Google maps has added aerial views to a limited number of locations. I just saw (hat tip: Paula) that the San Diego temple is one of them. It’s a pretty cool feature.
How do you see it? Unfortunately there’s no one-click link, because you have to enable aerial views. So it’s a slightly more elaborate process:
1. Go to the San Diego temple on Google Maps. (Click here.)
2. Click the little green “Labs” chemical-beaker icon at the top of the screen. (It’s above the Print button). Click “enable” on the tab that asks about Aerial Imagery.
That’s it! You should now have a nice little view of the San Diego temple, which looks great from the air.
Bing Maps has had this feature for some time. It’s a one-click process and has LOTS more coverage (They call it “bird’s eye”). The other day, I pretty much took a helicopter tour of Paris, Salt Lake City and (my home) Philadelphia on my cpmputer.
Very cool.
I just checked Bing’s picture.
On the plus side, they have tons more aerial views than Google. I can see lots of buildings on Bing bird’s eye view.
On the down side, Bing didn’t find “San Diego Temple” or “San Diego Mormon Temple” despite repeated searches. I ended up searching “San Diego La Jolla Trader Joe’s” and panning over two screens (Trader Joe’s is right by the temple) to actually get the picture. Also, it’s not quite as pretty as the google pic.
But it’s another cool resource. And unlike google, bing has pictures up for a whole lot of other places.