Geogarage, Google Map with NOAA Marine Chart Overlay
The demo is http://demo.geogarage.com/noaa/. The company (French) Magic Instinct Software, has produced GeoGarage, a spatial image server. In short, Google satellite images are layered with NOAA marine charts which gives you a better look at an area. This is demo software so there is no guarantee that it will be available in the future, or free in the future. Someone has to pay for the license to use the Geogarage software to produce the maps. This Geogarage page shows what is happening. So for now someone is paying for the Geoserver. To use the World map, double click on an area (with the NOAA chart overlays). You continue clicking down to where you want to go. You can also use the Google slider on the left to zoom or pan around, or you can use the mouse to drag the screen where you want it. The sliders in the upper right corner allow you to vary the tranparency of either the charts or the labels (ie the road names, etc). If you click the "Map" button you can vary the tranparency of the Google maps and the overlain NOAA charts. Likewise if you click on the "Satellite" button, you use the slider to vary the tranparency of Google Satellite images and overlain NOAA charts. The following clips show the effects. Note that in the satellite view, Dutch Island is missing. (It seems to vary according to the latest images obtained by Google.) So much for relying on satellite views.
all Google map |
half NOAA chart |
all NOAA chart |
all Google Satellite |
half NOAA chart |
all NOAA chart |
You can print the screen with your browser, the maximum detail chart (sample from 1280x1024 pixel monitor) is limited to your monitor resolution. But you will also be limited by the size of paper (sample printed on letter paper) used in your printer. I think the half views are confusing, but the site is useful to print out exact views of a specific area on separate paper maps, such as a map each of the NOAA chart, the roads in the area via Google maps, and the satellite view. If you are interested in just the NOAA charts, it is probably easier to print the On-Line raster maps in the previous page.