My Google Map Blog

Today we explore some of the funny and amazing homes and buildings on Google Maps Street View. Watch YouTube video

Satellite imaging company Planet has recently released a new version of Planet Explorer, a tool for exploring its vast collection of satellite imagery. Read more about it on the Planet blog. Planet has added a time toolbar very similar to Google Earth’s ‘historical imagery’ feature.

With a record launch of 88 satellites in February this year, and the acquisition of Terra Bella, Planet now operates 149 satellites — the largest fleet in human history.

To view the imagery simply go to Planet Explorer Beta. You can see monthly global base maps without even logging in. If you sign up for a free account, you can then see high resolution base maps and daily imagery within the US. For the rest of the globe the free account only provides access to low resolution monthly base maps. In addition, the free account gives you access to the Open California dataset, which allows you to download imagery for California two weeks after capture. The Open California data is shared with a fairly liberal licence.

Keep in mind that most of the imagery is relatively low resolution at 2-5m per pixel. Terra Bella imagery is sub-metre per pixel, but still not as good as other commercial suppliers such as DigitalGlobe and nothing like as good as aerial imagery. Nevertheless, the imagery is sufficient for seeing large scale phenomenon such as flooding (as seen in the YouTube video above), wildfire, tornadoes (see below), landslides etc.

The scar from an EF4 tornado that struck Perryville, Missouri on February 28th,
2016. See in Planet Explorer.

The post Planet adds time dimension to its maps appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

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