5 ms·

Do they actually use satellites for their "satellite" view? I always assumed that it was done by aircraft.

willis936 5y ago
Flying a plane around the planet sounds a lot more expensive financially and thermodynamically than just beaming down images from an object constantly falling into the views you want to see.
- fullstop 5y ago
  I looked it up. There are some satellite images, but a lot of it is done by aircraft.
- dzhiurgis 5y ago
  You are only interested in urban areas which is less than 1% of total earth surface
- omoikane 5y ago
  It's also the case that often there are more legal regulations around aerial imagery compared to satellite imagery.
- op00to 5y ago
  Or you could just strap a camera to a few commercial airliners and have full coverage.
  - dylan604 5y ago
    You'd only have full coverage of the jet routes. They don't just fly willy nilly across the globe.
Cd00d 5y ago
Depends on the needed resolution. You can cover a lot more earth, far more cheaply with a satellite with several meter wide pixels. When I used to work in remote sensing I remember that Bing Maps had a very distinct resolution transition from spacecraft to aircraft. Aircraft coverage maps were a small subset of the total earth land area, but most US towns had some coverage at that time (~2012). As you zoomed in, you could tell when Bing switched capture methods because the aircraft cameras were clearly off-nadir, and you'd see off-angle perception differences.
reportingsjr 5y ago
They only use aircraft around larger urban areas. Satellite imagery is used for rural areas. You can see the resolution difference by seeing how far you can zoom in. If you zoom in on a road near the pinned location for this post, and then go to, say, downtown kansas city, and zoom in you'll see a pretty significant difference.
ehsankia 5y ago
It's definitely a mix, depending on the area and the resolution. For urban places where they have 3D views and higher resolution, it's definitely planes. For a random place like this at low resolution, it's satellites.

Flying a plane around the planet sounds a lot more expensive financially and thermodynamically than just beaming down images from an object constantly falling into the views you want to see.

fullstop 5y ago
I looked it up. There are some satellite images, but a lot of it is done by aircraft.
dzhiurgis 5y ago
You are only interested in urban areas which is less than 1% of total earth surface
omoikane 5y ago
It's also the case that often there are more legal regulations around aerial imagery compared to satellite imagery.
op00to 5y ago
Or you could just strap a camera to a few commercial airliners and have full coverage.
- dylan604 5y ago
  You'd only have full coverage of the jet routes. They don't just fly willy nilly across the globe.

Cd00d 5y ago

Depends on the needed resolution. You can cover a lot more earth, far more cheaply with a satellite with several meter wide pixels. When I used to work in remote sensing I remember that Bing Maps had a very distinct resolution transition from spacecraft to aircraft. Aircraft coverage maps were a small subset of the total earth land area, but most US towns had some coverage at that time (~2012). As you zoomed in, you could tell when Bing switched capture methods because the aircraft cameras were clearly off-nadir, and you'd see off-angle perception differences.

reportingsjr 5y ago

They only use aircraft around larger urban areas. Satellite imagery is used for rural areas. You can see the resolution difference by seeing how far you can zoom in. If you zoom in on a road near the pinned location for this post, and then go to, say, downtown kansas city, and zoom in you'll see a pretty significant difference.

ehsankia 5y ago

It's definitely a mix, depending on the area and the resolution. For urban places where they have 3D views and higher resolution, it's definitely planes. For a random place like this at low resolution, it's satellites.