My Google Map Blog

We were recently reading this story from NASA that says Mars used to have large oceans. It includes a tantalizing picture reminiscent of Google Earth. So we decided to see if we could simulate oceans in Google Mars.

We have looked at a number of stories in the past where people have used KML to simulate sea level rise:

• Map of Projected Sea Level Rise Effects on Vancouver
• Animation Roundup: Rising Sea Levels, Filling Grand Canyon, Global Clouds
• Flooding Google Earth
• Using Google Earth to predict sea level rise

However, it turns out this technique doesn’t work over large areas. KML polygons set to fixed altitude do not curve with the earth’s surface.

So, instead, we found a digital elevation model (DEM) map of Mars provided by NASA that can be obtained from here. We then used an image editing program to colour the lower elevations blue and make higher elevations transparent. We then took the resulting image and made an image overlay and you can see the result below:

For an even more realistic effect, we combined our ocean with this Mars map also from NASA. Then we used it in an image overlay on the Earth, instead of Mars, which enables us to turn on the ‘Clouds’ layer, giving the result seen below:

The NASA image did not have clouds, but the picture on this Wikipedia page does. Without plants, the land would not have been green like much of the Earth is.

To try these out for yourselves, download these KML files: Mars Ocean
Mars Ocean and Land. The second one is best viewed with all layers turned off except the ‘Clouds’ layer (found in the ‘Weather’ layer).

The maps may not be scientifically accurate, as we don’t know whether the elevation data in the NASA maps takes into account the equatorial bulge that is created due to rotation. On Earth we usually calculate elevation above or below Sea Level, but that doesn’t work on Mars as it doesn’t have a sea.

The post Oceans on Mars appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We recently got a query by a reader asking whether or not it is possible for a conman to put a fake address into Google Earth. The short answer is yes.

Google gets its information from a large number of sources. The Earth is a very big place, so the amount of data involved is simply staggering. Errors, of course, do exist. These come in many forms, such as an island that didn’t exist, or the time that Google lost a city in Florida. When Google once removed the name “Persian Gulf”, Iran threatened to sue because the name is a very sensitive issue in the region.

Borders are often a contentious issue. It may be simply a case of borders being in the wrong place due to errors in the data supplied to Google, or border disputes, where two countries disagree about where their shared border is. Google method for the latter is to share data based on international mapping standards data – which they illustrate by showing disputed borders in red, or showing different borders depending on which country you are using the product from. Also, when new countries are formed, it may take Google (and all other mapping companies) a little while to update their maps.

One of Google’s sources of information is the general public via three main routes: the ‘report a problem’ feature in Google maps, the more sophisticated Google Mapmaker that Google released in 2008, and Google My Business (formerly Google Places). The last one is primarily for business address listings, whereas the first two deal with more general mapping information.
The processes for changing mapping data have a number of verification systems in place. However, since it is often impossible to verify the validity of all updates. Google mapmaker works on a system of reputation whereby your edits require less verification as you gain reputation. Google My Business encourages you to verify your address or phone number. None of the systems are totally fool proof, but the same system can be used to correct inaccurate data that works its way into the system.

An example of information that really shouldn’t have been allowed into Google Maps.

This appears to be a genuine road.

So why would people want to put false information into Google Maps? Here is a story of a restaurant which closed down because, the owner claims, its listing on Google Maps showed that they were closed on what were formerly its most popular days. His lawyer thinks that a competing restaurant sabotaged the listing. Earlier this year Bryan Seely went public, saying that he used to do ‘map jacking’ for profit but decided to go public in the hopes of getting a job at Google. As a publicity stunt, he managed to intercept calls to the FBI and Secret service by placing false contact information for them on Google Maps.

It is important to keep in mind that, for example, in the vacation rentals business where scams are quite common, the information in Google Maps may be correct, but when you arrive at your destination and knock on the door, you could discover that the person you wired your down-payment to does not own the property. No one wants that kind of thing to happen.

Imaginary road really exists!

Google Maps and Google Earth mapping data should always be treated like Wikipedia: an extremely useful resource, but not guaranteed to be correct.

The post Could a conman get false information into Google Maps or Google Earth? appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

With the successful launch of the imaging satellite WorldView-3 by DigitalGlobe recently, featuring the latest technology in satellite imaging, it is a good time to take a look at where it all started.

The very first aerial photograph was taken from balloon by the French photographer and balloonist Gaspard-Félix Tournachon, in 1858 over Paris, France. However, the photographs he produced no longer exist and therefore the earliest surviving aerial photograph is titled ‘Boston, as the Eagle and the Wild Goose See It’ and was taken by James Wallace Black in 1860, also from a balloon.

Kite aerial photography was pioneered by British meteorologist E.D. Archibald in 1882.
The most interesting method of aerial photography is pigeon photography, a technique invented in 1907.

By World War I aerial imagery taken from aircraft was being used for reconnaissance and the technology matured rapidly as a result.

The first images from space were taken in 1946 from a suborbital U.S.-launched V-2 rocket.
In 1972 the United States started the Landsat program, the largest program for acquisition of imagery of Earth from space.

Historical imagery was introduced to Google Earth with version 5 in 2009.

The oldest imagery that can currently be found in Google Earth is from 1930, near Toronto, Canada. To view it in Google Earth you need to turn on “Historical Imagery” pan to the region around Toronto, Canada, then move the slider all the way to the left and the imagery will show up as black and white areas, or simply download this KML file. There is also quite a lot of historical imagery from the Second World War in parts of Europe, with significant portions of the UK having imagery from 1945 or earlier.

It is important to note that although satellite imaging has many advantages, for the highest resolution aerial imagery, airplanes are still used today and most of the high resolution imagery in Google Earth was captured from aircraft.

The post The history of aerial photography appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Here’s a fun use of Google Earth and GPS — tracking cats. It started when Tiana Warner at safe.com found out about a way to track cats:

Where do cats go when they’re outside all day and night? What do they do? How do they entertain themselves? Is there a secret cat meeting place in every major city? When Safers found out about Cat Tracker, we couldn’t resist.

The result is pretty neat.

While it’s mostly a fun little project, the technology behind it is remarkably complex. Get the GPS data from Movebank in JSON format, flatten it, create a “convex hull” around the main area, clean up GPS anomalies, rank the cats based on travel area sizes, then push it out via KML. Here is a KML file to view it for yourself in Google Earth.

You can read more on the Safe Software Blog.

The post Creative cat tracking in Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Back in 2005 Julian Bayliss, a biologist at London’s Kew Gardens, discovered a brand new rainforest that had previously never been studied — and he found it using Google Earth. We told you about it in May this year, and you can watch a short video about the discovery below.

Since then, many new species have been discovered at the location, known as Mozambique’s ‘sky islands’, including a snake, a butterfly, and most recently, the recent discovery of four new pygmy chameleon species.

Rhampholeon nebulauctor. Credit: Julian Bayliss.

Rhampholeon tilburyi. Credit: Krystal A. Tolley.

Rampholeon Maspictus. Credit: William R. Branch.

Rhampholeon Bruessoworum. Credit: Julian Bayliss.

Find the full story on Fauna & Flora International.

The post Google Earth instrumental in discovery of new chameleon species appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

DigitalGlobe, one of the leading providers of imagery for Google Earth, is launching their new WorldView-3 satellite in a few hours. It is scheduled to launch at 11:29am PDT today from Vandenberg Air Force Base, and you can watch a live broadcast of the launch here.

The new satellite will feature some great enhancements over previous ones, including:

• Will capture imagery at 31 cm resolution, the highest available resolution on the market. This allows you to see not only a car, but the windshield and the direction the car is going. Something as small as home plate can be seen with 31 cm resolution.
• Due to its shortwave infrared sensor, the satellite can actually image through haze, fog, dust, smoke and other air-born particulates.
• Beyond crop mapping, this satellite will actually be able to identify moisture levels, differentiate between healthy and unhealthy crops, and even classify species on the ground.
• The satellite can identify types of minerals on the earth’s surface
• It can identify not only a tree’s class and species, but its health as well

It should be a great step forward for imaging, and ultimately for Google Earth. Check out the infographic below for an overview of the satellite, visit worldview3.digitalglobe.com for more information, and watch the launch live in a few hours.

The post DigitalGlobe launching their WorldView-3 satellite today appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

We’ve shown you a lot from George at MyReadingMapped over the years, and he’s back with another one. This project is called the “Google Map of Geology”, and George describes it as follows:

My latest project is a Google Map of Geology which matches up examples of faults, eskers, monadnocks, folds, fabric, depressions, roof pendants, rift valley, kettles, hoodoos, and the like, that can be seen in Google Map and Google Earth with their geologic terminology. I was surprised to discover that much of the details like stratum, joints, lava field fissures, dykes, talus, etc. can actually be seen in a satellite image and that a specific rock the size of a tor can be plotted.

It’s an amazingly detailed map that George has clearly put a lot of time into. Check it out for yourself on his website, or you can grab this KML file to view it directly in Google Earth.

Nice work, George!

The post Geology in Google Earth appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

DigitalGlobe is one of the leading providers of satellite imagery for Google Earth, and now they’re teaming up with the World Resources Institute to track fires across southeast Asia via their new Global Forest Watch Fires system.

From an article by Yuchen Wu in the Boulder County Business Report:

Nigel Sizer, global director of the World Resource Institute’s Forests Program, said, “With DigitalGlobe’s imagery, you can see down to the individual tree level and even identify species. DigitalGlobe imagery is processed as color-infrared, enabling WRI to quickly distinguish between healthy and dead vegetation, draw burn area boundaries, and detect burn scars in order to assign accountability to the fires.”

It’s a great way to use DigitalGlobe’s impressive ability to capture imagery to make a difference in the world.

You can read more in that article in the Boulder County Business Report or visit fires.globalforestwatch.org.

The post DigitalGlobe helping to track forest fires appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Urban agriculture can be a great thing, but can be difficult to effectively plan and manage. Flavio Lupia, along with other researchers from the National Institute of Agricultural Economics in Rome have been making great use of digital mapping tools to help research and plan ideal locations around the city.

You can read more about their work in this PDF document, which goes into detail about their work, such as:

The current version of the database contains more than 4,000 polygons spread over a total surface of about 35,000 hectares with a total farmed area of 400 hectares. The geodatabase was realized by interpreting the high resolution images of Google Earth for the year 2007 and 2013 allowing further analysis on the temporal evolution of the phenomenon.

Beyond that, here are some additional thoughts from Flavio:

• Despite in Italy there are some private and governamental bodies producing regularly very high resolution aerophotogrammetric scenes the restriction and policy distribution of the data don’t allow researchers to perform this kind of analysis.
• Although in Italy, especially during the last year, the concept of open-data is becoming more and more common this is still a theoretical idea since public administrations have releases very few geospatial data.
• GE allows to perform the photointerpretation process, the digitalization and the multi-temporal analysis with an easy to use single tool.
• The entire mapping project employed only human resources (researcher for the photointerpretation), no costs for tools and images acquisition and pre-processing thanks to GE.
• Even if the radiometric and spatial resolution of the GE imagery are lower than those provided by the Italian public bodies, the researchers demonstrated the fitness-for-use of GE for mapping urban agriculture. The images are sufficient to discover cultivated parcels as small as 8 square meters in size and allow to photointerpreters to use all visual element to identify cropping activities (tone, color, texture, pattern, etc.).
• Since 2011 GSV report the timestamp in the GE status bar. This helped researchers to have a clear idea about the acquisition time during the “virtual field check”. Nonetheless some limitations in the usability of GSV exist: 1.the temporal mismatch between GE imagery used for parcels identification (year 2013) and GSV (2011-2012). 2.the temporal variation among the single images of GSV, in fact scenes acquired in different times are woven together to form a continuous coverage along the streets (in our study area we found GSV images acquired in 2011 and 2012).

It’s an excellent use of Google Earth, and it should help result in great things for the city of Rome.

The post Using Google Earth to enhance urban agriculture in Rome appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

This Sunday 45 years ago, July 20, 1969, Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on the moon.

One great way to experience the landing is by viewing this amazing Google Earth tour that Sean Askay put together a few years ago.

As you can see in the tour, the landing that Armstrong made was remarkable. With very little fuel, he had to carefully maneuver the ship into a gentle landing. Paul van Dinther created a game to simulate the landing that he calls the Apollo 11 Moon Lander. The game is very fun, and quite challenging – here is a review written by Frank when it was released. In the years since then, Paul has updated the game with some new graphics, Facebook integration and bug fixes. You can also watch this short video of the game in action:

You can check out the game for yourself at planetinaction.com/moonlander/.

Lastly, of course, is the excellent “Moon” feature in Google Earth, released in 2009. There is some remarkably sharp imagery in places on the moon, and even 3D models of the Apollo 11 Lunar Module.

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