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Google's Satellite Map Gets a 700-Trillion-Pixel Makeover (theatlantic.com)
An anonymous reader writes: On Monday, Google Maps has received a makeover with 700 trillion pixels of new data added to the service. The Atlantic reports: "The new map, which activates this week for all users of Google Maps and Google Earth, consists of orbital imagery that is newer, more detailed, and of higher contrast than the previous version. Most importantly, this new map contains fewer clouds than before -- only the second time Google has unveiled a "cloudless" map. Google had not updated its low- and medium- resolution satellite map in three years. The new version of the map includes data from Landsat 8, the newer version of the same satellite (Landsat 7, the U.S. government satellite which supplied the older map's imagery data), letting Google clear the ugly artifacts. Google's new update doesn't include imagery at the highest zoom levels, like the kind needed to closely inspect an individual house, pool, or baseball field. Those pictures do not come from Landsat at all, but from a mix of other public and private aerial and space-based cameras, including DigitalGlobe's high-resolution satellites. The image processing for this most recent map was completed entirely in Google Earth Engine, the company's geospatial-focused cloud infrastructure. In fact, the entire algorithm to create the cloudless map was written in Javascript in the Earth Engine development interface."
Seriously? This was done in Java Script? No wonder it took so long. Just sayin'.
I have a nagging feeling that where parts of this where written in Java Script (as in the user interface stuff that displays this shiny new data) the actual image processing to find and edit out the clouds was written in something else.... I don't work for Google so it's just a hunch...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So they can afford to buy new satellite imagery to replace three-year-old images, but they can't afford to consult a human interface expert to get the UI back to a usable state?