[SA] Google Maps Adds San Antonio to Street View

[sirkingwilliam]

Check it out.

www.maps.google.com

Click on Street View and cameras will appear on the cities that have it.

[sirkingwilliam]

It looks like they only covered 1/3 of the metro area. I hope that isn't all they're doing. They didn't do most of the west side, far west side, most of the northwest side, they didn't do the Stone Oak area or Schertz/Cibolo.

I would hope they did and would gradually update.

[ydoc14]

Awesome! I can use this to compare the building heights

What I'll do is view each building from the same distance away and measure, using centimeters, the height of the building in that frame and then compare them. Should work

Don't have time to do it tonight, hopefully w/in the next few days though

[Paul in S.A TX]

Wow, I spent almost an hour checking it out. Cool!

[ydoc14]

Good news, I ended up having time to do it tonight!

THE MYSTERY HAS BEEN SOLVED......

Let me start off by saying that this was really simple to do, and I really encourage you guys to do it yourselves too. Here's the steps:

Using Google Earth, I located a point as close to 652' away from each building. Then, once I found that point, I viewed the view from that point on Google Maps. Next, I took a ruler, and measured in centimeters the height of the building in that view. (Measurement will vary from mine depending on the resolution of your monitor).
** At 652' away, the 622' point of the roof on Tower of the Americas was not visible, but it doesn't really matter because ToA wasn't in question anyway.

Here are the results from a distance of 652', give or take a foot:

Weston Centre---> 4.6 cm
Grand Hyatt San Antonio---> 4.4 cm
Marriott Rivercenter---> 4.3 cm (Pyramids) / 4.1 cm (Roof) / 4.6 cm (Spires)
Tower Life---> 4.2 cm (Base of Antenna) / 3.9 cm (Top of Roof)
Bank of America Plaza---> 4.0 cm

As we suspected, the mechanical penthouse is higher than the pyramids.

Now, time for some math. We can now figure out the heights and compare them to the heights on Emporis. We will base it off of the Weston Centre using a proportion: 4.6 = 444. To find the height of one of the others, take its height in centimeters and multiply it by 444. Then, divide by 4.6.

Results:

Weston Centre---> 444'
Grand Hyatt San Antonio---> 424.7'....Emporis: 424'....
Marriott Rivercenter---> 415' (Pyramids) / 395.7' (Roof) / 444' (Spires)....Emporis: 441' / 546'....
Tower Life---> 405.4' (Base of Antenna) / 376.4' (Top of Roof)....Emporis: 404'....
Bank of America Plaza---> 386.1'....Emporis: 387'....

SO, Grand Hyatt is 9' taller than the pyramids on the Marriott. The Weston Centre is the same height as the spires on the Marriott; they're tied. I like the Weston Centre more myself, so I'm going to claim the Weston as the tallest. When viewing Tower Life, my eye is drawn to the top of the roof and not the base of the antenna. So, for me visually, the skyline now goes as this:

1. Tower of the Americas - 622'
2. Weston Centre - 444'
3. Grand Hyatt San Antonio - 424'
4. Marriott Rivercenter - 415'
5. Bank of America Plaza - 387'
6. Tower Life - 376'

Kevin, you may now change Emporis to accurately reflect the Marriott

[Trae]

Originally Posted by sirkingwilliam

It looks like they only covered 1/3 of the metro area. I hope that isn't all they're doing. They didn't do most of the west side, far west side, most of the northwest side, they didn't do the Stone Oak area or Schertz/Cibolo.

I would hope they did and would gradually update.

It will be for a while.

[Schertz1]

Originally Posted by ydoc14

Good news, I ended up having time to do it tonight!

THE MYSTERY HAS BEEN SOLVED......

Let me start off by saying that this was really simple to do, and I really encourage you guys to do it yourselves too. Here's the steps:

Using Google Earth, I located a point as close to 652' away from each building. Then, once I found that point, I viewed the view from that point on Google Maps. Next, I took a ruler, and measured in centimeters the height of the building in that view. (Measurement will vary from mine depending on the resolution of your monitor).
** At 652' away, the 622' point of the roof on Tower of the Americas was not visible, but it doesn't really matter because ToA wasn't in question anyway.

Here are the results from a distance of 652', give or take a foot:

Weston Centre---> 4.6 cm
Grand Hyatt San Antonio---> 4.4 cm
Marriott Rivercenter---> 4.3 cm (Pyramids) / 4.1 cm (Roof) / 4.6 cm (Spires)
Tower Life---> 4.2 cm (Base of Antenna) / 3.9 cm (Top of Roof)
Bank of America Plaza---> 4.0 cm

As we suspected, the mechanical penthouse is higher than the pyramids.

Now, time for some math. We can now figure out the heights and compare them to the heights on Emporis. We will base it off of the Weston Centre using a proportion: 4.6 = 444. To find the height of one of the others, take its height in centimeters and multiply it by 444. Then, divide by 4.6.

Results:

Weston Centre---> 444'
Grand Hyatt San Antonio---> 424.7'....Emporis: 424'....
Marriott Rivercenter---> 415' (Pyramids) / 395.7' (Roof) / 444' (Spires)....Emporis: 441' / 546'....
Tower Life---> 405.4' (Base of Antenna) / 376.4' (Top of Roof)....Emporis: 404'....
Bank of America Plaza---> 386.1'....Emporis: 387'....

SO, Grand Hyatt is 9' taller than the pyramids on the Marriott. The Weston Centre is the same height as the spires on the Marriott; they're tied. I like the Weston Centre more myself, so I'm going to claim the Weston as the tallest. When viewing Tower Life, my eye is drawn to the top of the roof and not the base of the antenna. So, for me visually, the skyline now goes as this:

1. Tower of the Americas - 622'
2. Weston Centre - 444'
3. Grand Hyatt San Antonio - 424'
4. Marriott Rivercenter - 415'
5. Bank of America Plaza - 387'
6. Tower Life - 376'

Kevin, you may now change Emporis to accurately reflect the Marriott

You can request to see the plans for any building in town through open records at code compliance. That would include the Nix, Marriott – River Center and River walk, One River walk Place, and the ones currently under construction.

My own River Center observations conclude it is much taller than the GH. At night, the top of the spire is illuminated by a red light. This red light is almost even with the bottom of the TOA and the red light atop of the Tower life antenna.

I also believe the mechanical penthouse at GH is still covered by scaffolding making it appear higher than it is.

[ydoc14]

Originally Posted by Schertz1

You can request to see the plans for any building in town through open records at code compliance. That would include the Nix, Marriott – River Center and River walk, One River walk Place, and the ones currently under construction.

My own River Center observations conclude it is much taller than the GH. At night, the top of the spire is illuminated by a red light. This red light is almost even with the bottom of the TOA and the red light atop of the Tower life antenna.

I also believe the mechanical penthouse at GH is still covered by scaffolding making it appear higher than it is.

Ummm, I won't argue with you, but I do completely disagree with you. The spires are not level w/ the bottom of ToA, they are shorter, and you can see this from any skyline shot. Also, the Hyatt in the Google Maps doesn't have the cladding on the penthouse, it's just the frame. They won't be removing the framing, therefore the height is staying as is. Also, from skyline shots, the penthouse is a little higher than the pyramids on the Marriott.
I wonder if the 441' height for the Marriott is actually for the spires, that would line up with what I found. 546' is bogus.

[sirkingwilliam]

Originally Posted by Trae

It will be for a while.

And you know this how?

[Trae]

Originally Posted by sirkingwilliam

And you know this how?

They won't. What SA has is going to be there for a while. Google is still doing other cities. Once they finish, then they will upgrade. No city has had upgrades at all yet.

[elmariachi]

Cool, I came out driving my green Honda down Market Street just west of Flores.

[KevinFromTexas]

Not to get off topic, but yeah the spires on the Marriott are lower than the bottom of the top house on the Tower of the Americas - at least visually they appear to be. The bottom of the top house on TOA is about 550 feet up according to information put out by the tower's management. Considering the height we have for the Marriott Rivercenter to the spires is 546 feet, and yet they don't come up to the bottom of the top house, is a pretty good indication that they are not 546 feet high. In most cases the Weston Centre appears to have a higher roof, at least counting the rooftop structure too, it appears to be taller than the roof of the Marriott. Typically though the spires on the Marriott look to be about the same height as the Weston Centre. So ydoc14's measurements are pretty close to what I would expect the heights to be.

As Schertz1 mentioned, you guys could request the information from the City of San Antonio. I would love it if you did! I would surely get the information added to Emporis and here at SkyscraperPage. I could even provide a list of buildings to look for.

[ydoc14]

Well, after standing between Commerce and Market, via Google Maps, and looking up and all around, I'm gonna have to say the Marriott Rivercenter, GH, and Marriott Riverwalk make a pretty impressive threesome....pardon the pun.