Perspectives

One of the things cool about satellite imagery is the feel that it gives you of the surface of earth. The ups and downs, rugged terrains, deep blue oceans…satellite imagery have been wonderful in giving you a perspective of earth that only astronauts working in space stations enjoyed. A view of earth sitting on earth was un-imaginable a few years ago.

Now what if you could get the same feel on a political map? The map that was not really photographed from a satellite. Well, that is what Yahoo India maps have tried to capture. Ever wondered how a map of kargil would look embedded with the great himalayas ? Or what about “Bandipur and mudumalai? A lot of geometry and look and feel fixes have gone in too.. So, Did you know that connaught place, new delhi runs anti-clockwise? Or what about the loop overpass that they have been building for ever at airport road, bangalore

Update: The links to connaught place and airport road were incorrect. Just fixed them.

Enjoy. Be sure to tell us how you like it.

Remember CARTOSAT-2 launched early this year ? Well, it seems to be up, flying somewhere above us and even sending back images now. ISRO seems to have released images from this commercially usable satellite.
Image courtesy :ISRO

So, how do you like vidhana soudha and Chinnaswamy cricket stadium side by side? GISindia seems to think that the real exiciting thing is the cost factor. Apparently, these imagery can be twenty times cheaper to buy than the ones at say, Yahoo India maps, which is most likely from IKONOS.

Oh, talking of satellite imagery, did you know that Yahoo India maps has added new satellite imagery for a lot of places in India, very recently? For instance, check out the the lovely Golden temple, Amritsar or maybe the Ganga,Yamuna ( and arguably), saraswati confluence at Allahabad.

Tech post after a really long time. And probably my first real piece of advicing in Javascript. So, take it with a pinch of salt. And tell me if I am writing something incorrect.

Ever wondered if it was possible to simulate a native event from your javascript code? Yes it is! Generally, you would probably have registered for an event and written all the logic in that callback. But sometimes, a need to do execute the same logic arises due to a completely unrelated event. To give you a real example, head over to this view of Yahoo! India maps. If you notice, clicking on any of the “local search element” on the right pane shades the element and also opens the marker. Now, clicking marker does the same thing too.

Instead of writing the code to shade the element all over again on the marker’s click callback, what you could do is to fire a click element on the corresponding search element on the right pane.

As you would expect you would have to do this differently in firefox and IE. And it will look something like this:

Ourcity recently went live with Yahoo India’s maps(YIM) a little while ago (3rd april, do be precise). You can view your city’s map, click, drag, zoom and all the other things you can do with YIM. You can also search for a location and a few essential services inside the map you are viewing.

So, what do you think?

Google has removed yahoo India maps from it’s index. Artifically, forcibly and manually. For a search query such as “yahoo india maps”, or “domain:yahoo.com india+maps”, I dont think there is any other site more relevant. Secondly, all the blogs that announced Yahoo maps’ arrival are very well in it’s index. And each one of these blogs have an inlink to in.maps.yahoo.com. Heck, even my pic on flickr is turning up. Googlebot knows how to reach the site then, right?. Not that I say technorati is right, but from what I see there, organically in.maps must atleast be third in the result list.

But that is not what is interesting. I saw in.maps.yahoo.com on google’s first search result page yesterday.

Dear Google, Do you know what you mean when you say “Dont be evil?”

Yours truly.

I would like YIM to stand for Yahoo! India maps. Unofficially, a couple of us assumed our mission statement to be “Go Anywhere” . So, what is so cool ? Frankly, nothing as of now. Anyways, read on.

Firstly. We cannot find your house. I will be sweetly surprised if we can. We are far away from that. But it will happen.
We dont give you driving directions just as yet. There are a few challenges there.
We do have satellite and hybrid imagery for many popular places.
We are quite comprehensive on mapping data when you consider whole of India. Our search is getting better. You still have to be very explicit and try out a few things before you get a hang of it.
The link of the map you are viewing is always on your browser’s address bar. You dont have to do anything special to get a link to the map. Just copy paste it. so, this is roughly where Yahoo is , in Bangalore.

Oh, by the way, there is no reason you should have to visit another destination to search for a non Indian address. If Yahoo! works for that address anywhere on the planet, you can have a look at it right here in India maps. Check out paris or 10, downing st, london here.

Are you used to searching for India by typing in http://wikipedia.org/wiki/India ? Try http://in.maps.yahoo.com/kolkata

You can search for Airport codes. For instance, IXB is baghdogra’s airport code. You can get to it this way.

Would you prefer Anna salai, nandanam, Chennai ? Or mount road, nandanam, madras? We love both.

There are a lot more cool things in there waiting to be figured out and a lot is in store. I hope you all have a good time finding your places and like it as we move along.

It has been a wonderful few past months. Yahoo India maps is a very special product for me. Ever since I joined Yahoo!, in bangalore, I have been wanting to do something for India. I guess it is my way of giving it back to my country. Also, I always believed indians deserved more and better. And my time finally arrived with maps. The levels of passion and interest India maps generated inside of me were unprecedented. At times, I was myself surprised. Sure, I did have my few ups and downs on the way, but who doesnt?

Maps was completely new to me. Now, I understand that it is, to India. Over the period I was with maps, I have learnt up quite a bit about GIS in general, the other open source activities around GIS in India etc. It seems pretty obvious that a large portion of the cake remains uncut. GIS and mapping activities are few and far apart in India. Mostly in research labs of companies trying to come out with GPS devices and in a few graduate institutions. There are a few enthusiast groups. But nothing of the levels of understanding and appreciation that you would see in the US and elsewhere. To say it has been a wonderful learning experience is an understatement.

And as lack of icing on top of this cake, many people, including me, begin to wonder if India really needs GIS and GPS. Havent we rolled down the windows of our cars and found many willing people to give directions? Havent we reached our places without any of these tech supplements? Is technology trying to do too much when we probably dont have tarred roads in most part of the country ? And when a sizable portion of the population dont possess a vehicle? Maybe there are a few corporate requirements for GIS. But, I am mostly a end consumer GIS person. I get convinced that was the case with most other inventions too. When the television came into existance, I am sure people were thinking “Why would I need it?, Am I not happy with the radio? “

In the days to come, according to my gut feel and from what I see around, Local and Yellowpages is going to be big in India. And if it is the case, Maps is going to be a lovely supplement. Maybe, maps will never take the podium in a long time. Here are some of the reasons:

1) we are a decade away from usable end-customer GIS data in India. My mom wouldnt give a damn if she cant find how to go to her bank from her home. For her, it will remain un-usable until we do that.

2) Indians perceive addresses very differently. We dont differentiate between a landmark and a point of interest and an address. I have found many people specifying “Opp. regal cinemas” even in postcards and envelopes.

3) Thanks to colonisation, we have every possible addressing schemes in the world here. I have been trying to write a regex to possibly parse and understand Indian addresses. I have hardly been successful.

4) As most places have local language names, which are proper vocabulary words in that language, it gets hard to understand what the user is trying to say when it gets to english. Road is called “marg” and “galli” and “pathai” and “veedhi” and “salai” and “vazhi”, to name a few. To top it, every user prefers a unique spelling to the place. Is it Ahmadabad or Ahmedabad? Thiruvallur is right, so is thiruvellore and tiruvallur!

5) There are zillions of people out there who use public commute. I dont think we are doing any kinda service to them if we are not able to tell them when the next train to his preferred destination will arrive. Or which bus to catch where.

6) Considering there are no road signs and boards telling you what road it is, does it make sense to give directions based on road names? Do all roads have names? Are all roads motorable? Do we know if it is a one way? And if it becomes one way, is there standardized way with which the city corporation disseminates that information? I dont know!

I can go on to write more of these things. But the point being, maps is and will remain a challenge. It is going to be an interesting problem to solve. And when we do solve it well, I am confident people will embrace it. For now, maps will have to be looked upon as a supplement to local and a thing to mashup with.

Back to Yahoo! India maps, we have lots of interesting ideas. And there is no time to do all of them. Very soon, you will be able to mashup with our maps. It will be our honour and pride. And there are a few surprise elements too. We are confident you d love it. I will write another post on what is cool about what we have done in a bit.

Do you have a few suggestions? Let us know. We would love to consider it and possibly implement it.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Please welcome the newest member of the Yahoo! India family, Yahoo India Maps.
Even as I would like to write a book on the “making of India maps”, for now, I would just recommend you just get there and check it out for yourself.

Got any comments? Flames? Leave me a note. Leaving you with a picture that hopefully captures the mood amongst us and with you!