My Google Map Blog

The biggest news this month is that Google Earth got a makeover, with Google updating the global mosaic shown when zoomed out. Overall, we like it a lot, but nothing is perfect, so we had a look at some of the minor issues it still has.

There were several imagery updates in the month and we had a look at some of the interesting sights to be found in the imagery, including:

• The damage caused by a number of tornadoes in the vicinity of Dallas Texas.
• Flooding and a landslide in Sri Lanka caused by cyclone Roanu.
• Islands Hunga Tonga and Hunga Haapai, which have been joined together by volcanic activity.
• The latest developments on Fiery Cross Reef, one of the islands that China has built in the South China Sea.
• The world’s longest submarines in a Russian naval yard at Severodvinsk.
• Bomb damage from the war in Yemen.

We also discovered an image in the Sahara Desert from Google’s Terra Bella. The image has since been removed. Presumably Google were just testing something. It would be nice if they do decide to use Terra Bella imagery to fill in the gaps in Google Earth’s high resolution imagery.
 
 

We had a look at a new tool by GeoSage called Spectral Transformer for Sentinel-2 Imagery which, as the name suggests, is for processing imagery from the Sentinel program.
 
 
 

We noted that Google had released some imagery of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, that was captured in 2013 and we talked about the reasons why it sometimes takes Google so long to release 3D imagery.
 
 
 

We had a look at an archaeological find in Petra, Jordan, that was found by Dr. Sarah Parcak with the aid of satellite imagery.
 
 
 
 

We had a look at a story about a Kraken being spotted in Google Earth imagery – which turned out to be a rock.
 
 
 
 

We had a look at how to make desktop backgrounds with Google Earth imagery (Google Earth Pro makes it easy).
 
 
 
 

We came across a story on Bellingcat that mentioned that Google is continuing to update historical imagery in Ukraine, despite it being essentially censored since July 2015. We discussed the issue as well as having a look at some of the locations relevant to the Bellingcat story.
 

We had a look at Sun-synchronous orbit, the orbit configuration used by most imaging satellites.
 
 
 
 

We provided a Google Earth API based tool for making historical imagery animations and also gave some tips for making good animations.
 
 
 

We had a look around Rio de Janeiro and the developments in preparation for the upcoming Olympics. We also had a look at an oil refinery there and animated the oil tanks showing the floating roofs rising and falling over time, depending on oil stocks.

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