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."

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:

[SJHillman]

Or replace Redmond with Mount Doom?

Re:

[wonkey_monkey]

He didn't say it was his wife.

Re:

[Higgins_Boson]

I love you pretentious fuckwads who moderate comments because you have no life, no sense of humor, no anything outside of the scant traces of light that manage to seep through your parent's basement window.

Modded troll?
Modded flamebait?
Modded off-topic?

Get bent, dipshits. None of those even fits with what I typed out. It isn't trolling, it isn't flamebait and it sure isn't off-topic, since it talks about balloons AND google earth, both of which are in the article summary as well as the article.

So,

Re:

[h4rr4r]

No, the very clear implication was that they bought their other images from commercial entities instead of getting them individual citizens.

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 [openstreetmap.org] and really share data.

Re:

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 Google Maps is horribly outdated in some places I care about but I haven't found any OSM (Android) app that even comes close in usability to Google Maps.

Re:

[element-o.p.]

GPS Essentials for Androids is considering a move to OSM. They sent me a notification a while back asking about using OSM rather than Google Maps, and would it be worth paying for this ability rather than using the Google Maps. IIRC, their primary motivation was having the ability to use the maps off-line.

Re:

[cabraverde]

it would be better if they were to collaborate with projects such as Open Street Map [openstreetmap.org] and really share data.

... like Microsoft have been, for example. Open Street Map contributors have been given permission to trace features from Bing's areal photographs since 2010. No such goodwill from Google.

OpenAerialMap and the official announcement

[Lord Satri]

Actually, such imagery should go to OpenAerialMap.org, not OpenStreetMap (which is for vector data).

Also, this story has not mentioned yet (afaict) the official announcement: http://google-latlong.blogspot.ca/2012/04/balloon-and-kite-imagery-in-google.html [blogspot.ca]