Google Adds Satellite Imagery to Maps 661
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.
Comeon, 1 meter per pixel.... (Score:5, Informative)
Frankly most of what's available is only good for mapping, and that isn't that good at best. Most of the images have been jpg'd to the point that an 8x8 block is destroying what little detail is available.
For example, 8x8 blocked JPG at 10 meters per pixel is a boatload of image data lost.
And yes, I work with Satellite imagery.
First in the industry??? (Score:5, Informative)
Bigger world (Score:3, Informative)
First? (Score:5, Informative)
Norwegian newspaper Aftenposten [aftenposten.no] have had this on their map-service for almost a year now. At any time in the map-search you can switch between a vector-based map and the satellite images. Very neat
Re:Erm (Score:2, Informative)
Satelite photos have been available on the internet for some time, but this certainly makes them much more convenient.
--
Open Source (GPL) Java Utilities (CSV, MD5, Open Browser) [ostermiller.org]
What about MultiMap? Not really "new" (Score:4, Informative)
How is this really "new" - in fact, MultiMap has an even cooler feature, which uses a Java applet to overlay the photos with the map, so the area your mouse is over gets a photo superimposed over it.
The only advantage Google has that I can see is a higher free resolution - if you want high res photos on Multimap, you have to pay.
Re:Example (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Erm (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Example (Score:5, Informative)
Look for the "Map - Satellite" in the top right corner and click Satellite.
Re:Erm (Score:4, Informative)
Re:First in the industry??? (Score:5, Informative)
No, you're wrong, the multimap is much more detailed and better looking than google's :-) (as well as being able to display the map at the same time as the image).
Not a first. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:But when will the rest of the world be included (Score:5, Informative)
Hi this is Google
Our software is in beta
Please do not criticize it until we say you can
Sincerely,
Google
Not blocking? (Score:3, Informative)
White house:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=1600+Pennsylvania+A
Pentagon:
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=2+South+Rotary+Road
Mapquest had this ages ago (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Erm (Score:5, Informative)
Go ahead, split hairs about aerial vs. satellite...
Re:Different dataset from Keyhole (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Not blocking? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:First in the industry??? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First in the industry??? (Score:5, Informative)
The Swiss mapping site map.search.ch [search.ch] does have satellite images since a long time.
Here a sample link map.search.ch/etoy [search.ch] of my village. Click more to zoom in !
Markus
Sand in Central Park (Score:5, Informative)
Without looking, I am guessing that if the patches are vaguely fan-shaped, they are baseball/softball/etc diamonds. I've seen these on many other air photos.
Re:Different dataset from Keyhole (Score:3, Informative)
Meigs field is also still there, and the building I live in is just beginning construction (it was finished in late 2003 I believe).
Doug
Re:First in the industry??? (Score:3, Informative)
So, no, not new.
TerraServer (Score:2, Informative)
Re:First? (Score:1, Informative)
Haven't you heard? If Google does it, then it's automatically new and innovative. If you point out other organisations that have done the same thing for years, you are called a troll. Labels? Eudora in the 90s. "AJAX"? Remote scripting used with Netscape 2 onwards. 1GB free webmail? GMX.
Re:Sounds like good technology for lots of uses (Score:3, Informative)
The browser doesn't need to understand the wavelet format directly, it's fed image sections after they've been re-encoded in a suitable format (JPEG usually). GetMapping deals with the image in 250x250-pixel blocks on the browser side. They're extracted from a master ECW and converted to JPG images on the server side, then streamed back to a set position in the browser. The source URL for each tile includes the tile position and resolution, and tiling the images returned gives the same overview effect you get at Google. They still use JavaScript to manage the user panning and zooming (I can't find the deep URL for the viewer on their site that does it as well as I remember).
Even if you store every resolution you need, you are only increasing the storage requirements by a factor of 5 or so.
If you've a fixed number of zoom steps (15 on Google?) and oodles of disk space (like Google!) it will definitely make more sense to do it like you suggest, returning pre-processed files with no extraction/re-encoding overhead.
Re:Erm (Score:2, Informative)
Go ahead, split hairs about aerial vs. satellite... :)"
Keyhole has aerial mixed (seamlessly) in with satellite. In urban areas the resolution improves dramatically because of the aerial photos. I live near DC and can see the bird house in our front lawn.
photo sources (Score:2, Informative)
Images are out-dated. (Score:2, Informative)
Looking around my home, I don't see any signs of a large bridge construction project which began last fall. If the images were taken less than, oh, five months ago, certain buildings would be gone, land would be cleared, etc...
Not only are they not the first to do this, the images aren't even very current.
Re:Erm (Score:5, Informative)
Re:wow... (Score:4, Informative)
First in Industry? (Score:3, Informative)
Imagery sources (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Erm (Score:2, Informative)
-- randomly google-raped from ufomind.com
Re:Erm (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, and in case it sounds like I could care less about this, thanks Google for adding satellite/aerial photos/topology(like the ocean depths) to your maps.
P.S. - I zoomed in on Bermuda [google.com] in the satellite but couldn't find it on the worresponding map. Does anyone know why? Is the map incomplete or out of alignment with the satellite/aerials?
Re:Goolge Watermarks (Score:5, Informative)
The Google images are not straight off of TerraServer. Actually to even say that perpetuates a misnomer. TerraServer is not a source of imagery. It simply serves public-domain USGS images which were created using our tax dollars. I'm not complaining, they are serving the public interest, but I'd be upset if they started putting watermarks on them or claiming copyright.
The Google images come from DigitalGlobe's QuickBird satellite. This is a private, for-profit corporation which raised enough money to put up their own satellite and start taking pictures which they are now selling on the open-market. I'm sure that their contract with Google necessitates the watermarks. Fair enough.
Bermuda's not part of the US (Score:3, Informative)
Canada is the exception, Google now considering it basically part of the US and so providing maps
Re:Sounds like good technology for lots of uses (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Sounds like good technology for lots of uses (Score:1, Informative)
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:
1. Resize the image to various resolutions
2. Break the images into 200x200 pixel chunks at each resolution and save those chunks as individual image files
3. Put a javascript interface on
Sounds like you should check out this GPL project: http:iipimage.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]
They have a server than splits up the image into tiles for you and a nice javascript client. There are some nice demo's with super-large images.
Zoom Annoyance (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Erm (Score:3, Informative)
For example...this is my friend's house..
http://maps.google.ca/maps?q=kelowna,bc&ll=49.937
Notice the &ll=49.937732,-119.461716 ? That is your lat/long.
You control zoom wiht the &spn but you cant go down all the way by entering in the url which sucks. At least i havent figured out how.
Re:Erm (Score:3, Informative)
I'll blow any conspiracy theory with a counterexample
Of course, the White House and Capitol really are obscured, but it just proves that our elected representatives are paranoid. The DoD is obviously not scared of a few satellite photos. The big wigs there are probably thinking something along the lines of "you think that's cool? You should see our imagery!"
The reality of the situation is, they probably don't want to reveal the locations of guards and air defense artillery emplacements.
I'm not sure whether the the obscuration of the imagery is mandated by law, or if Google or the imagery provider is obscuring it just to avoid potential problems.
Too bad the imagery isn't updated often... I found a cool way to tell what time it is in D.C.:
Sundial [google.com]
CNN covers the obscured images (Score:3, Informative)
See CNN [cnn.com] for good coverage of the issue.
Transparency (Score:3, Informative)
Search for a big city. I've only tried Brussels.
There's a Transparency slider at the top left.
Mappy has had satellite maps with transparency for at least a few months. It has been truly interactive for ages. I have no idea why nobody's mentioned this, and why anybody thinks Google's US-only, slow, hardly interactive maps are any good at all.