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StreetMapsThe Japanese blogging world is abuzz this morning with the addition of street maps for that country. Here is an example from the city of Osaka, or the Ginza prefecture in Tokyo. Right now you can search for English placenames (eg - search: "Osaka, Japan" or "Ginza, Tokyo, Japan") and it will take you to that location but it doesn't appear that full Japanese addresses are working. (I tried the head office for Nissan, and it was a no-go).
Flickr user Earthhopper does point out something interesting about Google street maps for Japan and sends out a caution to those folks looking to use the Google Maps API for Japan:
All of Japan's available road maps are still drawn based "Tokyo Datum", which is cancelled in 2001 by Gov to follow WGS84 Datum. Google Map is based on WGS84.
So to use Zenrin's Japan road map in Google Map service, Google slightly moved their map for the area of 30-50N and 115-152E to South East for about 400m. It's still virtual Datum as it was nothing more than simple translation - the Earth is a sphere...
So if you use WGS84 in Google Maps API, false japanDatumHack.
See source code sample at one of Japanese expert's website:
d.hatena.ne.jp/tociyuki/20050712/1121170892
Google should address on this issue sooner.
API is fine, but you can't control maps.google.com and Google's simple translation should only be a temporary solution for some time, as the moved area includes North and South Korea, and some part of China. I don't know how they will change this situation in near future, but the only final solution is Japanese map vendors should provide WGS84 based road map. I don't know when it's gonna be.
He has created an annotated example of this explanation here. Read the full Flickr discussion about the introduction of Japan street maps on Google Maps here.
We will no doubt start to see Google Maps mashups coming using Japan locations and data in no time! If anyone understand how to read Japanese and can help to bring these to our attention, please post a comment with the mashup's URL and a short description of what the mashup is doing! Thanks!
6 comments:
Hi, thanks for putting up my comment inside flickr for the rest of the world...
First Tociyuki updated the script to adjust the misalignment here... URL above is no more, as he says...
http://d.hatena.ne.jp/tociyuki/20050714/1121317764
And he implemented this to Google Map API...
http://tociyuki.cool.ne.jp/gmapwgs84.html
You will see Tokyo Tower moves but Statue of Liverty doesn't...
He says this is very temporary solution and not recommended for especially commercial apps.
I also recongnized:
- North/South Korea is definitely inside misaligned area. I posted photo of Pum Mun Jom (right on the border), geotagged and compared with Google Maps thru GMiF (GMAPI based app to show GM inside flickr page). It was surely misaligned.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51525230@N00/25872959/
- Okinawa, the southwest islands of Japan is out of misaligned area, even it's part of Japan (Okinawa locates about 23-26N) As Google simply adjusts the map of Japan including Okinawa, the misalignment happens even in maps.google.com. Also, satellite image for Okinawa looks like white-noized, suppose there are so many US military bases like Kadena. Google may thinks Okinawa is part of US :-P, but I believe this is because of Taiwan - possible next Google Local/Map rollout... Taiwan and Okinawa is very close.
- I also found huge misalignment of Road line and satelite photo in France, while I was working on making Tour de France route map for Google Earth.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/51525230@N00/25573500/
BTW you can get those route map for TdF here:
http://www.googleearthhacks.com/dlcat16/Tour-de-France.htm
There are lots of Google Maps mashups in Japan since Day 1 of API released. There are so many cool stuff, but I like this:
- Tokyo Location Map:
Locates most of location site of TV drama filmmaking...based on existing databse, you can search by your favorite TV drama title and town...
http://saya.s145.xrea.com/x/map.html
thanks,
nagoyan the earthhopper
>Okinawa, the southwest islands of Japan is out of misaligned area,
I should say:
Okinawa, the southwest islands of Japan is out of designated area for Google's adjustment,
Two addions:
Google Map Japan and 2 Datums:
Just illustrated the area of moved Datum by Google then you will see Okinawa is out of it.
http://flickr.com/photos/51525230@N00/26013527/
Pun Mun Jom - GeoTagged and displayed by GMiF
You will see the misalighnment is happening even in Korean penunsula.
http://flickr.com/photos/51525230@N00/26069113/
Thanks,
nagoyan the earthhopper
Tociyuki put together it as javascript class library.
http://tociyuki.cool.ne.jp/util/wgsgmap.js
(Demo)
http://tociyuki.cool.ne.jp/gmapwgs84a.html
If you have any questions about this, pls communicate with him directly.
http://tociyuki.cool.ne.jp/
This site allows English language address lookup on Googles Japanese maps.
http://diddlefinger.com
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