Google’s Street View currently leads the field in 360×180 degree street level imaging. A few months ago we put up a post and movie about EveryScape another company covering San Francisco with beta imagery and now we have MapJack as the latest kid on the block.
The concepts between all three are basically the same: to provide blanket street level coverage of a city linked to a map – allowing users to visualise their route step by step. Map Jack’s approach is to simplify the process back to set photographic views rather than interactive panoramas ala EveryScape and Google’s Street View.
By embedding three movies its possible to gain a basic level of comparison between the three systems, Google Street View, EveryScape and MapJack:
Google Street View
EveryScape
MapJack
We like MapJack for its simplicity and sharp infocus photography. EveryScape has the unique ‘morph’ feature as you link between scenes and Google Street View is simply highly polished with coverage now extending to San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston and Orlando.
San Francisco is becoming the stomping ground for new geo-related start up companies and this can only be seen as a good thing. We like MapJack as its simple and easy to follow a route but Google’s Street view is still the one to be beaten.
Although it’s great being able to virtually wander around SF, I wonder what the legal implications are of setting such a service up in Europe. Would data protection laws hinder this sort of application?
Thats a good point Andrew..
Recently Camden Council in London removed all their street based panoramic imagery due to complaints over privacy…
Andy
I added here some amazing Street View from the last update (08/2007).
I agree with this article. Street View is the best and it will only get better I’m sure!
http://streetviewgallery.corank.com
Thanks for posting this to BlinkGeo, Andy. I think the jury is still out, but Google obviously has the most resources to throw at this.
Andres
The story on BlinkGeo
I added here some amazing Street View from the last update (08/2007).
I agree with the author’s opinion about MapJack’s simplicity. It’s user-friendly, so easy to navigate and the quality of pictures are excellent. I look forward for this website to showcase more places and hopefully cover the entire US and other countries. As how technology is rapidly improving at present, that’s a big possibility.
I love EveryScape as you have the ability to go into the businesses which none of the others allow you to do