Peek inside a famous museum. Plan a family vacation. Check out your own backyard from space. Digital mapping tools let you view God’s world—right from your home computer.

When you need directions, MapQuest can help you. When you’ve lost your dog, Garmin’s dog tracker can help find it. Want to know what your town looked like 50 years ago? A company called TerraServer takes photos from the air and space. They can send you historical photos.

The biggest computerized mapping company is Google. Some people love Google. Other’s don’t. But Google certainly changed the way we think of maps.

Google’s Street View allows users to “tour”. Street View shows people photos of almost any place on the globe.

How does Google get the images? A camera-toting team goes to a location. They walk, drive, or bicycle around. They use multiple cameras to photograph many angles. They blend lots of small images. That makes one big image. This helps users see an all-around view.

So you can get directions. You can find your dog. You can view the past. You can “visit” the South Pole. That’s all thanks to new digital mapping. Remember yesterday’s fold-up paper charts? Today’s maps are miles beyond.