I was just looking on Google Maps for the area where I was fishing on the Gulf yesterday. The satellite imagery shows the place all right, but there are a few docks missing. So I looked up my street. It shows my house, but it also shows that we have a huge side yard, where there is a house now - and it’s not new by any stretch. I’d have to say that the house next door was at least 20 years old. It doesn’t even show the massive sweet gum tree in our front yard. It must have been growing for the entire length of my life, and maybe then some.
Does anyone know where the Google satellite images come from, or how old they really are? I think it’s kind of odd to be representing an area with pictures that are decades out of date…
I can see the little magnolia tree in my back yard, that I planted last spring. Also, the Cleveland Clinic’s new Heart Center, still under construction.
I think that they get them from wherever they can. For instance, the photos of NYC are shown as property of NJ. I think NYC refused them permission to use their own satelite photos. My son’s house had an addition put on it about five years ago and it is shown. His children’s school was rebuilt about four years ago and the new layout (with a large drive-in area) is shown.
I’ve often wondered about this myself as our entire neighborhood doesn’t show up on any of the map programs, let alone satellite images. The neighborhood is at least five years old. I wonder if we’ll ever show up.
Possibly, our house is obscured by foliage in the photo. But there is a gated community on the other side of our back fence, which has been there for more than 10 years, and it’s not shown on the satellite photo, either.
They’re from a mix of sources, some satellite, some aerial.
The image of my house shows the grading we were having done 2 summers ago. The condition that its in (before the fence went up and they started digging the pool, but after all the foliage was removed) pinpoints it at around mid-June 2005.
Up until very recently (a month ago?) the Google photo of the area near my house was about 3 years behind. It showed a nearby grocery store under construction so it’s easy to date.
I just looked at it now and they’ve updated the photo. The picture shows the grocercy store open, but another nearby building that exists today hasn’t even started construction. So this “new” photo is more than a year old now.
Right now maps.live.com (Microsoft’s answer to Google maps) is still showing the old photo. It’ll be interesting to watch them leapfrog.
AFAIK, there’s no way to find that out on Google Maps.
Google Earth probably uses the same maps though, and if you check off, uh… (they keep moving it…) More -> DigitalGlobe Coverage, then the source images are displayed, along with technical information, and the date they were taken.
Now I’m totally confused. I thought people were using Google Earth to help find Steve Fossett. If that’s true, then those maps must be constantly updated. Why are maps of empty Nevada desert updated regularly, while images of far more interesting areas such as urban neighborhoods are not? Or did I get the whole Steve Fossett thing wrong and I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about?
I know the Google Earth image of my house, an aerial view, is at least 5 years old, because that’s when the former owners added a garden room. OTOH, the MSN maps picture is about 3 years old, as it shows the addition.
I can say with some certainty that it is 3 years old, rather than 4-1/2 or 5, because the same picture that you see on MSN maps is hanging on the wall of my study. The previous owners told us that a private pilot stopped by one day, explaining that he had been taking aerial photos of the area and sold them the picture.
Our house was a couple of years out of date for quite a while, but the current photo shows features that did not exist at the beginning of the summer while failing to show features that came into existence in September, so I have a moderately narrow period during which the current photo must have been taken this year.
Another house where the image used to be 5+ years out of date and now it’s just 2 years out of date. In fact, I can almost pinpoint it because it’s an autumn image (leaves are off the trees) between when I had my new roof put on (Summer '05) and when I sold that black Altima shown in the driveway and got a new car (Nov. 05).
Not really. It would depend on how it was being used. For example, using the terrain feature on Google Earth to seek out defiles and arroyos that might not be obvious to a pilot or observer looking down at brown desert from a plane could be useful in determining places to look for wreckage, eliminating flat plains where the wreckage would be apparent.
Beyond that, I am not sure that they were using standard Google Earth images. This blog says
which, if I am reading that correctly, (huge IF) indicates that the images came from a separate source, but that there was a way to point Google Earth software at them in a way to employ the Google Earth software to examine them.
Someone diverted some satellite/aerial resources to provide the source photographs after Steve Fosset disappeared. It was pretty low-res stuff, and Nevada probably has pretty good viewing conditions allowing rapid aquisition.
Cities may be less visible due to smog and cloud, and there are less requirements for updated images. However, since city planners have discovered Google Earth, scanning neighbourhoods for illegal/untaxed/unapproved house modifications (conservatories, extensions and the like) has become more popular and will drive more regular updated photography.
They have a new feature called “Street View” in some cities.
The picture that shows my house is definitely from this year, it shows the safety water bucket I put out there for my July 4th party (and left out because my screen door is broke and it prevents the door from banging into my house).
The Satellite image is quote old though, it shows a tree that used to be in my backyard but was removed before I owned the house.
BTW- if you don’t have street view in your city… check it out. Pretty darn cool. (The only city I know has it, obviously, is my own- Portland, OR. So if you don’t have it go to Portland)
They have a new feature called “Street View” in some cities.
The picture that shows my house is definitely from this year, it shows the safety water bucket I put out there for my July 4th party (and left out because my storm door is broke and it prevents the door from banging into my house).
The Satellite image is quote old though, it shows a tree that used to be in my backyard but was removed before I owned the house.
BTW- if you don’t have street view in your city… check it out. Pretty darn cool. (The only city I know has it, obviously, is my own- Portland, OR. So if you don’t have it go to Portland)
