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January 07, 2007

Satellite Photo of Ship Builds the World off the Coast of Dubai

Sometimes things seen from a birds eye view make more sense, this is particularly true in this case. Often ships are seen off the coast of Dubai building massive man made islands and the like but only from space can you see the magnificence of what they do and also the enormity of their task.

The two images show the building of The World , the set of islands off the coast of Dubai which represent a map of the world. This is one of the most well known projects of Dubai. To see a ship actually pumping sand onto the man made islands is a sight to behold. The first image shows a ship doing just that with the second image showing a zoomed out version and the scale of work that has already been done.

November 12, 2006

Google Earth - Tracks4Africa layer

The release of the Tracks4Africa data layer for Google Earth was announced earlier.  Here are the highlights of the press release for the data layer:

More than 6 years of efforts by the Tracks4Africa community
( www.tracks4africa. com ) have today culminated with the release of a
Tracks4Africa layer on Google Earth.

The T4A layer was been compiled using only GPS tracklogs contributed
by the T4A community: it covers the whole African continent and it
has been recognized by Google as world class data suitable to go
alongside with very high resolution imagery.

MadMappers is proud in the (small) contribution given to this
remarkable mapping exercise. Due to the nature of this voluntary
effort data coverage is excellent in some places but less so in
others.

We invite everyone with a GPS to join this pan African mapping
initiative aimed at creating a popular African GIS culture where
everyone can give a contribution towards the re-mapping of Africa. To
contribute by e-mail your GPS tracklog at the end of your journey

Please note that this initiative is not aimed at mapping major urban
centres (often for cities very good quality data already exists ) but
rather to put on the map rural roads and tracks (together with a road
surface description) .

Some examples of the T4A layer in East Africa:

http://www.madmappe rs.com/T4A- GE/SarEsSalaam. jpg

http://www.madmappe rs.com/T4A- GE/Serengeti. jpg

http://www.madmappe rs.com/T4A- GE/Killimanjaro. jpg

http://www.madmappe rs.com/T4A- GE/Addis% 20Abeba.jpg

To access the T4A layer on Google Earth activate "Tracks4Africa"
within "Layers" > "Primary database" > "Featured Content" i.e. where
the National Geographic layer is.

More instructions are available at
http://tracks4afric a.com/misc/ t4a_maps_ on_google_ earth.pdf