Google has created a labs section for all its products, where they introduce new features. These features are aimed towards special needs of individuals. If the feature become popular enough, it becomes the part of the product.
Google Maps also has a labs section where they introduce new features from time to time.
They have introduced a cool new feature called the “Distance Measurement Tool”. As the name indicates once enabled this tool helps you measure the distance between any 2 given points or places.
Enable & Use Distance Measurement Tool In Google Maps:
To activate this labs feature click on the small green flask icon on the upper right corner of the Google Maps page. Since its recently introduced it would be the very first feature in the list. Select enable to start using this feature.
Once enabled you would see a small ruler icon in the lower-left corner of the map, just next to the distance scale. Click on the icon to start using it. Once clicked the Distance Measurement Tool would show up in the left pane.
Just click to set a starting point and then click again at the location of the destination. You can add more than just a starting and an end point and the tool will add the distances between all points. Once you have selected two or more points, you’ll see how far apart they are, in a straight line.
The Tool would display the distance between the 2 points in the left pane of Google Maps.
Find Distance Between 2 Places With Google Maps:
In the above example we saw the distance between 2 places in a straight line. But this is good only if you own a helicopter, and plan to fly from one point to other. If we need to go by road – we can select multiple points to get a good estimate of the distance between 2 points.
Like the above image we have measured the distance between the LaGuardia Airport and the Hard Rock Cafe in NYC. With multiple points selected via the road, it gives us a more accurate estimate of distance.
Distance Measurement Options:
The default option for measuring the distance is kilometers and miles.
However if you are feeling geeky, you can measure the distance in various other scales – ranging from the American Football fields to Light years. In this case the distance we measured between these 2 points is about -143.551 football fields and 1.66494e-12 ly.
I think this is an awesome feature and would make measuring distance between 2 places quite easy. Although the distance won’t be exact – it would be a pretty good estimate.
What do you think? Do you like this labs feature? Would you like it to be part of Google Maps by default? Share you thoughts in the comments.
