Google Adds Satellite Imagery for the World 551
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?"
I Found... (Score:3, Interesting)
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...
Looking around Paris... (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting Pic Collection (Score:5, Interesting)
http://perljam.net/notes/interesting-google-satell ite-maps/ [perljam.net]
Different resolutions/scans (Score:4, Interesting)
How old are the images? (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Mt. St. Helens (Score:3, Interesting)
Jesus H... (Score:2, Interesting)
yes, they *are* crappy, for the UK at least.
at first all they did was sloppily overlay road maps onto postcode maps, with the result that postcodes are displaced from their true location by about 2 streets (a lot since a postcode is supposed to localise you to within half a street or so).
now they've added spotty low-res imagery on top. looking at where I live the map looks quite wrong, but then it's so low-res I can't even resolve streets so I can't say for sure.
this is very very poor. I expect more from Google, even at beta.
Re:Interesting Pic Collection (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.googlesightseeing.com/ [googlesightseeing.com]
Re:Streched Images? (Score:1, Interesting)
Take my link in Manhattan, and drag the view a few screens away. Then switch to the other mode.
The center of the image still lines up, so clearly the map and satellite coordinates DO correspond to each other.
So, even if the satellite image is skewed because of its angle when taken (which is probably a lot worse than what we are seeing), why don't they simply adjust it to match for display?
The Pyramids! (Score:4, Interesting)
found WMD here (Score:3, Interesting)
If you search for weapons of mass destruction they're all in one place here [google.com] .
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*(^&%^*!
Tianmen Square? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:found WMD here (Score:3, Interesting)
B - American Legion Post 198
(918) 287-2656 - 22 mi W
C - Legion Post 227 American
(918) 847-3006 - 18 mi SW
E - United States Government: Minerals Council Office
(918) 287-1085 - 21 mi W
F - Voice of the Martyrs The [mnnonline.org]
(918) 337-8015 - 0.2 mi NW
G - Oologah Chamber of Commerce [wylieforoklahoma.com] (notice the domain?)
(918) 443-2790 - 24 mi SE
I - Strategic World Impact [mnnonline.org]
(918) 336-8400 - 0.1 mi N
No Osama, but two American Legion posts (with the same, wrong link for both)!
UFOs! (Score:4, Interesting)
UFO Number 4 [google.com] UFO Number 5 [google.com] UFO Number 6 [google.com]
UFO Number 7 [google.com] UFO Number 8 [google.com] UFO Number 9 [google.com]
UFO Number 10 [google.com] UFO Number 11 [google.com] UFO Number 12 [google.com]
UFO Number 13 [google.com] UFO Number 14 [google.com] UFO Number 15 [google.com]
UFO Number 16 [google.com] UFO Number 17 [google.com] UFO Number 18 [google.com]
The truth is out there...
bort.
Maree Man (Score:5, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=maree,+Australia&ll= -29.533997,137.466431&spn=0.036736,0.061712&t=k&hl =en [google.com]
Re:Mt. St. Helens (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Pictures of the Oslo/Norway isnt' too good. (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [google.com]. 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 [google.com]. 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 [google.com]. 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 [google.com]. 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 [terraserver-usa.com], 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.Re:Iranian nuclear plant? (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [google.com] confirms that to be the plant.
Re:Looking around Washington, DC... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:First to find.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Interestingly enough google finds the WMD itself:
Search google maps for weapons of mass destruction [google.com]
I shit you not Kansas is 3v1l!!!!!!!oneone
Re:I Found... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Jesus H... (Score:3, Interesting)
Try Multimap [multimap.co.uk] 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.
Child of Krakatoa! (Score:2, Interesting)
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.
Re:Looking around Washington, DC... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Nuclear Powerplant, Jaslovske Bohunice, Slovaki (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:WHERE IS AREA 51???? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How old are the images? (Score:3, Interesting)
Chernobyl (Score:3, Interesting)
http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=51.383400,30.11481
Re:UFOs! (Score:4, Interesting)
(Come on, if they were UFOs, they would have to be BETWEEN the plane and the ground. Unlikely.)
Volcanoes in Hawaii - Mauna Loa & Mauna Kea (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Maree Man (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Aircraft (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
D-Day (Score:2, Interesting)
The Mullberry was key to the invasion of Normandy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulberry_harbor [wikipedia.org]
Peace,
-McD
Re:Interesting Pic Collection (Score:2, Interesting)
http://googleglobetrotting.com/ [googleglobetrotting.com]
+3000 pics so far!
Re:Mexico? (Score:1, Interesting)
http://my-musik.com/article693.html [my-musik.com]
Re:What's this big blue thing in the middle of Afr (Score:3, Interesting)
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 [mongabay.com] 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.
Re:What's this line over Lake Baikal? (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
Re:Oil tankers in the Med (Score:3, Interesting)
Nazca lines, Peru (Score:3, Interesting)
Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazca_lines [wikipedia.org]