Google Earth Incorporates Crowdsourced Balloon Images

garymortimer writes with this excerpt from sUAS News: "The Public Laboratory for Open Technology and Science announced today that community-generated open source maps — captured from kites and balloons — have been added to Google Earth. The 45 plus maps are the first aerial maps produced by citizens to be featured on the site, and are highlighted on the Google Lat Long Blog. The Public Laboratory is an expansion of the Grassroots Mapping community. During an initial project mapping the BP oil spill, local residents used helium-filled balloons and digital cameras to generate high-resolution D.I.Y 'satellite' maps documenting the extent of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico — at a time when there was little public information available. Expanding the toolkit beyond aerial mapping, Public Laboratory has been growing into a diverse community, both online and offline, experimenting with new ways to produce information about our surroundings. The lab's DIY kits cost less than $100 to assemble."

Comments

So, can I poison the data?

[fph il quozientatore]

It would be fun to forge false maps that show, for instance, an alien landing and submit them to Google along with a bunch of real images. Just sayin'...

Re:So, can I poison the data?

[SJHillman]

Or replace Redmond with Mount Doom?

What about open street map?

[bigredradio]

That's great that they are accepting images from "civilians", but it would be better if they were to collaborate with projects such as Open Street Map and really share data.

Re:What about open street map?

[Shoe Puppet]

Indeed. Google Maps is horribly outdated in some places I care about but I haven't found any OSM (Android) app that even comes close in usability to Google Maps.