV location from completely zoomed out. Do you think it's chance that it defaults to one of the most iconic landmarks in LA? Probably not. After further tests, I've found that zooming in by one level does alter this behavior.
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(https://forums.the-elite.net/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.upload.speedrunwiki.com%2Fimages%2Fgeneral%2Funiversal.jpg&hash=670d7753db14775151e133531a1f5c79c681ead2)
It's about 61 miles away. Been there many times. Gonna call that a success. Seems this game would be better if not zoomed ALL the way out though.
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Yeah it does seem to be a bit better zoomed in a few notches
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Seems most of us with streetview have hit iconic landmarks. Try a few other places on the map, seems to always be the case.
Funny that Google has obviously given certain weight to street view images. I'd be curious if that were manual, or somehow automated based on some algorithm like "based on zoom level, pick most popularly searched location on map among set of coordinates your click could possibly represent."
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I landed mine right at Lambeau Field, but I figured no one would believe me so I won't even put in a picture... (to be fair, it said
"Lombardi Avenue" with a huge margin of how much I moved it around.... it's idiot-proof for me)