My Google Map Blog

Yesterday Google released Edition 2 of the ‘Voyager layer’. As we did for Edition 1, today we are having a more detailed look at the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ sublayer.

The layer itself does not give any dates as to when the imagery was added to Google Earth. As of this writing some of the imagery marked has not yet made it into ‘historical imagery’, and if it is not in the default layer, cannot be viewed at all. There is some overlap between it and the imagery we found using the Google Earth plugin. However, it does not include the image of the crater in Tianjin that was also recently added and is also not yet in ‘historical imagery’. All this suggests that it includes a number of recent updates, but not the most recent, and not all the updates since Edition 1 of the Voyager layer.

The most recent images in the collection are a pair of images captured on September 9th, 2015, of Tingri in Tibet, China.

The oldest image is the only image from 2007 and is of Chitrāl, Pakistan, and together with an image from August 11th, 2015 was probably added to assist with flood relief efforts in the region. Next oldest is an image from 2010 of a strip of Myanmar, again probably relating to flooding. We cannot yet investigate further, as these particular images are not yet in historical imagery, nor in the default layer. Both countries do feature other recent imagery in the default layer that is not listed in this layer.

Here are the total areas of the imagery by continent, (calculated using this useful site). Keep in mind that this is more than the actual total area covered, as some of the imagery overlaps.

We have also colour coded the layer by date which you can see in Google Earth by downloading this KML file.

The post Voyager Layer Edition 2: Satellite imagery updates appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Back in June, timed to coincide with the 10th anniversary of Google Earth, Google introduced some new layers to Google Earth under the heading ‘Voyager’. Today, the layer has received an update and includes a new sub-layer named ‘Animal View’ that is described as ‘exotic creatures in their natural habitat’.

Many of the locations are high resolution aerial images captured as part of the National Geographic African Megaflyover. It also features Street View from various locations, including the recently added Kenyan imagery, Underwater Street View, Street View captured from a boat travelling along the Amazon, and many more locations around the world.

Jigokudani Monkey Park, Japan.

The post Google Earth Voyager layer update: Go on safari appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Last month in celebration of the ten year anniversary of Google Earth, Google added some new layers under the heading ‘Voyager’. We already had a look at the new ‘3D cities’ layer last week. However, as we showed you with the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer, it is possible to download the layer data and import it into excel for further analysis. So today, we are doing that for the ‘3D cities’ layer. Specifically, we are interested in the population figures that are displayed in the popups.

First, we need to point out that we do not know how accurate the population figures provided are. We do not know what sources Google uses for population data. Also, we do not know to what extent the population figures correspond to the actual areas covered with 3D. There are four locations with a population of zero: two football stadiums in Brazil, Black Rock City in the US and Arches National Park in the US. There were also twenty small towns in the US with a stated population of 333. This suggests they were merely estimated. Similar patterns occur elsewhere such as three towns in Bulgaria each having a population of 6,699.

Buenos Aires, Argentina, has the largest single population figure, but this isn’t necessarily the largest population covered by a single 3D mesh, as many places have multiple triangles per mesh.

Given the above caveats here are the population figures by continent:

Note that South Africa is the only country represented in Africa and Japan is the only country represented in Asia. Australia and New Zealand are counted in the continent of Australia.

Here are the figures by country:

 
Japan is the second largest, which is not surprising when you realise that Tokyo alone is listed as having a population of over 8 million.

The post 3D cities layer: another look appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

A couple of weeks ago we had a look at Google Earth’s new ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer. One notable feature of the new layers is that they can be put into your ‘My Places’ and then exported to KML. Previously, Google would release update maps via a Google map. Although it was possible to view it in Google Earth, there was no way to save it as KML. Today, we are having a look at what sort of things can be done when you have direct access to the data.

In our previous post on this layer we used this website to extract the areas of the different images and then used MS Excel to work out the total areas of the new imagery by continent:

 
Another thing we can do is get the dates of the imagery into Excel. To do this, we exported each continent as a KML file, renamed them to *.xml and then opened them in Excel as XML files. We then combined them into one spreadsheet.

Now we can find out which is the oldest and newest image in the collection. The oldest is a strip of imagery captured on November 5th 2010, in Tibet, China. This is one of many old images in the region that were added by Google to help aid workers in the region in the aftermath of the Nepal earthquake. The newest is a pair of images captured on June 5th, 2015, in Hunan Province, China.

We can also get a better overall picture of the age of the imagery by counting the images by year:

 
and breaking 2015 down into months:

 
Another fun thing we can do is reproduce the KML colour coded by date. We had to figure out how to export XML from Excel, and with a little help with the colour scheme from this site we were able to produce this KML file. So download it now and try it out!

We would love it if Google were to include in the metadata the imagery provider and whether it is satellite imagery or aerial imagery.

The post Satellite imagery updates layer: another look appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Over the last few posts we have been having a look at Google Earth’s new layers that make up the new ‘Voyager’ layer:
‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer
‘Earth View landscapes’ layer
‘Street View highlights’ layer
‘3D cities’ layer

Today, we would like to suggest a new layer to Google that would fit well in the Voyager layer. The new layer we are thinking of would feature Placemarks around the world highlighting interesting things that can be seen in specific images. We are not thinking of the sort of things that Google Earth users can find for themselves and make collections of, as such collections already exist on the Google Earth Community, which already has its own layer (found in the Gallery layer). Instead, we are thinking of particular events for which satellite or aerial imagery was specially captured, but may not at first be obvious to the casual user.

Google adds imagery to Google Earth for two basic reasons. The first and most common, is to improve coverage and provide a history of coverage with ‘historical imagery’. The second is when there is something of particular interest in the imagery. This type of imagery is often fairly easy to pick out, as it consists of poor quality imagery, such as containing high levels of cloud cover, or being in black and white, and often there will be a number of images of a particular place over a short space of time.

The best examples of this type of imagery are the images showing tornado damage in the USA. For examples see this post and you can find the locations in Google Earth using this KML file.

We have found other examples by using DigitalGlobe’s ‘First Look’ coverage map. However, it can be quite tedious to find each location in Google Earth and then check whether Google has obtained the specific imagery.

A black & white image featuring the Isle of Wight Festival on June 11th, 2015 – discovered via DigitalGlobe’s first look map

We recently came across an image of Paris, captured on June 3rd, 2015. The image is in black & white and has high levels of cloud cover. We strongly suspect it contains something of particular interest, but we don’t know what. Google, however, presumably knows what is to be seen in the imagery they add. Otherwise they wouldn’t be adding poor quality imagery to the database.

So, to give an example of a few of the types of Placemarks we would expect to see in such a layer, see this KML file.

The post New Google Earth layers suggestion: What’s that image? appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

Last week, in honour of Google Earth’s 10 year anniversary, Google added a new collection of layers known as Voyager. We have already had a look at the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer, the ‘Earth View landscapes’ layer, and the ‘Street View highlights’ layer. Today we are looking at the ‘3D cities’ layer.

The new ‘3D cities’ layer shows the locations where Google Earth has the automatically generated 3D mesh that Google has been rolling out since 2012. In the past, it was difficult to find which areas had the new 3D. There was a list maintained on Wikipedia but there was no way to view it as a KML in Google Earth. So last September we at GEB created a KML with the outlines of the areas with 3D. We have since maintained it, thanks to the help of GEB readers, who spot new imagery and let us know in the comments of this post. Most of the hard work of outlining the newly discovered areas is being done by GEB reader Anton Rudolfsson. Also thanks to an idea from Anton, we display the imagery colour coded by when it was first discovered (which roughly corresponds to when it was first added by Google), so you can get an idea of how progress is going and also spot the latest additions easily.

Google Earth users who are not readers of GEB, or have not seen our KML, may be surprised by the new layer, as most users do not realize just how much 3D Google has managed to generate or how widespread around the globe it is. Having said that, coverage in Africa and Asia is still sorely lacking, although South Africa did recently start getting coverage.

It is not immediately obvious, but the new layer features two different icons. There are filled in triangles with a point at the top, which indicate ‘Existing coverage’, and triangles with just an outline with the point at the bottom which indicate ‘Latest updates’. Note that this does not necessarily correspond to the age of the actual imagery.

We do like the heat map effect Google has managed to achieve with the new layer.

The GEB maintained version has more information, for those interested in getting into the details. Download our KML file here.

The post New Google Earth layers: 3D Cities appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

On Monday, in honour of Google Earth’s 10 year anniversary, Google added a new collection of layers known as Voyager. We have already looked at the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer and the ‘Earth View landscapes’ layer. Today we are looking at the ‘Street View highlights’ layer.

The ‘Street View highlights’ layer is a collection of Placemarks highlighting interesting sights to be found in Street View. The locations are mostly off-road locations that you would not normally find when simply looking at Street View in Google Earth. It does not include the sort of collections often found on the web of interesting things inadvertently caught by the Street View cameras. On a side note, Google has recently closed down the old version of Street View breaking many sites that have links to Street View imagery.

The layer only includes actual Google Street View and does not include user-submitted Google Views or Business Views.

The locations include a number of places we have looked at before that we found very difficult to get to from Google Earth and at the time recommended the Google Maps version of Street View instead. These locations include:

• The Amazon forest canopy via zipline
• The underwater footage at Lock Ness
• The underwater footage around the oceans from the Catlin Seaview Survey

The new layer makes it much easier to find those locations and to enter Street View, but navigation is still very difficult. There are often no street lines or other markers indicating which directions you can navigate. Overall, the Street View interface within Google Earth is not as good as the Google Maps version, but moving on a larger scale between locations with Street View is now easier in Google Earth and a superior experience to Google Maps. Probably the best solution is to find interesting Street View in Google Earth and then switch to Google Maps to view it using the ‘View in Google Maps’ button on the tool bar.

Sea Lions, Galapagos Islands, Ecuador.

The post New Google Earth layers: Street View highlights appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

A couple of days ago Google introduced some new layers to Google Earth in honour of Google Earth’s 10th anniversary. Yesterday we looked at the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer. Today we are looking at the ‘Earth View landscapes’ layer.

The ‘Earth View landscapes’ layer highlights the locations of a collection of beautiful satellite and aerial imagery. This collection has been featured in the Google Chrome extension ‘Earth View’ that we featured last year. If you have Google Chrome you can get the free extension from the Google store.

The collection of imagery has been expanded and now includes around 1500 images. If you don’t want to install the extension, or don’t use Google Chrome, you can still view the images in Google Earth using the new layer, and optionally download them for use as computer wallpaper. Alternatively, you can view them via the new Earth View Gallery website. If you use a browser other than Chrome, you could try setting that site as your default new tab. Also check out ‘lean back’ mode from the drop down menu at the top left of the site.

One noticeable change to the Chrome extension is that the logo has been changed from Google Maps to Google Earth. This is fitting, as much of the featured imagery is from the ‘historical imagery’ layer of Google Earth and cannot be found in Google Maps. We did find that most of the imagery can be identified in Google Earth, although the colours often do not match exactly. Either they have touched up the colours for the Earth View gallery, or they have used original imagery and not what is in Google Earth, which may be colour corrected.

We also discovered that there are a few images from Google’s Skybox Imaging that will not be found in Google Earth and whose locations are not marked in the new layer.

The circle in the centre of the image is known as “The Great Blue Hole” and has its own Wikipedia page.

The image above is from Skybox Imaging and is not found in the new layer. Find it here in the Earth View Gallery or download this KML file to view it in Google Earth. This particular image is actually better quality than the imagery in Google Earth at that location. Maybe it is time Google did start including Skybox imagery in Google Earth.

One small shortcoming of the new layer is that there is no obvious way to share a nice image you have found. In the Chrome plugin there is a ‘share’ menu, but no such links are in the Earth View layer popups. If you wish to tell someone else about a nice image from the Earth View layer, download it as wallpaper and take note of the 4 digit number at the end of the file name. Append the number to the URL of the Earth View Gallery and it will display the correct image. For example, the above image downloads as “google-earth-view-7022.jpg”. Just enter “http://earthview.withgoogle.com/7022″ in your browser and it will find it.

The post New Google Earth layers: Earth View landscapes appeared first on Google Earth Blog.

On Monday, Google introduced some new layers to Google Earth under the title ‘Voyager’. They all contain information that was previously available, but not as easily accessible as in the new layers.

Today we are looking at the new layer called ‘Satellite imagery updates’. This layer shows the outlines of imagery that has recently been added to Google Earth. Google has published this information in the past, most recently via this Google map. There are, however, a few key differences between this new layer and the Google map:

• The Google map only shows overall outlines of the updates, whereas the new layer shows each individual image. So when there are overlapping images, the new layer is more informative.
• The new layer lets you click on an individual image and it will give you the date the image was acquired. Although it was possible to figure out the imagery dates from the Google map via a bit of detective work, this certainly makes it much easier and is a welcome improvement.
• The Google map shows the data for one particular update (as of this writing, the update of May 27th, 2015 ). The new layer shows data from multiple updates: as of this writing it includes the update from June 8th, 2015 and some extra imagery that we believe has been added since then but hasn’t been reported via the map.
• If you click the ‘download’ link found below the other layers, it will copy the Voyager layer to your ‘My Places’ in a format that includes more detail. For the ‘Satellite imagery updates’ layer, the data is categorized by continent and country. The Google map, on the other hand, does not allow you to save the data in any way other than a screen shot, and since Google regularly updates the map, there is no good record of past updates.
• Once you have the data in your ‘My Places’, you can save the data to KML files for further analysis. This is not possible with the Google Map, which is essentially copy protected.

Since we are allowed to access the KML, with the help of this useful website we can work out the total area of the new imagery by continent:

Note that no allowance has been made for overlapping imagery, so the above figures are the area of the imagery added and not the area of land surface covered.

Durban, South Africa, got a lot of imagery – we don’t know why.

It must be noted that imagery displayed in this layer is not necessarily recent imagery. To learn more about interpreting Google’s imagery updates maps see this series of posts. The oldest image we have found so far in the new layer is of the Japanese Island of Kuchinoerabu captured on September 19th, 2012. We believe it was added because of the volcanic eruption on the island that happened in May this year. Imagery of the eruption itself has not yet been added to Google Earth, but this old image might have been added to aid rescue workers.

We have also noticed that imagery of Guam captured in May has been added to Google Earth. This is imagery that relates to Cyclone Dolphin that struck Guam on May 15th, 2015. Although the imagery is from the days following the Cyclone, we have not been able to identify any damage caused. This imagery is not noted on either the new layer or any of the update maps published by Google. This suggests that there have been updates since the new layer was made.

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