Today, I mapped a residential area (Prem Nagar in Berhampur) by collecting GPS traces here. The houses are so tightly packed that it is near impossible to trace the street via satellite imagery. The roads were awfully paved and I had to be very careful not to peep into many shop signs, or else people here think I’m snooping. I can’t blame them though; many recent burglary cases were registered in this area.

Still, you can’t avoid being seen when you are exploring! When I was mapping a street, an elderly woman scolded me and inquired what I was doing there! I just gave her a smile and moved on. Hope she cools down soon enough.

Bing just updated the imagery over my home town! Earlier 80% of the town was cloud-covered and I had to resort to GPS traces to map all the roads here. And believe me, with the poor accuracy of my receiver, I had a tough time doing so. But today when I wanted to update some more roads here where the imagery was good, I was pleasantly surprised to find clear ground view. Not a speck of cloud cover! Even up to the highest zoom levels! Now I can easily map all the minor details like building outlines, street lamps, minor streets and lots more.

Thank you Bing for this wonderful surprise :)