London in 3D with Nokia Maps and CNN

“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life, for there is in London all that life can afford,”

Samuel Johnson, September 1777.

As a Londoner, I’ve found Johnson’s words entering my thoughts quite a bit recently, particularly as the games get underway this week, with the UK capital as the host city for the world’s most important sporting event.

From William and Kate’s royal wedding to the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and now the events over the next couple of weeks, I know I haven’t tired of this great city’s ability to meld history, pageantry and athletics onto the world stage.

And now there’s a new way to appreciate London from a bird’s eye view – and in 3D to boot. CNN has created some amazing flyovers of London using Nokia Maps 3D. You can track the Torch’s whereabouts as it’s carried through the city streets.

You can peer down on Hyde Park, the setting for the triathlon, or take in an aerial of the aquatic arena that plays host to swimming and diving. It’s breathtaking to fly over London in high definition, and the maps give us a new way to experience the games.

Nokia’s 3D experience offers the highest degree of photorealism on the market, collecting data from satellites, airplanes and cars. Including London, we have 3D maps in 25 of the world’s most famous cities, including New York, San Francisco, Berlin and Rome. What’s more, these maps provide interactive visuals – not simply screen shots – that bring the traditional paper map to life.

Nokia and CNN kicked off our partnership in 2011 first with the CNN app for Windows Phone, which gave Nokia Lumia users direct access to iReport, CNN’s participatory news community. Recently CNN and Nokia shared a Cannes Lion Award for the app, with iReport named the overall winner in the “best use of social” category.

So, it’s all the more exciting to now see Nokia Maps 3D being used as a powerful tool for journalism and social engagement. With the mapping tools of Nokia Location Platform, CNN can create broadcast-quality maps on their own, no design or coding experience required. This makes it possible for CNN to build experiences customized for their viewers.

Tell us what you think of the London maps, and if you had a bird’s eye view of the city over the next couple of weeks, what would you like to see up close?

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