Google Birdseye Maps Downloader

Amongst others, Google has managed to make an even bigger name for itself with the Maps service. Being one of the most commonly used today, it lets you view any location on the planet from multiple heights and even with 3D representations of buildings. In this regard, Google Birdseye Maps Downloader lets you grab and assemble maps, just like the name suggests.

Launching the application brings up the main window, which makes a rather poor first impression. This is because your expectations of seeing a map to easily navigate to the desired area is shattered, there's no such implemented feature.

The application is a downloader indeed, but it functions on other sets of rules. You don't need external applications or URLs to grab images, with most effort on your behalf being patience. A few drop-down menus let you set up download parameters, while hitting the “Start” button puts the process in motion and displays a real time updating log of events.

A considerable amount of time needs to be spent until you actually get ahold of the desired result. You can't gather any region, with a drop-down menu letting you select from various cities from around the world. If you're looking for big cities, chances are you find it in the list, otherwise it's best to look for alternatives.

There's also a field to specify the zoom level, which determines the number of images downloaded, and this is an important aspect to consider. Free up some space in the learning process, because an abundance of images are downloaded.

The whole process runs on tasks you manually create. These are only a profile that hold all download options so you can re-download files at any given time. A couple of tools are at your fingertips, such as an option to combine all images into a single map, as well as a viewer.

Sadly, the combiner tool eats up a disturbingly high amount of disk space, and it feels like forever to finish. Because of the size, you'll most likely have trouble finding a suitable viewer capable of processing it. The viewer counterpart doesn't come as a solution, because it can only open tasks, but navigation is rather difficult and functionality flawed.

Taking everything into consideration, we can say that Google Birdseye Maps Downloader is a poor choice when it comes to map downloaders or builders. Starting with the lack of a simple viewer to easily select area of interest and ending up with the odd implementation and functionality of extra tools, the application leaves a lot more to be desired.