Some company that makes fancy fashion symbol cellular telephones made news this week for finally releasing its own mapping software, only 16 years after Mapquest first came out. People get excited about anything Apple does, but black-turtleneck brigade has nothing on Google’s Directions in 3D feature.
I know that sounds boring, but the name “Directions in 3D” doesn’t do it justice. Have you ever viewed the Tour de France and watched in awe as they show you those epic, swooping helicopter shots of the race course? It’s like that.
You can use Directions in 3D to view a bird’s-eye video of any route you set up. To enable this feature, you need to first install the Google Earth plug-in if you don’t have it already. Then in the Google Earth view in Google Maps, build your route and then click on the gray “3D” button on the left pane. The 3D video will then start moving along your route, over mountains, though valleys and even past the skyscrapers of midtown Manhattan. This feature uses a massive amount of video processing power, so the higher-spec your computer, the better the level of detail.
Here are a few great routes I’ve found:
- The Million Dollar Highway, across some of the most epic mountain passes of southwestern Colorado.
- Switchback after mountain switchback through Arraba and Via Boè in the Italian Dolemites.
- Andermatt in Switzerland with a detour down a dirt road.
- A loop through the Sierra Nevada range in Central California.
