CanobieFan
Active Member
well, that was certainly... uh, a thing. <3
Yeah. Server issue, but should be good now as both furie and I have tested it.
roomraider
Best Topic Starter
You can say that again. By the looks of it, they didn't even bother to tell the regular guests there that they were filming. Looking at the various stunts done there, I can't help but wonder whether the park management knew anything either.
roomraider
Best Topic Starter
It's still amazing haha. I love it. And has some of the best footage I've seen of the jet coaster as a bonus.
Peet
Member
I've been geeking out looking at the "bird's eye" feature in Bing Maps - just about the only reason to use Bing over Google!
The website is here: https://www.bing.com/maps/ . Just navigate/search for the area and right click and select "View bird's eye". There are 4 viewing angles for most of them which are worth exploring. It's only available in certain areas though - so a lot of parks don't feature.
I remember looking at these when I was a teenager (it was called Live Maps back then), and the UK imagery doesn't seem to have been updated much since then, giving us some great historic shots.
Let's start at the Pleasure Beach:
See how many changes you can spot! It's before the addition of the Dancing Fountain, but after the removal of Spin Doctor so I recokon that puts it between 2006 and 2009.
Here's Thorpe Park. The Flying Fish is in its new location but Saw is not yet built, making this 2007-2008:
Down at Margate, the Scenic Railway stands intact complete with a rather sorry looking fairground, putting it around the time of my first visit in 2006, just before it closed.
Over in Wales, you can still see Ocean Beach Amusement Park in Rhyl which was razed in 2007:
Down at Folkestone, the Runaway Coaster stands alone awaiting its fate:
I still feel absolutely gutted that this ride wasn't saved - there must have been hundreds of Fig-8 coasters like this at one time and this was one of only two survivors before it was flattened in 2007. Did anyone here get to ride this one?
Here's Clarence Pier with the old Skyways coaster which Mr Bean rode:
Over to Cleethorpes now, and a nice view of the former Pleasure Island before it closed in 2016.
One of the saddest sights now, with Pleasureland Southport somehow looking even worse than it does now:
This looks to me like fairly soon after the old park was demolished; before the Haunted Inn and River Caves burned down, so probably around 2007.
One of the old images I have saved on my PC which I think is from Live maps shows the original park, which I was lucky enough to visit in 2006:
Up at Morecambe, the Polo tower and log flume still stand at Frontierland:
The Polo Tower stood for 17 years after the park closed before finally being demolished in 2017, I think it was left because of some radio hardware that was still in use. Does anyone know whay the log flume was left for so long? As far as I can tell it's still there.
One final UK park - Codona's in Aberdeen in its "heyday" before selling both larger coasters. I did wander there once but everything was closed.
Elsewhere there's some great imagery of parks in the US, but it seems to be much more up-to-date that the UK stuff. I haven't found much in Europe except for the 3 big Spanish Parks.
Here's how Dragon khan looked before it got dwarfed:
Let's take a minute to appreciate how good Stampida looks from the air:
Parque Warner Madrid has some good shots too but the park never adds anything new so there's no way of knowing the year! The only change I could tell is that the waterpark is missing:
Here are the big guns at Parque de Atracciones de Madrid:
I hope you enjoyed that output of several mis-spent hours of my life! If you enjoy aeriel images then it's definitely worth having a look yourself, let me know if I missed any good ones!
The website is here: https://www.bing.com/maps/ . Just navigate/search for the area and right click and select "View bird's eye". There are 4 viewing angles for most of them which are worth exploring. It's only available in certain areas though - so a lot of parks don't feature.
I remember looking at these when I was a teenager (it was called Live Maps back then), and the UK imagery doesn't seem to have been updated much since then, giving us some great historic shots.
Let's start at the Pleasure Beach:
See how many changes you can spot! It's before the addition of the Dancing Fountain, but after the removal of Spin Doctor so I recokon that puts it between 2006 and 2009.
Here's Thorpe Park. The Flying Fish is in its new location but Saw is not yet built, making this 2007-2008:
Down at Margate, the Scenic Railway stands intact complete with a rather sorry looking fairground, putting it around the time of my first visit in 2006, just before it closed.
Over in Wales, you can still see Ocean Beach Amusement Park in Rhyl which was razed in 2007:
Down at Folkestone, the Runaway Coaster stands alone awaiting its fate:
I still feel absolutely gutted that this ride wasn't saved - there must have been hundreds of Fig-8 coasters like this at one time and this was one of only two survivors before it was flattened in 2007. Did anyone here get to ride this one?
Here's Clarence Pier with the old Skyways coaster which Mr Bean rode:
Over to Cleethorpes now, and a nice view of the former Pleasure Island before it closed in 2016.
One of the saddest sights now, with Pleasureland Southport somehow looking even worse than it does now:
This looks to me like fairly soon after the old park was demolished; before the Haunted Inn and River Caves burned down, so probably around 2007.
One of the old images I have saved on my PC which I think is from Live maps shows the original park, which I was lucky enough to visit in 2006:
Up at Morecambe, the Polo tower and log flume still stand at Frontierland:
The Polo Tower stood for 17 years after the park closed before finally being demolished in 2017, I think it was left because of some radio hardware that was still in use. Does anyone know whay the log flume was left for so long? As far as I can tell it's still there.
One final UK park - Codona's in Aberdeen in its "heyday" before selling both larger coasters. I did wander there once but everything was closed.
Elsewhere there's some great imagery of parks in the US, but it seems to be much more up-to-date that the UK stuff. I haven't found much in Europe except for the 3 big Spanish Parks.
Here's how Dragon khan looked before it got dwarfed:
Let's take a minute to appreciate how good Stampida looks from the air:
Parque Warner Madrid has some good shots too but the park never adds anything new so there's no way of knowing the year! The only change I could tell is that the waterpark is missing:
Here are the big guns at Parque de Atracciones de Madrid:
I hope you enjoyed that output of several mis-spent hours of my life! If you enjoy aeriel images then it's definitely worth having a look yourself, let me know if I missed any good ones!
Indeed, this is a cool effect. It was something Bing were doing long before Google - although I think their methodologies were/are quite different. As I understand it the Bing ones are done by doing some form of perspective analysis on the photos as they fly the panes over. They're working out how tall/wide/lumpy structures are by how they look in different photos (all the photos are taken straight down at regular intervals - from there it's just lots of maths).
I think for some places (notably some major cities) they are also somehow generating 3D geometry and projecting the images onto that. That gives the 3D effects you can get on Google Maps. I don't know if Bing are doing this too now - looks like they might be from your final image of Parque de Atracciones, as that's central to Madrid so likely to have been included in the model.
I posted about the Google version a few years back when I found out about it (although apparently I was a little late to the party even then
):
coasterforce.com
I think for some places (notably some major cities) they are also somehow generating 3D geometry and projecting the images onto that. That gives the 3D effects you can get on Google Maps. I don't know if Bing are doing this too now - looks like they might be from your final image of Parque de Atracciones, as that's central to Madrid so likely to have been included in the model.
I posted about the Google version a few years back when I found out about it (although apparently I was a little late to the party even then
):Cool way to view parks (and other stuff)
While doing a bit of research for the next series of Table of Elements I noticed something interesting and a new (for me, at least) feature in Google Maps! Note: the animations below are a little rough due to the compression and don't give the best representation - I suggest you try it...
CanobieFan
Active Member
Blackpool has to be 2007 or newer
2006 wouldn't have the SLC since it'd still be at Southport and I rode Spin Doctor when I went in June of 06 haha
2006 wouldn't have the SLC since it'd still be at Southport and I rode Spin Doctor when I went in June of 06 haha
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Peet
Member
I'm pretty sure the Bing ones are just good old fashioned aerial photos, taken from a low flying plane at an angle. As you scroll around it regularly "jumps" from one photo to the next, and there's no change in perspective as you scroll around. The 4 different viewing angles are just 4 different photos taken in different directions, and you can't look at any intermediate angles (only 4 views, 90 degrees apart). Another thing is that the straight-down satelite pictures in Bing are all much more up-to-date than the Bird's Eye views which can make it a little strange to switch between them! The Google 3D effect is much more advanced, it's cool but a little unnecessary!
Ha I missed that insignificant detail, good spot.Blackpool has to be 2007 or newer
2006 wouldn't have the SLC since it'd still be at Southport and I rode Spin Doctor when I went in June of 06 haha