Tagzania Blog

The death of Spanish mountaineer Iñaki Ochoa de Olza last month in the Annapurna was a dramatic event . It’s not the first time a top climber dies in the Himalaya (a perilous place), but the circumstances in this case were very specific. It was not an instant accident, but Iñaki lost consciousness at 7,400 meters of altitude, and remained there, accompanied by other climbers, while an international team of rescuers tried to save him desperately during several days. You can read a poignant chronicle in The Independent, or check the posts in Don Bowie’s blog (Bowie was one of the rescuers).

Mountain-related blogs and sites also followed the events, and a Basque newsblog produced a little map of the route to Annapurna, the peaks and Iñaki’s position there. Now that map can be viewed with the new 3D view, and it’s striking.

Eventually, Iñaki didn’t make it. But he didn’t die alone. Iñaki Ochoa de Olza’s body now rests there forever. It was an impossible task to recover the dead body from 7,400 meters of altitude and the family was quick to ask all rescuers to come down as soon as possible, letting Iñaki rest in the mountain, which, probably, would have been his own desire.

Another great map in Tagzania, all 14 peaks above 8,000 meters, also in the new 3D fullscreen view.

After making some tests, we have released a new feature that shows us Tagzania´s maps, points and routes in 3D, it´s Google Earth … in your browser! (only for Windows until August). Have a look to the following screenshot; as you can see, there is a new option called “Earth”:

We have included this 3D option in our embedable code, so that you can have a 3D map in your website or blog. For example, you can show that place, The Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament, in London in your website easily.

Big Ben. Houses of Parliament map

You can get the embedding code in any page in Tagzania. It’s tuned to show the 3d view right now, but if you want another view or want to tune something, click in the Customize link and you have some options there.

We also added a “Big map 3D” link to our maps. And, if you like maps, then you´re going to love it. In the following link you can see the Empire State Building and New York´s skyline in 3D. Routes also are nice to see in this 3D view, for example the popular race between Behobia and San Sebastian. It´s obvious that those places with 3D buildings look nicer than those without, but there´s no doubt this API will help the appearence of new 3D images.

Apart from that, you might have noticed that we´ve made some other changes, such as making easier the embeding process and a “cleaning” of the “Open Maps” section (we´ve left only most popular links according to statistics).

For Mac and Linux users, well, you’ll have to wait until August (that’s what Google promised), but in the meantime just can download the KML archive and open it with Google Earth’s client application to enjoy the 3D views.