# Comparing a Google map to an old aerial photo
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [May 15, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027 "2011-05-15T21:35:20Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2011, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/1 "2011-05-15T21:35:20Z")
Someone sent me a scan of an old aerial photo of a city. The primary roads framing the city core are readily visible in the photo. The space in between these primary roads is divided up into big ranches. I suspect the divisions between the old ranches line up with modern day roads, but I’d like to see how it matches up.
My thought was to take a modern day Google map, somehow get the map and photo to the same scale, then overlay with a backlight. Is this possible or perhaps there’s a better way?
I tried simple photocopier reduction, but it’s not lining up right.
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### Author:  [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2011, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/2 "2011-05-15T21:51:22Z")
In Google Earth hit ctrl+shift+o. In the “location” tab, just figure out the lat and long of two of the corners and it should automatically scale and position. You sometimes have to futz with the rotation a little and sometimes you can’t get it to line up quite right, but the image overlay feature usually works pretty well.
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### Author:  [@capybara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/capybara)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2011, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/3 "2011-05-15T22:10:16Z")
Photoshop layers, playing with opacity?
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### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2011, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/4 "2011-05-15T23:17:06Z")
I don’t have photoshop and I’ve been toying around w Google Earth but can’t get the image to line up with anything. Is there someone who is proficient in these things that might want to take a crack at it?
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### Author:  [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2011, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/5 "2011-05-15T23:39:01Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#):
>
> I don’t have photoshop and I’ve been toying around w Google Earth but can’t get the image to line up with anything. Is there someone who is proficient in these things that might want to take a crack at it?
Here’s a tutorial for doing the image overlay thing: [Creating Image Overlays in Google Earth Desktop – Google Earth Outreach](http://earth.google.com/outreach/tutorial_earthoverlays.html)
It can be tricky if this aerial photo isn’t a more-or-less top down view (and pretty much impossible if it’s a bunch of angled photos stitched together, forming something like an isometric drawing, but that’s pretty rare). But for a flat image, doing it in Google Earth eliminates most of the hard steps that were required for doing it in something like photoshop.
If you can upload the scan somewhere, I could take a crack at making an overlay for you. Or I could at least give more specific instruction on how to do it yourself-- like I said if you can get the coordinates for two corners, you can type them in and pretty much have GE do all the work.
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### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 15, 2011, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/6 "2011-05-15T23:48:33Z")
[ ](https://www.flickr.com/photos/53374705@N06/5723967199/in/photostream)
Camarillo, CA
This is roughly the same image in Google Maps
https://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sacramento,%2BCalifornia%2B95820&ll=34.227345,-119.050255&spn=0.037683,0.055189&z=14
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### Author:  [@Jaguars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaguars)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2011, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/7 "2011-05-16T00:28:37Z")
Using Google Earth,
Zoom to see slightly more of the city of Camarillo than the photo shows
Use ‘Add overlay’ (Button near the top with a two isometric rectangles and a plus sympol)
Load in your photo ( I used the 640\*480 Photo,)
In the Location tab, these are the numbers I got:
North: 34°15’1.66"N East: 119° 0’25.85"W
South: 34°12’49.44"N West: 119° 4’26.75"W
Rotation: -1.7778
Move the Transparent -\> Opaque slider a few times to see how the match is. Experiment with moving the green handles if it needs adjusting.
Press OK button to get rid of the Add new overlay box.
From there, If you need to edit it, it should appear under the search box wit the two isometric rectangles and the overlay name. right click and go to ‘properties’
Seen a few changes since '52, Aye?
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### Author:  [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2011, 1:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/8 "2011-05-16T01:14:42Z")
Or, alternatively, try this. Download this picture: [3CRD02041\_092 | jacksotheremail | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/62924580@N03/5724751018/)
(I found this on the USGS’s clunky imagery clearinghouse site here: [http://edcsns17.cr.usgs.gov/NewEarthExplorer/](http://edcsns17.cr.usgs.gov/NewEarthExplorer/))
Import it like **Jaguars!** said and use these as the corners:
NE Corner: 34°16’10.92"N, 119° 0’23.44"W
SW Corner: 34°12’45.33"N, 119° 4’51.59"W
This is actually an earlier photo (from '47). I was thinking just downloading it from the USGS would be easier than trimming it down from your photo because the USGS site has the corner coordinates in the metadata. Unfortunately, the coordinates were of corners of the blacked-in area, not the whole image, so the ones I listed I just guess-and-checked (and I forgot what a pain in the butt the EarthExplorer thing is). I also have a .kmz file you could just open in google earth, but I’m not sure how to share it.
Also, just as a random fun fact, if you do play around with that Earth Explorer site, you’ll find the individual images are weirdly staggered so they overlap with each other. This is because the old black and white USGS aerial images like you’ve got there were designed to be used with a stereoscope like [this](http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=stereoscope&oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&tbm=shop&cid=10528578534875964360&sa=X&ei=tXnQTaeSHoqasAPi1rCmCw&ved=0CDwQ8wIwAg&biw=1024&bih=629#) and viewed in 3D. I took a field mapping course a few years back and they were still trying to get us to use them, but Google Earth worked so much better (even though it isn’t true stereoscopic 3D).
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### Author:  [@Jaguars](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jaguars)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2011, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/9 "2011-05-16T01:44:05Z")
Yep, **Greasyjack’s** photo will match better because it’s a scan of the photo, it won’t have any perspective distorting it. **Bearflag70’s** one is certainly the first time I’ve rectified a photo of an aerial photo!
I had a look at the one I did and the city blocks in the lower corner don’t quite match because of the perspective in **Bearflag’s** Photo.
It’s still pretty clear that Arneil Road is on the boundary of a property and the mall type area opposite the Camarillo christian church is a development of another property.
A Person with a proper [GIS](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GIS) system could pretty easily distort **Bearflag70’s** so that it matches the earth but I haven’t had that sort of stuff since I was studying.
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### Author:  [@Mr\_Downtown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr_Downtown)
#### Post date: [May 16, 2011, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/10 "2011-05-16T03:25:35Z")
Even easier is to look at the area using [HistoricAerials.com](http://HistoricAerials.com)
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2011, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/11 "2011-05-17T16:40:11Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#):
>
> [Camarillo 1952 | Getty Owl | Flickr](http://www.flickr.com/photos/53374705@N06/5723967199/in/photostream)
>
> Camarillo, CA
>
> This is roughly the same image in Google Maps
>
> [Google Maps](http://maps.google.com/maps?t=h&hl=en&ie=UTF8&hq=&hnear=Sacramento,+California+95820&ll=34.227345,-119.050255&spn=0.037683,0.055189&z=14)
Wow. Anyone else find that really depressing?
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### Author:  [@Spit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spit)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2011, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/12 "2011-05-17T19:54:00Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> Wow. Anyone else find that really depressing?
I guess so, if hospitals, emergency services, cable, etc. aren’t things you want, then yeah.
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### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 17, 2011, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/13 "2011-05-17T21:05:40Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> Wow. Anyone else find that really depressing?
What do you find depressing about it? Just curious. Turning prime highly fertile pastoral ag land into suburbia?
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### Author:  [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2011, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/14 "2011-05-18T21:20:27Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#):
>
> What do you find depressing about it? Just curious. Turning prime highly fertile pastoral ag land into suburbia?
I have no idea whether or not the land was prime and highly fertile, but yes, all those fields now covered with suburban sprawl, it makes me sad.
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### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 18, 2011, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/15 "2011-05-18T23:59:05Z")
I managed to line up the old photo with Google Earth pretty well. Thanks!
Is there any way to share this overlay with other Camarillo residents or the public?
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### Author:  [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2011, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/16 "2011-05-19T00:57:16Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#):
>
> I managed to line up the old photo with Google Earth pretty well. Thanks!
>
> Is there any way to share this overlay with other Camarillo residents or the public?
Yep. Under your “places” menu on the left, find the overlay you just made (it might be under “temporary places”) and then right click on it. You can e-mail it in the program if you use Outlook or Gmail, or you can do “Save Place As…” and it’ll make a .kmz file, which you can then e-mail or otherwise share.
ETA: Oh, if you’re signed up at the google earth community, you can upload it there, which would probably be the best way to get it out to the general public.
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### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2011, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/17 "2011-05-19T01:33:43Z")
OK, I saved it and all that. Now, when I open it, I use the little slider off to the left to control transparency. The problem is it doesn’t get very transparent at all… just slightly transparent. Is there a way to get it to go to full or near full transparency?
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### Author:  [@GreasyJack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreasyJack)
#### Post date: [May 19, 2011, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/18 "2011-05-19T01:52:40Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#):
>
> OK, I saved it and all that. Now, when I open it, I use the little slider off to the left to control transparency. The problem is it doesn’t get very transparent at all… just slightly transparent. Is there a way to get it to go to full or near full transparency?
Do you have two copies of it open now? Sometimes you need to play with the master opacity slide (when you have the “my places” selected), although that’s usually when you have the opposite problem.
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### Author:  [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2011, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/19 "2011-05-20T00:33:39Z")
I figured it out, thanks!
As to the fertile land, it is considered some of the best there is. The Oxnard Plain in general is considered very fertile and is home to famous strawberries.
Here’s an example of the fertility of the Camarillo land from Wiki:
Adolfo Z. Camarillo
Eventually, Adolfo Z. Camarillo (1864–1958) came to control the rancho and turned it into “the largest bean ranch in the world.”[10] Camarillo employed 700 workers on his ranch, and his production was so great that the Los Angeles Times reported in 1909 that, “through the enormous output of his ranch, [Camarillo] is, in a measure, able to set the price which the public must pay for beans.”[10] Adolfo Camarillo became one of the wealthiest landowners in the county, and in 1911 he was elected chairman of the Ventura County Board of Supervisors.[11] He also served as a member of the State Board of Agriculture
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### Author:  [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)
#### Post date: [May 20, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/comparing-a-google-map-to-an-old-aerial-photo/582027/20 "2011-05-20T01:37:00Z")
> [@Colophon](#):
>
> I have no idea whether or not the land was prime and highly fertile, but yes, all those fields now covered with suburban sprawl, it makes me sad.
To the north: fields. To the west: fields. To the south: fields. To the east, hills.
It’s not so bad.
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