5 ms·

Google Maps removes clouds, clears up view in 700-trillion pixel upgrade

54 points by Karuma 10y ago

cpeterso 10y ago
When will the cloudless maps be live? Christmas Island still has (small) clouds: https://www.google.com/maps/@-10.4886918,105.6396568,20430m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@-10.4886918,105.6396568,20430m/...
- perilunar 10y ago
  Was about to say the same. There are still clouds.
benkuykendall 10y ago
> To put that in perspective, 700 trillion pixels is 70 times more than there are estimated galaxies in the universe according to Google, or just seven Zimbabwean 100 trillion dollar notes. ... How about this instead: a 700-trillion pixel world map, if displayed at the 401ppi of the iPhone 6 plus, would be 2.8km^2 and cover 4/5 of Central Park.
- spicyj 10y ago
  Or 73 sq meters per pixel if you spread it out evenly over the whole surface area of the Earth.
- labster 10y ago
  To put that in perspective, the average journalist has to pass 1 maths class in college, which is the number of stars in our solar system.
- NamTaf 10y ago
  Welcome to Australian journalism.
foota 10y ago
Anyone else find the comparison if 700 trillion to "just seven Zimbabwean 100 trillion dollar notes" to be extremely strange?
- MatthewWilkes 10y ago
  Yeah, it was a bit. I took it to be emphasising how although it's a huge number by natural standards, humans do some silly things with numbers at times so we get desensitised to their scale.
monksy 10y ago
I think the most interesting part of this news is that they took an image processing technique and applied it on this large of a scale. They're doing background extraction on the entire set of satellite data. An example can be found here: http://opencvpython.blogspot.com/2012/07/background-extraction-using-running.html http://opencvpython.blogspot.com/2012/07/background-extracti...
- woodman 10y ago
  I would be extremely surprised if they were actually doing that, because a lot of effort has already been put into doing it a better (and more interesting) way: cloud detection and mosaicing. Landsat captures several spectral bands, and due to atmospheric transmission rates, some bands can act as really good cloud filters [0]. This is what they're actually using, or something very close to it, for clouds [1]. [0] http://landsat.usgs.gov/ldcm_vs_previous.php http://landsat.usgs.gov/ldcm_vs_previous.php [1] https://github.com/USGS-EROS/espa-cloud-masking https://github.com/USGS-EROS/espa-cloud-masking

54 points by Karuma 10y ago

When will the cloudless maps be live? Christmas Island still has (small) clouds: https://www.google.com/maps/@-10.4886918,105.6396568,20430m/data=!3m1!1e3 https://www.google.com/maps/@-10.4886918,105.6396568,20430m/...

perilunar 10y ago
Was about to say the same. There are still clouds.

benkuykendall 10y ago

> To put that in perspective, 700 trillion pixels is 70 times more than there are estimated galaxies in the universe according to Google, or just seven Zimbabwean 100 trillion dollar notes. ... How about this instead: a 700-trillion pixel world map, if displayed at the 401ppi of the iPhone 6 plus, would be 2.8km^2 and cover 4/5 of Central Park.

spicyj 10y ago
Or 73 sq meters per pixel if you spread it out evenly over the whole surface area of the Earth.
labster 10y ago
To put that in perspective, the average journalist has to pass 1 maths class in college, which is the number of stars in our solar system.
NamTaf 10y ago
Welcome to Australian journalism.

foota 10y ago

Anyone else find the comparison if 700 trillion to "just seven Zimbabwean 100 trillion dollar notes" to be extremely strange?

MatthewWilkes 10y ago
Yeah, it was a bit. I took it to be emphasising how although it's a huge number by natural standards, humans do some silly things with numbers at times so we get desensitised to their scale.

monksy 10y ago

I think the most interesting part of this news is that they took an image processing technique and applied it on this large of a scale. They're doing background extraction on the entire set of satellite data. An example can be found here: http://opencvpython.blogspot.com/2012/07/background-extraction-using-running.html http://opencvpython.blogspot.com/2012/07/background-extracti...

woodman 10y ago
I would be extremely surprised if they were actually doing that, because a lot of effort has already been put into doing it a better (and more interesting) way: cloud detection and mosaicing. Landsat captures several spectral bands, and due to atmospheric transmission rates, some bands can act as really good cloud filters [0]. This is what they're actually using, or something very close to it, for clouds [1]. [0] http://landsat.usgs.gov/ldcm_vs_previous.php http://landsat.usgs.gov/ldcm_vs_previous.php [1] https://github.com/USGS-EROS/espa-cloud-masking https://github.com/USGS-EROS/espa-cloud-masking