Pretty & Not-so-Pretty Maps from Google Earth

I was reading Hubpages' own piece about the Elements of a Stellar Hub the other day, and since then have been grappling with maps as I've been working on my next Hubs. I've got one on the go about roses (not up yet), and have found some photo illustrations I'm really enchanted by. Then I thought I'd try to add a map, as the Elements of a Stellar Hub suggests using at least one map or table.

So I found a map of the rose growers concerned and this is what it looks like:

It's okay as aerial pictures go, but beside the rose I wanted to show, it's tones were too dull to look nice. Here's the rose:

So the rose hub may or may not get a table instead, but it's unlikely to get a map. But the experience got me thinking about the aesthetics, or often lack of them, where map capsules are concerned.

Given that we are encouraged, rightly so, I believe, to have handsome Hubs, the above map was dragging down both the exquisite photographs and the video clip I had planned. So I began to wonder ... where in the world are the aerial maps that live up to the handsomeness that certain hubs demand, looking as good from above as they do at street level? What about the Taj Mahal? Or The White House?

The Taj Mahal seems to survive the aesthetics of Google Earth admirably. Beauty is in the eye of the proverbial beholder, but I think this is gorgeous from close in on the domes, through the spread of India, right out to the full, flat earth view. It also seems to be fortuitously placed below the double sweeps of mountains, so that its very location adds to the beauty and symmetry. I was pleasantly surprised by this one.

But in the main, the problem is that for hundreds, getting on thousands, of years we have of course been building our environment to be viewed from street level, or from the gentle vantage point of hills or other buildings around us. In the aesthetics of architecture, never has the full-on top view been all that much of a deal. Buildings were never expected to look their best for a spy satellite, but this is the age of Google Earth and beyond, and things are changing.

The satellite pic of The White House, above, shows that the president's residence's roofs are not too cluttered, but you don't have to stray far before it begins to look like a set from Dr Who. It's much nicer, in terms of conventional aesthetics, when you pull out further and can't see the details. The propensity for "blocks" and long straight streets in the larger US towns helps the map look more handsome as you pull out further. But does it then perform the task that you want it to in your Hub? I'm not saying I don't like this picture - I actually find it intriguing, but it's such a different, industrial-looking angle on the classical, grand architecture of this part of Washington, that it actually doesn't "go" with pictures of the very same buildings at street level.

If all your article needs from a map is directions in a built up area, and you choose the roadmap view as default, then these capsules can be more immediately attractive. The roads, highways and green areas, picked out in colour, and elucidated with street names, form their own intriguing graphic. Here's Washington DC as above, but with the "roadmap" setting as default. The irregularities of air vents, and the miscellaneous humps and bumps of rooftop paraphernalia, are glossed over into gentle grey graphics here. The symmetry of the streets comes into its own. This ironed-out, discreet view is more in keeping with the impressive Grecian and Georgian inspired buildings as seen for real at street level, than the warts 'n' all truth of the satellite view.

But the map above is not The Truth is it? If only the satellite view were so immediately pleasing to the eye.

So if our man-made environment can be disappointing from above, until new architecture gets more vain about how it's seen from all angles, perhaps Hub maps are going to be more reliably beautiful when they're showing us the natural world?

They said that Marlene Dietrich was one of the few actresses who could be photographed from absolutely any angle and still be beautiful. Is all of nature like this? Well frankly, some aerial views can still look a little dingy and uninteresting, however iconic. Here's the Serengeti. And below that, the Simpson desert in Australia. But of course those landscapes have a different, more monotonous beauty to start with. You can't just stick a camera anywhere in Earth orbit and expect to get the natural equivalent of a Van Gogh. Perhaps sometimes we need to consider these pictures more akin to a Rothko in subject matter. If you get in close to the desert for instance, the monotone orange is mesmerizing.

If you switch these maps over to roadmap setting, you get an idea of the isolation of some these areas. You don't have to click very far in before the roads virtually disappear.

With stones, rocks, and edges, there are some particularly stunning maps to be viewed from above. As Slartybartfast said in the science fiction comedy The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, "I design coastlines. I got an award for Norway". Below is some of the award-winning coast in question. It makes me want to visit Norway. Keep clicking in, for a gorgeous, tiny little beach, and a few cosy looking cottages, accessed by a coastal road which must have some of the prettiest views on earth as you curve around the headlands.

I'd like to read more Hubs about natural landscapes, and to see some of these more stunning maps being put to good use. But of course, the things we are interested in, and need to know about, inevitably include more intently human-influenced environments. And the maps that match are not always going to be ones we're excited about including.

So I love the idea of maps. And the satellite image ones, being real, are to me the most intriguing. But I think we need to choose well, and be prepared to drop or change them, when they're an unsightly splat on a hub you've worked hard on to make look good. And when it comes to satellite close-ups maybe the most particular of architects will develop a new sense of pride in how their work looks from above too. Perhaps we'll have something like iVents in the future instead of air vents.

Whether we're talking about wild places or cities, I think any Hubber thinks hard before inserting an unappetising map into a Hub. But now that I've thought more deeply about the challenges, I'll be keeping an eye out for Hubs that are making the maps work in an exemplary way. I'm sure it can be done!