A clear view of your favorite French beach or monument is only a click away
Millions of internet users have clicked on to "Geoportal,” the French answer to Google Earth offering high-resolution aerial imagery of France, in the first days of the site’s operation, the portal’s developers said.
France unveiled a Web site www.geoportail.fr that allows people to access detailed satellite images of the country and said it offered more detail of its territory than Google Earth www.earth.google.com.
President Jacques Chirac chaired the official launch of the Geoportal — a free service which allows users to zoom in to within 50 centimetres (20 inches) of the ground, a first in Europe.
Unlike the US service Google Earth, which offers views of the entire planet but high resolution only for certain areas, the Geoportal covers the whole of France’s territory, on the mainland and overseas.
"This is a step forward for all citizens, which places France at the forefront of new technologies," Chirac said at a ceremony in Paris.
But President Chirac stressed the need for France to have such a site, which will allow Internet users to view aerial photos and maps, saying the state had to be at the cutting edge of modern technology.
"It is also a case of economics," Chirac was quoted by his office as saying during a presentation of the new portal, which is a joint project by the National Geographic Institute and the Office of Geological and Mineral Research.
"With Galileo (the European Union satellite navigation system), with the mobile telephone, services linked to global positioning will develop a lot. It is also about democracy because our citizens have the right to know all the facts about the environment."
The flood of traffic to the site, which offers high-resolution aerial imagery of France, has meant only about one in five has been able to connect to Geoportail.
Developed by the state-funded National Geographic Institute (IGN), in a bid to rival the success of the US pioneer in the field, Google Earth, it lets users switch from aerial views of a site, to detailed maps, charts and geological data — with a three-dimensional tool to be added in the autumn.
This fantastic interest encourages the promoters of this innovative project to go even further, the IGN said. "But it has also caused the saturation of the site, beyond anything we may have feared."
If the exceptional level of traffic to the website continues, the promoters may need to regulate access to the site, probably on the basis of passwords, the IGN said.
Meanwhile, the Geoportail developers urge patience. Analysts say the average traffic to the most popular French webites is about four million a day. What internet users are waiting for is the chance to zoom to within 50cm of the ground, a first in Europe.
The €6 million ($10.2 million) project aims to reproduce the success of Google Earth which has been downloaded by some 100 million people since its launch a year ago.
The Geoportail was built using 400,000 aerial photographs compiled and updated every five years by the IGN — as well as 3,700 maps — with only certain sensitive or military zones left blurred.
Google Earth, which allows Internet users to zoom in on locations around the world, caused concern when it was launched last year among governments who feared terrorists’ might use the service to help plot attacks.
Users can run a search by town or street name or by keying-in a tourist site or natural feature and in some cases can click through to multimedia files with relevant video or photo archives.
Would-be users faced initial disappointment however, as a surge of connections caused the service to crash shortly after its launch.