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Google Adds Satellite Imagery to Maps
Ant writes "BetaNews reports that Google quietly updated its maps service late Monday to include satellite imagery, a first in the industry... Much of Google Maps remains the same - just with detailed pictures from high-tech satellites instead of standard map graphics. Maps can be dragged to view adjacent areas, which means users do not have click and wait for graphics to reload. Zooming is also instantaneous with the help of a slider placed atop the map." The resolution doesn't seem very high, but the integration is very seamless.
I can imagine taking some very high resolution artwork and displaying it using this technology. I can zoom in to the max resolution or your can scroll around forever.
Anybody have any software that would take a large image file and apply a google-map-like interface to it? The software should be something as simple as:
If you are smart about your image naming conventions you shouldn't even need a powerful webserver. The whole thing could be served up via static files from a webserver with enough disk space and a big enough pipe.
I'd like to see this for things like:
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On-line Currency Exchange Rate Conversion Calculator
Looks like, at least in parts, the imagery is from an older dataset than what's on the Keyhole service. I live in a large neighborhood that's been under construction for 3 years across the various sections, and there are more houses in the Keyhole dataset than on the Google Maps satellite images.
No idea how much older, but it can't be more than a year or so.
Looking at the map, I went to see if my neighborhood was there. There are not even streets on the images. Just a big brown field. The streets were put in about 4 years ago!
Not really - try mousing over this map (hope the link works).
fud, notfud, yes, no, maybe
... Microsoft's terraserver has been doing this for many years. I'm guessing 5 or 6 years but I could be off by a couple.
Wow, even though I'm not american, the seamless scrolling makes the application superb way to waste time - zoom into a city, and just start scrolling along a road, and you never know where you are going to get!
Rather nice if you want to plan a trip, too, as you get an idea how things look like along the way! And if the resolution gets better in distant future, who will need to do the actual trip anyway?
If a service like this really becomes popular, it has vast potential - just zoom to where you are, and you can see all web sites in the area, plus visual hints on how to get there and how does the thing look like. Now if you only could link images taken from those places directly to maps..
http://codeandlife.com
Satelite photo of the whitehouse - on Google maps
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Indeed you're right. Multimap has had aerial photos for a while... For example, this is where I live! The Aerial photos are actually provided by Getmapping.com. The aerial photos aren't available for all locations, but certianly most of the UK is covered.
YMMV!
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hmmm, I'm sure the whitehouse roof isn't quite that plain in real life :-)
Try getting directions, then change to satellite view. Your route is still overlayed perfectly over the roads you need to take, even though the images are slightly different than the vector map.
This is one of the coolest things I've ever seen. If it was possible to center the Google map based on lat/lon, just imagine how easy it would be to write a script that took input from your GPS and used it to scroll the map.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I shouldnt be surprised by this, but the images are stitched from different sat. passes. My home town of Dallas is compiled from at least two perspectives. Quite disorienting when two skyscrapers lean across each other. and shawdows point at different angles.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=44.962159395217896, -93.5434341430664&spn=0.008153915405273438,0.01179 0990829467773&t=k&hl=en
All is Number -Pythagoras.
They've done something to the roofs of the neighbouring buildings (to the white house) as well...
~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
Or until it shows Area 51, which I notice is conspicuously missing.
RST
Nice one. I thought it was cool that the shadows of the towers of the George Washington Bridge (New York City) were pointing in different directions. (Sorry I couldn't get a URL, so you'll have to search for it yourself. Try "178th and Broadway New York City" then scroll left a little.)
http://mygmaps.com/ enables you to create, save and host custom data files and display them with Google Maps. It includes a standalone viewer so you can show your custom map on your site.
--Phil.
Although the map portion of maps.google is still only for the U.S., the satelite mode has the whole globe, but only at a large scale.
Here is England, for instance
Humorously, if you scroll outside of the U.S. in map mode, you just get ocean and then back to the U.S. again. It's as if Americans had just obliterated all the other countries...
Nor are the buildings next door a flat green color on top.
development.lombardi.com
The Swiss have it already http://map.search.ch/index.en.html Just blur out the military establishments
Yeah, it was the second place I searched for (after my house). http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Rachel,Nevada&ll=37. 249146,-115.809631&spn=0.129948,0.191231&t=k&hl=en
Some parts of the map do have about 1 meter per pixel resolution. Go to Coralville, IA and zoom all the way in. You can see individual cars parked at shopping centers.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Check this out, the US Capital Building congressional offices in Washington are totally obscured...d +1st+street,washington,+dc&ll=38.891006,-77.008873 &spn=0.008444,0.010664&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=constitution+ave+an
It's the same with KeyHole as well (screenshot):
http://www.allbootdisks.com/images/keyhole.jpg
Is keyhole doing this to all 'sensitive' targets?
Looks like they still have work to do lining up the images. Check out the Boise river and Bronco stadium (yes, blue Astroturf).
o ise,+id&t=k&hl=en/
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1010+Broadway+ave,b
You're both quite correct. See the SecurityFocus article "Secret Service airbrushes aerial photos". Note that the link to the old vs new images has changed since the article was written - they're now here. You might notice a remarkable similarity between a couple of the retouched pictures and Google's White House imagery.
A marriage is always made up of two people who are prepared to swear that only the other one snores.
Except that Aerial Ortho dataset was produced by the USGS and is public domain. Check out World Wind 1.3 for a smooth-scrolling, translatable, 3d globe that dynamically downlads any dataset you request and grabs higher res versions as you zoom in.
See here:5 3&spn=0.032444,0.042658&t=k&hl=en
;)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=43.198586,-77.6302
Notice the big fuzzy section. I used to work there and can tell you that that is Kodak Park (well, whats left of it as Kodak Management lays off the workforce, moves the operations to China, then demolishes the buildings- more layoffs next week).
The entire region is blurred out and unusable, so that you can't see into it.
What I'd like to know is whether or not this is common for other areas (anyone know lat/long of an oil refinery?) and other areas of key civil importance.
Otherwise maybe Kodak doesn't want them spying
Wow, I guess Google MAPS is completely SOL, huh?
So, what, you wanted intel-grade satellite maps for free from a company providing driving directions? That's a little silly.
And yes, I work with Satellite imagery.
Then presumably you don't need to get it from google, hmmm?
I'm looking at my house right now. A tree that was cut down early in 2003 is still there. A circular path started in summer 2002 (made by exercising a horse, so it's very visible) is also there. And by the amount of greenery here in the desert, and that our veggie garden had already died off, it is probably early in the dry season. So at least in my neighbourhood, the image appears to date from about July of 2002.
The resolution is good enough that I can see the single stripe down the middle of a nearby two-lane highway. I can also see two cars and an 18-wheeler. The smallest visible object is a 4x8 sheet of plywood atop the shelter in my corral. I can also see my kennel concrete, which at that point is 15 feet wide, represented by 5 pixels on the saved image (you can pillage them via Moz's Page Info function). So there's the max resolution -- one pixel = about 3 feet (plus or minus some blurring).
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Check this site:
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http://locator.region.waterloo.on.ca/
(warning - I have only seen it work in IE).
The region of Waterloo (ON, CAN) has aerial photography at 10cm resolution (~4in) in B&W for 2000 and 2003. I've been looking for a house, and this is a really great site for checking out the state of yards without visiting them. You can see trees, fences, the size of driveways, if the house is going to be in the shadow of an apartment building . .
I honestly have no issue with 10cm resolution being available to the general public. No tin foil on my head.
It may look like I'm doing nothing, but I'm actively waiting for my problems to go away.
--Scott Adams
The air force base I live near isn't blurred at all. You can even see the planes on the runways
Free MacMini
Good enough to see SR-71s parked on a tarmac:
l l=34.952788,-117.884331&spn=0.006480,0.006738&t=k& hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Kramer+Junction,CA&
Scroll east to see a huge compass rose painted in desert.
Comic Book Guy's answer: "As a viewer, I feel they owe me."
if you don't like the free service google offers, you said it yourself - mapquest already does it apparently. AND... it's 3 fewer letters to type in than maps.google.com. So there's your answer.
and they'd rather sweep this under the rug.
So if you can see the airplane and its shadow, doesn't that tell you where the satellite is/was? http://maps.google.com/maps?q=dfw+airport&ll=32.91 8773,-97.052397&spn=0.004442,0.006394&t=k&hl=en
As a DC resident I noticed that the White House and Capital are presented without detail and fuzzed out. Check it out with zip code 20513. What's missing in your town?
Is that why the aerial photographs of the area where I live are identical between TerraServer and Google, down to the cars on the street?
Look at Capitol Hill in Seattle (try 100 Broadway E, Seattle, WA). Then claim those photos are off different satellites. They might not have gotten them straight from TerraServer, but they didn't get them from DigitalGlobe either.
I lived for a few years in Tijuana, Mexico, and it looks like TJ and most border towns are completely mapped at the highest resolutions, as well. I could spot the house where I stayed and everything. You have to search for San Ysidro, CA and then drag southward, though. Here's a link to the border crossing gate. The line dividing the screen is the "iron curtain" -- The wall between the countries built by the US.
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Yup, you're right, that is USGS Urban images. Google definitely shouldn't be watermarking them. At the very least they need to credit USGS. Does anybody know what the USGS usage policy is?
Same here:
The Boneyard a few miles away from my house.
Pan west... that's a crapload of planes.
... although some areas seem to have artificially limited resolution. Groom Lake, NV