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Only clear skies on Google Maps and Earth
- kurt_ 13y agoAnother interressing articles on cloudless map on mapbox: * http://www.wired.com/design/2013/05/a-cloudless-atlas/ http://www.wired.com/design/2013/05/a-cloudless-atlas/ * http://www.mapbox.com/blog/improving-mapbox-satellite-by-making-clouds-disappear/ http://www.mapbox.com/blog/improving-mapbox-satellite-by-mak...
- mxfh 13y agodon't miss http://www.mapbox.com/blog/cloudless-atlas-with-landsat/ http://www.mapbox.com/blog/cloudless-atlas-with-landsat/ as well Thanks to Landsat 8 new data also no longer suffers from Landsat 7's defunct SLC
- mjn 13y agoThere's also this series of month-by-month cloudless composite maps from NASA: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/BlueMarble/ Neat to see things like icecaps expanding and retreating.
- crazygringo 13y agoI'm checking out the new Google Maps beta, and if you zoom all the way out in Earth mode, it actually puts the clouds back-in -- based on real-time satellite data. Pretty cool. Now if there were just a time slider... But it's also very cool that Google Maps no longers looks like a big patchwork of images from totally different satellites and sources. It actually looks seamless now, no matter where you're zooming. That's pretty incredible. EDIT: the more I've been playing with it, the cooler it is. You can actually get a sense of how the colors of houses, roads, lawns, fields, etc. merge as you gradually zoom out, seamlessly. I've never seen anything like this -- wow.
- hugi 13y agoMy hometown still looks horrible :'( https://maps.google.com/?ll=65.14846,-13.690295&spn=0.015042,0.055747&t=h&z=15 https://maps.google.com/?ll=65.14846,-13.690295&spn=0.015042...
- anigbrowl 13y agoNow I'm imagining that all the houses and people in the east end of town are blurry and have strange colors :)
- Svip 13y ago'Oh la-dee-dar; you're from the fancy part of town with less blur!' Clearly the sign of a division of class.
- Svip 13y agoBut you live in a weird country, where nobody lives. Surely you'll see more just by looking outside the window?
- seszett 13y agoHehe, even the middle of the Indian Ocean is better: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Port-aux-Fran%C3%A7ais,+Terres+australes+et+antarctiques+fran%C3%A7aises&hl=fr&ie=UTF8&ll=-49.349133,70.219867&spn=0.002037,0.005262&sll=65.148297,-13.68948&sspn=0.010515,0.0421&oq=Port&t=h&hnear=Port-aux-Fran%C3%A7ais,+Terres+australes+et+antarctiques+fran%C3%A7aises&z=18 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=Port-aux-Fran%C3%A7ais,+Terre... it was even updated this year.
- agilebyte 13y agoCool, I'll take the pink shack.
- chr1 13y ago:(, but there are places with worse imagery https://maps.google.com/?ll=65.14846,-13.690295&spn=0.015042,0.055747&t=h&z=15 https://maps.google.com/?ll=65.14846,-13.690295&spn=0.015042...
- jb- 13y agoThey look awesome! The best part of it is that it seems like most of the pictures at different levels seem to be taken within a short time of each other, if not nearly simultaneous.
- pasbesoin 13y agoI've found myself recently wishing for a "globe" mode, akin to what's available in Google Earth, to better see some large-scale scale and distance interests that have come up for me.
- crazygringo 13y agoIt's already in the new Google Maps, if you've requested a beta preview.
- pasbesoin 13y agoOh, ok. Thanks!
- modeless 13y agoYou mean you want a Google Earth-like 3D view in the web-based Google Maps? If so, you're in luck: http://maps.google.com/help/maps/helloworld/desktop/preview/ http://maps.google.com/help/maps/helloworld/desktop/preview/
- itcmcgrath 13y agohttp://imgur.com/P7nWQh4 http://imgur.com/P7nWQh4 In chrome when you select 'Earth' view, it gets you to install a plugin, but then it's all there.
- modeless 13y agoThat's the old Google Maps. In the new version no plugin is required because it uses WebGL, and Earth mode replaces satellite mode entirely.
- cryptoz 13y agoIt's pretty funny how far Google will go to avoid talking about the weather. They even put barometers in all their phones but aren't building a weather network or buying any weather startups (like mine)! What gives? They algorithmically remove weather, create an unused network of 50,000,000 barometers, gah!
- ChuckMcM 13y agoPerhaps because Google Weather[1] will actually control the weather. A Google Pumping station every half kilometer or so, they are going to use the barometers in Android phones to give feedback on their actions. So if you need sunny weather the pumping stations will pull air from outside the area in and heat it up, if you want it to rain they will create a low pressure zone by pumping air out to a different zone. They need all the barometers to control which pumping stations are on and how much air they pump. [1] This is entirely fictitious of course, but having worked there I could easily imagine just this description on the 'ideas' page.
- yebyen 13y agoThere is prior art on this in Rochester, NY... we've known about the weather control device for some time: http://reportermag.com/article/crowdsourcing/campus-rumors http://reportermag.com/article/crowdsourcing/campus-rumors Check out Rumor #9... "Under Dr. Al Simone, the weather machine was used nearly flawlessly, as tour days always meant good weather, and the day after always rained."
- hnha 13y agocheap barometers are pretty terrible for absolute readings, I am not sure you could get any useful (for weather observation) data from them in a reasonable way that would be better than from classic stations.
- markhelo 13y agoNot sure why but not all clouds have disappeared. It could be Africa. I also see images that are stitched from different times of the year as you can see the difference in vegetation. -7.038329,36.246508
- IvyMike 13y agoMaybe the data isn't rolling out to everyone simultaneously? Here's what I see--no clouds at any zoom level: http://i.imgur.com/M6PuwgI.jpg http://i.imgur.com/M6PuwgI.jpg
- znowi 13y agoLandsat 7 was launched in 1999. Had the Scan Line Corrector failure [1] in 2003 and has been taking striped images since then. Landsat 8 is the recent addition launched in February 2013. Here you can see sample images from the satellite [2] and a side-by-side comparison to Landsat 7 [3]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsat_7#Scan_Line_Corrector_failure http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsat_7#Scan_Line_Corrector_f... [2] http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_Image_Examples.php http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_Image_Examples.php [3] http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_Underfly_with_Landsat_7.php http://landsat.usgs.gov/LDCM_Underfly_with_Landsat_7.php
- meandthebean 13y agoHere's a weird case: https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=43.047565,-123.758926&spn=0.254157,0.528374&t=k&z=12 https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en&ll=43.047565,-123.758926&... Zoom in one and out one. The patchwork brown flops in some of the grid.
- magicalist 13y agoIs that logging, maybe? It looks like the more zoomed out was actually a picture taken later, as the areas that were cleared in the closer zoom become brownish-green, and there's all new areas that are all brown that were before all green.
- randomafrican 13y agoHometown hasnt chnaged at all
- tempestn 13y agoWow. Google maps is literally beautiful now. I just spent several minutes zooming in and out, just marveling at the detail.
- goblin89 13y agoI've recently spent half an hour in Google Earth after turning on the ‘photorealistic atmospheric rendering’ feature + time slider. Makes for some landscapes… (Update: Should've checked prior to posting… Photorealistic rendering is on by default in Maps with Earth plug-in, despite still being called experimental in Earth settings.)
- andrewljohnson 13y agoIt's cool to see these images improve, but they just got this idea from MapBox, no? Just like they got the idea to move on vector and 3D from Apple. Is invention at Google Maps dead, and now we just watch as they ape their competitors to stay ahead? Reactivity is to be expected from the entrenched player, but aping competitors alone won't keep Google relevant forever.
- rdouble 13y agoProbably. The main guys who created Google Maps are long gone.
- vegardx 13y agoI don't think you can credit Apple for the technology to make 3D photography, it has been a very well established technique for quite some time. Apple just happend to buy a company that did exactly this.
- mayanksinghal 13y agoMapBox announcement seems to be not more than a couple of months old. If you think that someone can take inspiration, get data, process, QA test and launch such a feature in such a short duration, you should be impressed anyway. Google Earth had 3D for a long time. Vector maps is again a huge undertaking and takes time to get right. Some companies didn't take their time, some did.
- stevehawk 13y agoBut they didn't make Google Earth. They bought it from a small company that was partially funded by the CIA.
- mayanksinghal 13y agoSo was the case with Apple, if my sibling is correct. I am just trying to say is that there is plenty, like a lot lot, of innovation in Google Maps - from devices that make it's own mapping data to using WebGL to render it in 3D in browser. To claim otherwise, with incredibly weak argument as in the original comments, is either lazy or dishonest.
- mehmehshoe 13y agoA question for anybody that may work on the Earth project. Is Google actively trying to fill in past pictures, or only working forward? One of my favorite features was to do the time slide backwards on towns I lived in. Some go back to the 80's and others only a few years.
- nekojima 13y agoThere is a fair amount of artificial cloud covering residential buildings in Singapore, plus some commercial, public and military sites. Some areas such as a diplomatic district might be understandable, though others like the odd HDB block less so. Having lived across the street from one HDB block now obscured by artificial clouds, I'm wondering who might live there that its a priority to block an aerial view.
- wavesum 13y agoAt least my home town (Tampere, Finland, the home of Nokia) is so cloudy that the image data is useless. Misleading headline.
- ajtaylor 13y agoI wonder if the cloud removal was in response to Mapbox's recent announcements. It seems like an obvious improvement either way. I remember the first Mapquest product, and now we have Google Earth in high resolution glory. What will the next 10 years bring us?
- adventured 13y agoGoogle has contributed numerous great things to the Internet / Web / computing technology of the last 15 years, but among all of that, Google Maps might just be my favorite. It's a great product and they keep improving it / investing into it, and I'm not aware that it generates much revenue (it seems to be the grocery store version of milk). Most companies slack big time once they're out in front, Google doesn't seem to be doing that (granted they're being chased by a lot of good competition).
- Peroni 13y agoCompletely agree. Aside from the practical, everyday application of maps, being able to jump into streetview and see the house I grew up in, zoom out and jump to the other side of the planet and jump back into streetview to see the house I lived in whilst living in New Zealand is almost magical.
- wooptoo 13y agoThey do sell API access as far as I know.
- vlasev 13y agoOh my god! I didn't know that the the united states is literally crisscrossed by roads in a relatively square grid fashion, as in [1]. This kind of detail was invisible in the previous version. Here is a frightening image of China [2]. Each of these patches is a town! This update of the maps is amazing! [1]https://maps.google.com/?ll=47.115467,-97.306595&spn=0.292982,0.837021&t=h&z=11 https://maps.google.com/?ll=47.115467,-97.306595&spn=0.29298... [2]https://maps.google.com/?ll=38.002656,115.434723&spn=0.678488,1.674042&t=k&z=10 https://maps.google.com/?ll=38.002656,115.434723&spn=0.67848...
- wikwocket 13y agoA lot of the land in the western U.S. was given out by the government in square plots to anyone willing to settle there and plat some crops/trees. I believe this was under the homestead acts.
- maxerickson 13y agoThe road network is somewhat a result of the land survey that was used: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Land_Survey_System I've messed around with building 'road pressure' maps using the Tiger data from the census, in states like Michigan (at least in the lower peninsula), there is very little land that is not within about 1/2 mile of a public road.
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- dirktheman 13y agoThe clouds have gone, but the now defunct and abandoned military complex near my hometown in Ede, The Netherlands is still rendered 'classified': https://maps.google.com/maps?q=52.067359,5.699562&num=1&t=h&z=16 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=52.067359,5.699562&num=1&t=h&... Which is weird, because even Area 51 is completely visible in high-res.
- RyanMcGreal 13y agoI half-expected the Street View to be classified as well: https://maps.google.com/maps?q=52.067359,5.699562&ll=52.064576,5.691905&spn=0.009155,0.032787&num=1&t=h&z=15&layer=c&cbll=52.064578,5.691909&panoid=W0iV7y6P4M9aDFUb5lMPXA&cbp=12,59.08,,1,-1.47 https://maps.google.com/maps?q=52.067359,5.699562&ll=52.0645...
- croisillon 13y agoCan't wait for the clear sky on streetview.