I've visited San Francsico a few times but haven't been since 2007.
At one point, back in about 2013 or 2014, I got a little bit obsessed with the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. It started innocently enough (reading an article about the Pulgas Water Temple), and I ended up spending many evenings in bed using Google Earth and Google Maps street view to trace the route of the aqueduct and look at the things around it. Where the pipes run under cities it's easy to see their "mark" on the land (since no permanent structures are permitted to be built above them). Following them up into the mountains was fun, too.
A few years later I got into looking at abandoned rail lines in the Midwest and spent evenings "flying" the routes of old railroads. They're similar to the aqueduct insofar as you can see the "scar" they've left on the (and in the oddly-shaped parcels of land left after they were sold-off).
I've done this in Google Earth VR, and it's very fun. You can get down to basically street view, but everything is very blocky and blurry..
Or you can stay at "Godzilla scale" and walk around the city with buildings the (relative) size of appliances or furniture.. NYC is kind of fun that way.
If you are somewhere that you've been in real life, it's uncanny how familiar it still seems even at low res..
For somewhere you haven't been, or are planning on going, it can give you a sense of scale/scope/direction that is quite nice.
There's also a number of videos on YouTube with varying amounts of 3D or 180/360 of people just walking through all kinds of various tourist places without comment. From inside a VR headset, is it as good as visiting yourself? Of course not. But it's not the worst way to spend some time. And in my opinion it captures at least a little of the je ne sais quoi of visiting a place that watching a video on a screen does not. Not necessarily a lot. But non-zero.
Sometimes I'll do something similar and go back to old streets I used to live on, or the street I current live on but look at it in the past. Google Maps is a cool time capsule
I do this sometimes too but the ux has always been lacking. Arrow key directions sometimes don't work if the system thinks the forward image is e.g. not actually forward. You try and resort to clicking, you might miss the click target and end up 600 yards down the road instead of to the next frame. Or you merely zoom in and don't move at all.
It has always been like this ever since they released streetview. I'm surprised they haven't improved it, but then again, maybe I am not surprised. Probably actually a good thing google hasn't felt compelled to touch it recently.
In unrelated news, I got a notice that they are killing google earth pro in January, so get your downloads in now before they stop sharing the packages.
For some months now I do basically the same, but without the clicking in Streetview. There are some channels on Youtube where someone walks through neighborhoods in Tokyo, I found I really enjoy these. The streets are so clean and the houses so beautiful. Indeed, once in a while a Japanese sports car pops up around a corner, just standing there on somebody's driveway.
I also enjoy the walk-throughs of neighborhoods in New York. I tried Dallas once, I guess, but it was all way too big and bulky (but it was down town I guess, so that's to be expected of a lot of cities on this planet).
Does anybody have ideas for other nice spots on this beautiful planet!? I think I know Tokyo by now. ;)
I appreciate this hobby.
I've visited San Francsico a few times but haven't been since 2007.
At one point, back in about 2013 or 2014, I got a little bit obsessed with the Hetch Hetchy aqueduct. It started innocently enough (reading an article about the Pulgas Water Temple), and I ended up spending many evenings in bed using Google Earth and Google Maps street view to trace the route of the aqueduct and look at the things around it. Where the pipes run under cities it's easy to see their "mark" on the land (since no permanent structures are permitted to be built above them). Following them up into the mountains was fun, too.
A few years later I got into looking at abandoned rail lines in the Midwest and spent evenings "flying" the routes of old railroads. They're similar to the aqueduct insofar as you can see the "scar" they've left on the (and in the oddly-shaped parcels of land left after they were sold-off).
I watch a lot of videos of people just exploring Tokyo and other cities on foot. Good stuff.
I've been watching lot of brazil vidoes. Man that country is not very good looking but its fascinating to watch.
I sometimes watch those walking videos after visiting the city. Its whole different feeling than watching random video.
I've done this in Google Earth VR, and it's very fun. You can get down to basically street view, but everything is very blocky and blurry..
Or you can stay at "Godzilla scale" and walk around the city with buildings the (relative) size of appliances or furniture.. NYC is kind of fun that way.
If you are somewhere that you've been in real life, it's uncanny how familiar it still seems even at low res..
For somewhere you haven't been, or are planning on going, it can give you a sense of scale/scope/direction that is quite nice.
There's also a number of videos on YouTube with varying amounts of 3D or 180/360 of people just walking through all kinds of various tourist places without comment. From inside a VR headset, is it as good as visiting yourself? Of course not. But it's not the worst way to spend some time. And in my opinion it captures at least a little of the je ne sais quoi of visiting a place that watching a video on a screen does not. Not necessarily a lot. But non-zero.
Sometimes I'll do something similar and go back to old streets I used to live on, or the street I current live on but look at it in the past. Google Maps is a cool time capsule
I do this sometimes too but the ux has always been lacking. Arrow key directions sometimes don't work if the system thinks the forward image is e.g. not actually forward. You try and resort to clicking, you might miss the click target and end up 600 yards down the road instead of to the next frame. Or you merely zoom in and don't move at all.
It has always been like this ever since they released streetview. I'm surprised they haven't improved it, but then again, maybe I am not surprised. Probably actually a good thing google hasn't felt compelled to touch it recently.
In unrelated news, I got a notice that they are killing google earth pro in January, so get your downloads in now before they stop sharing the packages.
I had to click this title!
For some months now I do basically the same, but without the clicking in Streetview. There are some channels on Youtube where someone walks through neighborhoods in Tokyo, I found I really enjoy these. The streets are so clean and the houses so beautiful. Indeed, once in a while a Japanese sports car pops up around a corner, just standing there on somebody's driveway.
I also enjoy the walk-throughs of neighborhoods in New York. I tried Dallas once, I guess, but it was all way too big and bulky (but it was down town I guess, so that's to be expected of a lot of cities on this planet).
Does anybody have ideas for other nice spots on this beautiful planet!? I think I know Tokyo by now. ;)