Slashdot Mirror
Google Adds Satellite Imagery for the World
draevil writes "Google has hugely expanded the areas of the world that it covers with satellite imagery. Egypt, Iraq, mainland Europe and the UK have all now got satellite coverage to a lesser or greater degree. Slashdotters can now go see sights like Buckingham Palace or the Arc de Triomphe from the comfort of their own swivelchairs. Iraq in particular seems to have a large number of high-zoom areas. I just looked up the Baghdad Parade Grounds where Saddam used to take the salute and other towns like Fallujah are also there. Finding landmarks without the map content is a little harder, so what can the Slashdot crowd find?"
First to find the weapons of mass destruction (in Iraq) wins 2 cookies and a free can of soda redeemable at the cafetorium!
Let the commencement BEGINULATE!
The Pyramids of Giza! Oh wait, no...
The Great Wall of China! Oh wait, no...
The Sydney Opera House! Oh wait, no...
Seriously, can we please stop shitting ourselves everytime Google makes the smallest tweak?
No wonder people are saying the Make Blog is the new Slashdot...
This isn't a dupe. The previous update didn't allow you to zoom in so close on, for example, London.
Global symbol "$deity" requires explicit package name at line 2. - If only $scripture started "use strict;"
Why is the north side of the Conciergerie whited out?
I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.
I can see my house from here!
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
http://perljam.net/notes/interesting-google-satell ite-maps/
The earlier story covered satellite imagery too. This is just more butt-buddiness between Google and the /. editors.
It's a bit disconcerting to zoom out on, say, the US in satellite view, and see the whole state of New York a different color than its surroundings. This disparity is the same at all scales, presumably because of more recent satellite scans of that highly-populated and more-often-imaged area. Can they meld one region into another, without losing detail, and get rid of such effects?
Some of it is low quality, and some of it is covered with clouds and shadows on the ground .. and some of it is taken from ridiculous angels, making everything look funny. :)
"Michael! Every shot in this roll of film has your finger in it!"
I looked up my office at the corner of 6th and Congress in Austin, Texas and found that the gigantic Frost Bank building (the tallest building in downtown Austin) next door doesn't exist on the map. The Frost building has been there for over a year...So how old is this data?
To quote from the FAQ:
"Satellite images are current, but not real-time."
This seems a bit vague. Does "over a year old" really equal "current"?
I'm not criticizing, just curious. It's wicked cool even if the pictures aren't quite of the present. I just can't check for traffic jams on MoPac yet.
Eiffel Tower
St. Peter in Rome
Florence, Duomo
Water reservoirs in Sahara.
Creter of Vesuvius
Computers make very fast, very accurate mistakes
Nice picture. It looks like they used the post eruption photos only.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
Map view implies a perspective from directly above the area in question.
Satellite view on the other hand uses whatever perspective afforded by the position of the satellite. It isn't always directly overhead, you know.
So they have to translate one perspective onto another.
The real question is, do they get to know where the satellite was when it took each photo in question, or do they arrive at the matrix in some other way?
- Tour Eiffel
- Giza Pyramids
- Pompeya
- Osaka airport
- Munich olimpic stadium
- City of arts in Valencia
- Expo 98 in Lisboa
Gotta love this maps..DVD Ripping, Divx, VCD, SVCD under Linux
I didn't see a single backyard pool in that map of Fallujah. NO WONDER THEY'RE SO GODDAMN MAD.
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.976561,31.131907 &spn=0.007682,0.010428&t=k&hl=en
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
If you search for weapons of mass destruction they're all in one place here .
For some reason, if you try zooming in all the way you will notice that they "don't have imagery at this zoom level" which seems convenient to me.
Let's hope that the US government doesn't find out about this information lea^$*H^%&E%(&%L^&P*(^&%^*!
I got to looking for the Great Wall of China, and in Beijing I think I found Tianmen Square? Anyone who has been might be able to verify. Linky Also, the Great Wall is really hard to find because the colorers didn't do a good job in China, and most of the rivers are white. So anything long and winding is white. Good luck to whoever else is looking.
UFO Number 1 UFO Number 2 UFO Number 3
UFO Number 4 UFO Number 5 UFO Number 6
UFO Number 7 UFO Number 8 UFO Number 9
UFO Number 10 UFO Number 11 UFO Number 12
UFO Number 13 UFO Number 14 UFO Number 15
UFO Number 16 UFO Number 17 UFO Number 18
The truth is out there...
bort.
Free, Anonymous surfing: Pagewash.com.
Traditionally they actually convert arial photography to an "orthophoto" - which is a processed version of the photo to have an orthographic projection.
(If you don't know what that is, it's when you take a camera that's completely directly on top of the target area, with a lens as big as what you're taking, so there's no perspective shortening at all.)
They can do it two ways, I guess they either know where the satelite is, or they locate enough points on the photo (ie: manually eyeball feature x) and knowing each point's real world coordinates (ie: feature x is at lat a long b) they can work out the projection / deprojection.
Certainly, the Auckland Harbour Bridge would look different - ie: not like a flat road in the water - if it was anything but an orthographic projection.
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=maree,+Australia&ll= -29.533997,137.466431&spn=0.036736,0.061712&t=k&hl =en
Odd coincidence, just today I put up a set of pages derived from a database of the coordinates of all 788 of the Unesco World Heirtage sites, which includes many interesting landmarks.
Here is the page of Google Maps for World Heritage Sites, and there is also a blog entry for comments and corrections. Many can be zoomed in on. Enjoy.
Has it been over a year since you last donated to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
Finally! It's taken all these years to actually get a break in the clouds to photography these cities from above!
Sparks:Gadget:Beer Maker
It's not just Oslo. Google has low resolution images for much of the United States as well. For example, I went clicking around for some well-known race tracks (and my local track, not so well-known). Here's what I came up with:
- Pacific Raceways. Very good data, nice resolution, can easily make out the track. Scroll the map right to see the rest of the track (turns 7, 8, and 9).
- Portland International Raceway. Also very good detail. You can easily make out the optional Festival Curves (the lighter-colored kink on the front straight, the southwestern portion of the track).
- Mazda Laguna Seca. Horrible resolution. Close the little pin bubble if it's open when you click the link, and then look at the white and blue blob near the top of the window. That's Laguna Seca. Horrible.
- Road America. No better than Laguna Seca. Possibly worse, since you can't easily make out where the track is. If you look at the map, there's a highway (67) to the right of the two lakes. It heads south-southeast, makes a sharp kink to south-east, and has a smooth curve to south. If you look closely under the kink, that's Road America.
The sad thing is that this data is actually available from TerraServer, though it's mostly in black and white and is relatively old (Road America is 1992 and Laguna Seca is 1998). Also, TerraServer is not all AJAXy (I hate that name), so navigating the maps is more painful. That said, the data is there, and good.And I didn't even look for other maps until I'd found what looked like a containment building. Sure enough, a quick image search confirms that to be the plant.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
I was not surprised at all to find the rooftops of the White House and nearby buildings masked.
Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
Nothing to see here folks, please move along.
% 2051%20Pictures/
Already done: http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/b/f/bfs124/area
Try Multimap for the UK. It has much better aerial photos, and a translucent map overlay follows the mouse over the photo. It makes objects much easier to find because you can see where the roads are.
Decode these
The remains of Krakatoa
This is a pretty good view of the little volcanic archipelago in the Sunda Strait between West Java and Sumatra, remaining from the 1883 explosive eruption of Krakatoa. The Indonesians refer to it as Anak Krakatau, which means child of Krakatoa.
I was not surprised at all to find the rooftops of the White House and nearby buildings masked.
Neither was I. Nobody wants to see Condi sunbathing up there.
But seriously, what could someone see on those roofs that would be of any security importance? It's not like they're hiding a military base up there, unless Dubya has left his crayons and his "Nuuk Eyeran" titled pictures laying around on the roof. I guess it gives the head of the Secret Service the feeling that he's done something useful. (Which is the reason behind most of these empty-map excercises.)
I've had the same problem in the past. Make sure you are allowing scripts to change images.
In your Options/Preferences dialog, go to Web Features and click the Advanced button next to Enable Javascript. In that dialog, make sure Change Images is selected. That worked for me.
There are anti aircraft missiles stationed up there, and the non-censored pic would show how many, perhaps they could even be identified.
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
strange... that link's pointing somewhere else... hope this link will be ok... http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=48.494425,17.6830 96&spn=0.021501,0.031672&t=k&hl=en
You are of course competing with other recent eye of sauron lookalikes. So no hard feelings?
I am not sure what airbase that is on the above website but it is not area 51. the shape does not match any previous pictures. Here is area 51. It is just west of the Little a Le Inn in alamo nevada next to the white circular area. that is the groom lake dry lake bed. http://maps.google.com/maps?q=i-375+Alamo,+NV+8900 1&ll=37.361494,-115.491461&spn=0.477905,0.677032&t =k&hl=en
bin_laden# mkdir maps.google.com && cd maps.google.com && download-all http://maps.google.com/ && cd .. && burn2blue-ray maps.google.com && eject /dev/cdrom && rm -fr maps.google.com && sendmail -s "You have a good day!" -m "Fuck you!" president@whitehouse.org && chroot-initrd && format --slow / && halt
You can search Google maps by typing in the longitude and latitude.
4 4%C2%B011'54%22E&spn=0.006416,0.007907&t=k&hl=en
Abu Ghurayb is 3318'58"N 04411'54"E
So you can see that here:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=33%C2%B018'58%22N+0
Just had to dig that out, since I've been quite interested in it for a long time now..
3 &spn=0.062485,0.095615&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.383400,30.11481
-Jope
How come Google hasn't announced that their satellite imagery is from some secret spy-sat that has X-RAY VISION! One would think that would be something for the marketing department. Just take a look at the imagery of Oslo Town Hall: http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?q=Norway&ll=59.91117 2,10.733042&spn=0.004506,0.007725&t=k&hl=en
What is normally a big square boxy building built by bricks and therefore reddish-brown in color is here seen as a projection of the first underground floor (that green thing).
Their spy-tech needs some work tho, as you can see the shadows of the sqare walls quite well. People could hide bombs in shadows, you know.
I can't be assed into making links, but here's some stuff for ya:
3 7371,-118.082052&spn=0.006641,0.006652&t=k&hl=en 1 184,-76.330261&spn=0.018625,0.035448&t=k&hl=en 3 845,-76.331667&spn=0.005397,0.007918&t=k&hl=en 2 3520,-118.091547&spn=0.006641,0.006652&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=palmdale,ca&ll=34.6
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=norfolk,va&ll=36.95
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=norfolk,va&ll=36.95
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=palmdale,ca&ll=34.6
I typed in Edoras, Minas Tirith and Shire and nothing came up.
I know the guys and gals at Google are nerds but I see they're of the non-Tolkien-fanboy variety.
A slight shame but hey, you can't always have the lembas and eat it.
Ash nazg durbatuluk, ash nazg gimbatul Ash nazg thrakatuluk agh burzum-ishi krimpatul
This rich and colourful image of Hawaii shows the volanoes on the island! Fantastic!
Welp, it looks like I get 1000 points.
9 4&spn=0.007639,0.007725&t=k&hl=en
7 5&spn=0.007639,0.007725&t=k&hl=en
But first, here's a Saturn-V rocket at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. I grew up exactly 2.5 miles from this rocket. Next to the Saturn V are two upright rockets: a Mercury and a mumble-mumble 3000 (I forget).
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.554017,-95.0940
Now, about that plane in flight. At Hobby airport, also in Houston, is this Cessna (?) on final approach (upper right).
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=29.653130,-95.2879
Another program that displayed B/W aerial photos had a picture of Hobby airport, and an airliner that is just taking off.
I was excited to read this article and had some fun touring europe form my desk chair. But all that changed when I Zoomed out.
Just what the hell is going on at Google anyway?
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
The Mullberry was key to the invasion of Normandy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbor
Peace,
-McD
"Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." -- Calvin
Once upon a time, there was a company called Keyhole that paid DigitalGlobe lots of money to take lots and lots and lots of high res photos of the earth. The terms of DG seems to assign you copyright for a particular shot if you pay enough for it. Google then bought Keyhole.
However, not all of Google maps satellite is DG, some of it is NASA. They're usually pretty good about not labelling this as copyright Google, but they do get it wrong some of the time.
So no, google don't have spy satellites (yet..) but they do hold the copyright legitimately for most of the areas they claim to.
If you know they're there, any would-be attackers know it.Besides, showing those missiles would be a serious deterrent.
Knowing that the White House is guarded by AA batteries is not the same as knowing what types of missiles they have and where they're located.
Compare the situation to a grocery or department store -- you know there are a lot of black domes on the ceiling that could be hiding cameras, but you don't know how many actually are or where they're pointing. Telling people that there are cameras present is a deterence, but letting them know exactly where the cameras are gives too much information to would-be shoplifters.
Please stop this paranoid nonsense. Terrorist attacks kill far less people than smoking misguided military adventures by a rogue state somewhere in North America that isn't Canada or Mexico, or drunk driving.
Less likely, but still non-zero. When you're doing risk analysis, if something has only a 1% chance of happening, but the consequences would be catastrophic, it's prudent to take precautions. And keeping the military defenses of the Chief Executive's mansion secret is a perfectly sensible precaution.
Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
That is farmland. The fields are circular for irrigation reasons, and yes, they look like that from the sky.
Notice the green dots? I guess Google's censoring some of their map data.
Someone apparently hasn't flown cross-country.
The green is plants. They're circular because there's a irrigation machine like this spinning around on a central pivot.
I've heard (from a Russian professor) that there is a hotdog stand in the center of the Pentagon and that during the Cold War, the Russians had it targeted because they thought it was the entrance to where the Yankees held all the secret meetings, far underground.
This map of Chad shows that there is something water related there. It is just north of Koro-Toro, a ways south of Faya-Largeau (although there are similar features around that city according to the map).
I think the feature is a semi-permanent lake, one that may fill up in some seasons, and then possibly evaporate almost completely away (like the lake in Death Valley). Lake Chad was once huge (the Pale-Chadian Sea) and some of those semi-permanent lakes might be all that is left of the sea in the north. This link suggests a cause:
Lake Chad, located in the southwestern part of the basin at an altitude of 282 meters, surprisingly does not mark the basin's lowest point; instead, this is found in the Bodele and Djourab regions in the north-central and northeastern parts of the country, respectively. This oddity arises because the great stationary dunes (ergs) of the Kanem region create a dam, preventing lake waters from flowing to the basin's lowest point.
Djourab is in about the right place to be near these features.
Looked up lake Baikal (a very large lake in Siberia, 445m above sea-level) after remembering I had a poster on my wall for years showing the surface temperature of the lake from ATSR satellite imagery.. wondered what it looked like in more realistic colour.. but what is this huge line that crosses it?
If you zoom in and look carefully, you will see that it is likely cloth tape on the photograph. Probably put there for a reason (torn image, seam, etc.), prior to scanning.
What I can't explain is why it looks like it disappears into the lake at several points, but I'm guessing they touched up areas where there was no detail to worry about, such as the wide blue splotches of water. Maybe they had data for specific areas that they could blend in.
Either that, or the Russians have engineering technology that makes it unlikely that they would have lost the cold war... That object, if on the surface of the earth, would be fscking huge.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
dreamland or groom lake... not the video game one of my favorites... its in the US, but i still like it http://maps.google.com/maps?q=N+37+15+W+115+49&spn =0.081110,0.096731&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?ll=36.005974,-5.4770 28&spn=0.006555,0.008647&t=k&hl=en
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=-14.725971,-75.1421 93&spn=0.108318,0.168743&t=k&hl=en
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines