Mapping Hacks

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Chapter 1, Mapping Your Life

#4 Find Your House on an Aerial Photograph

HACK

Of course, you shouldn’t feel limited in your cartographic efforts to record-

ing just the places you have visited. The interface is so simple that a lot of

other possibilities immediately spring to mind, like maps of “The Places My

Brother Swears He Will Never Visit Again,” “Some Countries I Have Col-

lected Stamps from,” or the ever-popular “States That Have a Warrant Out

for My Arrest.” There are countless stories waiting to be told!

HACK

#4

Find Your House on an Aerial Photograph Hack #4

“You Are Here” is a quick piece of wish fulfillment for the amateur

cartographer.

The free Terraserver service (http://www.terraserver-usa.com/) offered by

Microsoft provides a friendly interface for finding things and viewing base

maps made from aerial photographs. Once upon a time, Terraserver cov-

ered the whole world on a large scale, but now it only republishes USGS

maps for the United States The imagery can be as detailed as one-meter res-

olution—that’s one meter per pixel, a pretty good resolution for aerial pho-

tography.

Searching Terraserver

Terraserver provides many different ways to find what you’re looking for.

Follow the “Advanced Find” link on the left to find the different search

options. You can search for an “Address,” which Terraserver will attempt to

geocode. If the geocoding works, you’ll get a list of one or more ...