Satellite & Aerial

The Eyes of the Division
A real find via Slashgeo: an internal document about the Imagery Interpretation Section (5 MB PDF) of the U.S. Army’s 24th Infantry Division, dating from 1963. The document’s purpose was to promote the Section’s work to unit commanders. It also… »
Posted on Friday, August 29, 2008 at 10:02 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
The Journal of Terrestrial Observation
The Journal of Terrestrial Observation is a new peer-reviewed journal that is published simultaneously online and as a hardcopy quarterly. Its mission is “to examine the multi-disciplinary theories, models, technologies, and applications associated with earth observation in the broadest sense…. »
Posted on Thursday, August 28, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Scholarly Journals
Mapping the 2008 Olympics
You may be aware that, in addition to The Map Room, I have another project that I work on during the Olympics: DFL, which chronicles last-place finishes. I’m at it again — this is my third kick at the Olympic… »
Posted on Saturday, August 9, 2008 at 3:20 PM
Categories: Beijing, Google Earth, Olympics, Satellite & Aerial
Britain from Above
Considerable buzz about an upcoming BBC series, Britain from Above. This preview (screen capture above; I wish I could have embedded the video here, it’s pretty good) uses GPS traceroutes to show sea, road and air traffic; it also… »
Posted on Tuesday, August 5, 2008 at 9:26 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Tracerouting, Video
Landsat Data Will Be Available Online
All Points Blog: “Speaking at the ESRI UC Senior Executive Summit in San Diego, U.S. Secretary of the Interior Dirk Kempthorne announced that the 35 years of archived Landsat data will be made available over the Web free to the… »
Posted on Sunday, August 3, 2008 at 8:28 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Mapping Atmospheric Water Vapour
A NASA satellite, the Ocean Surface Topography Mission (OSTM)/Jason-2, primarily measures the height of the ocean surface with a radar altimeter. It also has a sensor to measure atmospheric moisture; this map represents water vapour in the atmosphere measured… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 at 9:18 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Virtual Earth Imagery Updates
Speaking of which, the Virtual Earth evangelist blog also reports on 14.3 terabytes of new imagery for Virtual Earth…. »
Posted on Tuesday, July 22, 2008 at 4:34 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps
Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren’t Allowed to See on Google Maps, a compilation of locations whose aerial imagery has been obscured in Google Earth and Maps. Categories range from government and military facilities to power generation sites; the list… »
Posted on Friday, July 18, 2008 at 10:23 AM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Abstract Satellite Images
Environmental Graffiti reprints a collection of beautiful false-colour Landsat 7 images — 30 in all — first put on display by NASA at the Library of Congress in 2000. Via Andrew Sullivan…. »
Posted on Wednesday, July 16, 2008 at 5:05 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Oceandots
Oceandots is a collection of NASA satellite and astronaut imagery of the world’s islands and atolls — and not just the tiny, isolated ones like Pitcairn, Clipperton or Tristan da Cunha, either, though they’re certainly well represented and are… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 15, 2008 at 7:25 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Imagery Updated
Google Earth Blog has a roundup of the latest imagery updates to Google Earth. Update, 7/16: Google LatLong post…. »
Posted on Monday, July 14, 2008 at 7:36 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Thermal London
This is interesting: thermal images of London from space, from the air, and from a high vantage point. Part of a site dedicated to thermal imagery of London, but this page is what’s of interest to us. At right,… »
Posted on Wednesday, July 2, 2008 at 6:36 PM
Categories: London, Satellite & Aerial
Aerial Photography in 1936
The wonderful blog Modern Mechanix reprints another contemporary article about early aerial photography: “He Made Sky Mapping a Big Business” was first published in the May 1936 issue of the eponymous magazine. Previously: “Flying Cameras Map America for War”: Aerial… »
Posted on Wednesday, June 4, 2008 at 9:40 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
More on Cyclone Nargis and Burma
More on the devastation wrought on Burma (Myanmar) by Cyclone Nargis: UNOSAT has maps of the affected regions (as PDF files); the maps show the extent of flooding and the villages that have been completely submerged or flooded. Via Glenn…. »
Posted on Saturday, May 10, 2008 at 11:02 AM
Categories: Current Events, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Cyclone Nargis
Satellite images from before and after Cyclone Nargis struck the Burmese (Myanmarese?) coast…. »
Posted on Wednesday, May 7, 2008 at 8:13 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Cities at Night
NASA’s Earth Observatory has a page of photos of cities at night taken from space; at right, Tokyo. “Astronauts circling the Earth have the wonderful vantage point of observing the nighttime Earth from 350-400 kilometers above the surface, taking… »
Posted on Thursday, May 1, 2008 at 6:52 PM
Categories: Cities, Satellite & Aerial, Tokyo
Historic Aerial Photography
Historic Aerials “provides free online access to historic and current aerial photography. You can view aerial photography from the 1930s through today. Use our multi-year comparison tools to detect changes in property.” Covers a good chunk of the U.S., with… »
Posted on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 7:39 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
The Media and Google Earth’s Satellite Imagery
What drives Glenn nuts about media coverage of Google Earth “is that most of these ‘writers’ refer to the imagery as being ‘Google’s’ as if a big bird is circling the Earth capturing high-res imagery almost daily. Hey man, the… »
Posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 6:37 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Yahoo Updates Imagery
I will have something on the Microsoft Live Maps/Virtual Earth update presently (once I go through all the material, and there’s a lot to go through). In the meantime, though, Yahoo Maps hasn’t been idle either, with a huge imagery… »
Posted on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 5:20 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Mary Meader
The New York Times: “Mary Meader, who as a spunky new bride in the 1930s took off on a 35,000-mile journey to advance geographic knowledge by making unprecedented aerial photographs of South America and Africa, died Sunday in Kalamazoo, Mich…. »
Posted on Monday, April 7, 2008 at 9:42 PM
Categories: Obituaries, Satellite & Aerial
‘Flying Cameras Map America for War’: Aerial Photography in 1939
“Flying Cameras Map America for War”, an article from the May 1939 issue of Popular Science, has been reprinted on the always-fascinating Modern Mechanix blog. The article looks at the state of the art with respect to aerial photography just… »
Posted on Sunday, March 23, 2008 at 10:55 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
True Marble Satellite Imagery Freely Available
Unearthed Outdoors has made its True Marble 250m-resolution satellite imagery available for download under a Creative Commons licence; their 15m-resolution imagery costs money. The files are available either in GeoTIFF or PNG format and range from 32-kilometre to 250-metre… »
Posted on Friday, February 29, 2008 at 10:08 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Updates: Imagery and Transit
A couple of quick updates about Google’s mapping stuff — quick updates seem to be all I have time or energy for at the moment, what with the full-time contract and the resulting lengthy commute. Google Transit’s features have been… »
Posted on Wednesday, October 3, 2007 at 7:43 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Mass Transit, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google, Censorship and Washington, D.C.: An Update
Nikolas Schiller writes: The other day you featured my analysis concerning Google’s censorship of downtown Washington, D.C. I am contacting you with two updates concerning this research. 1. I discovered that the area in question is the exact same area… »
Posted on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 9:31 PM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
A Cryptic Imagery Update
Google announces the latest Google Earth imagery update with a cryptic blog entry inviting us to guess from the clues; those with less patience can turn to Digital Earth Blog for the answers. (Update: Google’s official answers.) If the Ottawa-area… »
Posted on Monday, July 30, 2007 at 8:09 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Mars HiRISE Images
If you also like satellite images of other planets, proceed immediately to the home page of the HiRISE camera on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: “During its mission, HiRISE will collect thousands of images of the Martian surface, covering only… »
Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 9:07 PM
Categories: Astronomy, Satellite & Aerial
Google, Censorship and Washington, D.C.
Nikolas Schiller writes to point out an article in today’s Washington Post about Google’s updated imagery of Washington, D.C., and how Google massaged the fact that the most recent imagery available — 2005 imagery from the USGS — censored several… »
Posted on Sunday, July 22, 2007 at 7:51 PM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Censoring Satellite Imagery at the Source
Even though the new street-level imagery from Google is getting all the attention lately, the issue of censoring satellite and aerial imagery has not gone away. Not by a long shot. Via Ogle Earth: Henri Willox noted yesterday that French… »
Posted on Monday, June 4, 2007 at 1:58 PM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Imagery and Terrain Update
A big update to Google Earth’s imagery and terrain layers on Saturday that includes Canadian, German and French cities, U.S. counties, Japanese cities/regions, 50-cm-resolution imagery for England, 60-cm imagery for many areas including Antarctica and Greenland, and 10-metre terrain for… »
Posted on Monday, June 4, 2007 at 7:12 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Another Microsoft Imagery Update
Probably not fortuitous that Microsoft’s monthly Virtual Earth imagery update (see previous entry) also took place today: the Virtual Earth/Live Maps blog has the details; I note with interest that Ottawa, the closest city to me, is among the cities… »
Posted on Tuesday, May 29, 2007 at 6:44 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Quadrocopter: DIY Aerial Photography
Fed up with waiting for aerial photography for your area to show up in online maps? Take your own with a quadrocopter! The Universal Aerial Video Platform is an open-source project from Germany, Austria and Switzerland. Via MAKE: Blog… »
Posted on Sunday, May 6, 2007 at 11:04 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth’s Source Images
From last year, a brief article on Google’s Librarian Central on the sources of Google Earth imagery. We collect it via airplane and satellite, but also just about any way you can imagine getting a camera above the Earth’s surface:… »
Posted on Monday, April 30, 2007 at 8:28 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Imagery Updated Monthly
Virtual Earth imagery updates are apparently a monthly thing now: here’s news of the latest, which includes updates for Italy, France, Mexico, Canada and the U.S., including more U.S. bird’s-eye imagery…. »
Posted on Friday, April 27, 2007 at 6:08 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Real-Time Satellite Imagery: EarthNow vs. The Simpsons
Live, accessible satellite imagery is a pipe dream, but EarthNow is probably as close as we’ll ever get: it’s not live, but (updated; see below) it is real-time — just delayed a few hours. It’s essentially a Java applet… »
Posted on Tuesday, April 24, 2007 at 7:56 PM
Categories: Fun, Satellite & Aerial, Video
Aerial Imagery on a GPS
Tim likes the idea of aerial photography on a GPS unit, which is now starting to become available: it adds a layer of information that you might otherwise miss with topo maps — he cites vegetation as an example…. »
Posted on Tuesday, April 17, 2007 at 7:43 PM
Categories: GPS, Satellite & Aerial
Google Updates New Orleans Imagery
Google has updated its New Orleans imagery in response to the outcry over its decision — made last September — to update that imagery with higher-quality images that were unfortunately, and impolitically, before Hurricane Katrina. The Official Google Blog: [I]n… »
Posted on Monday, April 2, 2007 at 11:37 AM
Categories: Google Earth, New Orleans, Satellite & Aerial
Google Reverts to Pre-Katrina New Orleans Imagery
Google has apparently replaced post-Katrina images of New Orleans with imagery from before the hurricane clobbered the city, and people are upset about that, the AP reports (choose your source for the same article: Boston Globe, Guardian, Houston Chronicle,… »
Posted on Friday, March 30, 2007 at 8:42 AM
Categories: Hurricanes 2005, New Orleans, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
More Virtual Earth Imagery Updates
Hot on Google’s heels, there’s a major imagery update for Virtual Earth, with dozens of cities in Europe and the U.S. getting bird’s-eye photography, as well as high-resolution orthoimagery coming to a number of U.S. and Canadian locales. Previously: Virtual… »
Posted on Friday, March 30, 2007 at 8:07 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Google Imagery Updates for March 29
Yet another imagery update for Google Earth: updates to Spain, Connecticutt and Austin, Texas; high-resolution imagery for a number of English locations, a number of U.S. counties, the French cities of Poitiers and Rennes, and downtown Vancouver, B.C. Via Ogle… »
Posted on Thursday, March 29, 2007 at 8:51 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Satellite Misconceptions
Chad tries to address the confusion about a series of high-resolution images appearing in Google Maps and Google Earth. It seems to me that there are two misconceptions: that they’re all satellite images, and that they are real-time (or… »
Posted on Friday, March 23, 2007 at 9:03 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Nikolas Schiller
Yesterday’s Washington Post had a major piece about Nikolas Schiller, who’s been doing artful things with aerial photography and doing his best to stay under the web’s collective radar. (Sorry.) Excerpts from the Post article: Schiller barely pauses on… »
Posted on Thursday, March 15, 2007 at 3:11 PM
Categories: Art, Satellite & Aerial
Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica
The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica “combines nearly 1100 hand-selected Landsat satellite scenes that are being digitally woven together to create a single, seamless, cloud-free image of the Antarctic continent — the most detailed color representation of this vast… »
Posted on Monday, March 12, 2007 at 8:52 PM
Categories: GIS, Satellite & Aerial
More Google Imagery Updates
Recent updates to the satellite and aerial imagery in Google Maps and Earth include 50-cm resolution imagery for Switzerland and Denmark, high-resolution (10 m) terrain for Switzerland, several French cities, full coverage for Utah and Wyoming, and a number of… »
Posted on Thursday, March 1, 2007 at 1:39 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Detroit Through the Years
I can’t see it because I’m on a Mac and this is a Virtual Earth mashup, but Detroit Through the Years, which displays aerial views of Detroit from 1949 to the present, sounds like a fascinating project. Let me know… »
Posted on Sunday, February 25, 2007 at 5:57 PM
Categories: Cities, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Portland LIDAR Survey
A $1-million project to map the terrain of Portland, Oregon will take place over the next few weeks, the Oregonian reports. The aerial LIDAR survey is intended to create a hyper-accurate terrain map that will be particularly useful in… »
Posted on Monday, February 19, 2007 at 12:34 PM
Categories: Earth Sciences, Portland, Satellite & Aerial, Surveying
World Wind 1.4
World Wind 1.4 is now out: it’s Windows-only and requires .Net 2.0; Chad says the cross-platform Java version is expected around May. Previously: World Wind Update…. »
Posted on Wednesday, February 14, 2007 at 6:40 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
High-Resolution Satellite Photos of Europe in Google Earth
Stefan broke the news this morning that Spot Image’s 2.5-meter-per-pixel imagery had been added to Google Earth; this is apparently a substantial improvement over the 15-meter-per-pixel base layer. More from Spot Image itself; the countries affected include Belgium, France, Belgium,… »
Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 1:35 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Two More Blogs
Stefan has discovered two brand-spanking-new blogs that have started up this very month: the Google Earth Hacks blog accompanies the site of the same name; MapWrapper.com is a GIS blog with an interest in earth sciences and remote sensing. Previously:… »
Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 10:11 AM
Categories: Blogs, GIS, Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Bird’s Eye Imagery for Europe
New bird’s-eye imagery for Virtual Earth, this time covering more than 100 European cities — mostly in Italy, France and Germany, but also the Netherlands, Spain, and one city in Norway. (Though technically we should also say Monaco, since Monte… »
Posted on Monday, January 22, 2007 at 7:40 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Microsoft Inks Deal for Improved Imagery
And the satellite imagery arms race continues. Via James comes news of a deal between Microsoft and GlobeXplorer that will add more than a million square kilometres of high-resolution imagery to Virtual Earth…. »
Posted on Tuesday, January 9, 2007 at 7:36 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
World Wind Update
Like ArcGIS Explorer (previously), NASA World Wind is another application to which I’ve been giving short shrift, a consequence of my Mac-only household. And the Java version that would run on Mac OS X and Linux that was scheduled… »
Posted on Friday, January 5, 2007 at 9:16 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
Fishing Maps from Aerial Photographs
Still catching up on some older stories. Two weeks ago, the Florida Times-Union profiled a local home-based business, Outfitter’s Mapping, that produces aerial photographic maps of Florida fishing areas. Via All Points Blog…. »
Posted on Sunday, December 24, 2006 at 7:12 PM
Categories: Publishers, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Updates: 3D City Textures, Italy
A major update to Virtual Earth this week: new three-dimensional city textures for Minneapolis-St. Paul, Tacoma, Sacramento, the L.A. suburbs and Irving, Texas on the one hand; a massive imagery and terrain update for Italy on the other. James explores… »
Posted on Wednesday, December 20, 2006 at 8:23 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
More Google Earth Terrain and Imagery Updates
Yet another round of terrain and imagery updates for Google Earth; Stefan and Frank pass along the details. The updates include, among other things, a terrain upgrade for Mt. Saint Helens. Previously: Google Earth Terrain and Imagery Upgrades; Another Google… »
Posted on Monday, December 18, 2006 at 2:24 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
EWG U.S. Mining Database
There has been an explosion in mining claims lately; the Environmental Working Group’s U.S. Mining Database uses the Google Maps API to show active mines and claims on federal lands in the western United States. (There’s also a Google Earth… »
Posted on Sunday, December 17, 2006 at 7:04 PM
Categories: Energy & Resources, Environment, Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth Upgrades
Improvements to Virtual Earth announced this week include a new navigation control for bird’s-eye imagery and a new distance-measurement tool; James likes…. »
Posted on Thursday, December 14, 2006 at 11:10 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Earth from Space
The Smithsonian’s Earth from Space is an online exhibition of satellite imagery; images include climate, geology and human activity. It’s also a physical exhibition, on a tour that began last month and continues until January 2010. Lesson plans are… »
Posted on Tuesday, December 5, 2006 at 8:42 AM
Categories: Education, Satellite & Aerial
Yahoo! Imagery on OpenStreetMap
This is an interesting development: Yahoo! is letting OpenStreetMap use its aerial imagery. If that isn’t a boost to the project, I don’t know what is. I wonder what’s behind this move. See also The Earth Is Square and Geobloggers…. »
Posted on Monday, December 4, 2006 at 9:01 AM
Categories: Copyright, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth Terrain and Imagery Upgrades
Ogle Earth reports on terrain and imagery upgrades in Google Earth; locations updated include 12 German cities, six British regions, the island of Oahu, and the troubled Sudanese region of Darfur…. »
Posted on Thursday, November 23, 2006 at 8:02 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Another Virtual Earth 3D Roundup
Links regarding the Virtual Earth 3D launch last week have been piling up in my files; time once more to clear out the queue and share them with you. Brian Flood takes a good look at some of Virtual Earth… »
Posted on Tuesday, November 14, 2006 at 8:07 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth for Japan
In other Virtual Earth news, a localized version for Japan was also launched yesterday, replete with geocoding, yellow pages, road maps and satellite imagery…. »
Posted on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 at 11:10 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth 3D Roundup
Reactions to, and follow-up stories about, yesterday’s announcement of Microsoft’s Virtual Earth 3D thingy (previously): The AP story focuses on the Microsoft vs. Google implications of this release (via MapHist). In that vein, Frank Taylor at Google Earth Blog says,… »
Posted on Tuesday, November 7, 2006 at 10:53 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
The Top-Down View
Between high-rise buildings and easily accessible satellite imagery, buildings’ roofs are getting a second look — not just by casual viewers dinking around with Google Earth, but by architects, the L.A. Times reports. Sometimes the impact of new mapping… »
Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006 at 6:01 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Virtual Earth 3D
CNet reports the launch of Virtual Earth 3D, a component of Live Search that integrates three-dimensional models of 15 U.S. cities (so far) into search results — a flyover/Flight Simulator view, I suppose. Comes with virtual billboards for advertising. Microsoft’s… »
Posted on Monday, November 6, 2006 at 5:54 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
BBC’s Click on Aerial Imagery
The BBC program Click featured aerial photography on last weekend’s episode; the online article discusses the imagery’s use and impact on life, business and so forth. Via Ed Parsons and Very Spatial…. »
Posted on Monday, October 30, 2006 at 9:19 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Twisty Table
Here’s something different. While at PopTech, Jason Kottke discovered the Twisty Table, which was developed as a way to navigate high-resolution satellite imagery. “When you spin the table, the map zooms in and out and tilting the table scrolls… »
Posted on Friday, October 20, 2006 at 12:59 PM
Categories: Miscellany, Satellite & Aerial
Imagery Comes to MapQuest
What? MapQuest now has satellite/aerial imagery? When did that happen? See previous entries: More About MapQuest’s Future; MapQuest at 10; AP: MapQuest and the Competition…. »
Posted on Friday, October 13, 2006 at 8:29 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Online Maps Help Aerial, Satellite Imaging Companies Thrive
The popularity of online mapping sites is having an impact on aerial- and satellite-imagery companies, Newsweek reports. Long dependent on government contracts, these companies now find their new clients — Google, Microsoft, Yahoo! et al. — contributing increasing amounts to… »
Posted on Monday, October 9, 2006 at 5:17 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Another Google Imagery Update
Another update to Google’s satellite imagery today, Maps and Earth at the same time. Here’s an announcement. Via Google Earth Blog; I expect Frank Taylor will be adding to the list as more updates are discovered. See previous entry: Google… »
Posted on Tuesday, October 3, 2006 at 3:49 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
UN Atlas Presented via Google Maps
The UN Environment Programme’s atlas, One Planet, Many People: Atlas of Our Changing Environment, was announced in June 2005 and has been available as a free download since at least last February. (You can always buy the book, of course.)… »
Posted on Wednesday, September 20, 2006 at 9:25 AM
Categories: Books, Environment, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Earth Wallpapers
Earth Wallpapers is a collection of desktop backgrounds created from Google Maps satellite images. Each image comes in several sizes; the back end is powered by Flickr (the images are available through Flickr here). Copyright issues notwithstanding, these are… »
Posted on Wednesday, September 13, 2006 at 12:39 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Google Imagery Update
There are reports here and there that Google has updated its satellite imagery. The images are certainly loading differently for me: lower-resolution photos are being used at wider zoom levels, and they seem to be cached differently. More as more… »
Posted on Friday, September 8, 2006 at 1:38 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
NAIP
The National Agricultural Imagery Program collects aerial photographs of farmers’ fields during the growing season. According to an NPR story, one of NAIP’s purposes is to check on what farmers are planting — to make sure that they qualify… »
Posted on Thursday, September 7, 2006 at 11:18 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Hurricane-Ready Sea Temperatures
Earth Observatory’s weekly mailing is a good way to discover some of the latest satellite imagery, both true- and false-colour; this past week, there was this startling look at ocean temperatures in the hurricane zone. Yellow and up are… »
Posted on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 at 4:46 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Yahoo! Updates Satellite Imagery for Cities
Yahoo! reports that it has added high-resolution satellite imagery for nearly 30 metropolitan areas outside the United States, and upgraded the imagery for U.S. cities as well. See previous entries: Yahoo! International Satellite Imagery; Yahoo! Maps Satellite Imagery…. »
Posted on Wednesday, August 16, 2006 at 8:54 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
DigitalGlobe Imagery Exclusive to Google
Ben has posted an e-mail exchange to the Geowanking mailing list that confirms that, according to a DigitalGlobe representative, “Google has signed an exclusive agreement with us to display our full-resolution imagery on the web,” which means that Google Maps… »
Posted on Tuesday, August 1, 2006 at 5:54 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Satellite & Aerial
Windows Live Local and Australia
The Windows Live Local/Virtual Earth blog: “This week we rolled out a new release of Live Local featuring full support for Australia.” Streets, geocoding, directions, business listings and more aerial imagery…. »
Posted on Tuesday, July 25, 2006 at 9:29 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Fire!
BLDGBLOG’s been having fun with images from NASA’s Earth Observatory again (see previous entry), linking to this collection of MODIS images of Africa during 2005, showing the occurrence of fires deliberately set by people as part of their agricultural… »
Posted on Tuesday, July 11, 2006 at 8:14 PM
Categories: Earth Sciences, Energy & Resources, Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Map of Paved Surfaces
NASA’s Earth Observatory reports on a new satellite-imagery-based mapping — the example is of the Washington-Baltimore area — that shows how much “impervious surface” there is in the area: “These space-based maps of buildings and paved surfaces, such as… »
Posted on Sunday, July 9, 2006 at 7:15 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Yahoo! International Satellite Imagery
Yahoo! has added high-resolution satellite imagery for a number of “international” (read: non-U.S.) cities. They list a fair number in Mexico, a few in Canada, and several in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. Cartography compares the imagery with Google… »
Posted on Thursday, June 29, 2006 at 9:34 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
ESA Earth Observation Images
The European Space Agency has released more than a thousand high-resolution satellite images, most of which were acquired by the Agency’s Earth Observation satellites. Here’s the site for the images; it’s searchable rather than browseable, unfortunately. Via Cartography and… »
Posted on Monday, June 26, 2006 at 8:38 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
New Satellite Imagery Comes to Google Maps
Google Maps Mania reports that, as expected, the new high-resolution satellite imagery that came to Google Earth earlier this month has now trickled down to Google Maps…. »
Posted on Tuesday, June 20, 2006 at 10:43 PM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Lightning Map
Ooo. A map of lightning strikes based on NASA satellite data (more on which here). Via BLDGBLOG. Update, June 20: Frank has made a Google Earth layer out of this map…. »
Posted on Monday, June 19, 2006 at 9:04 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
CloudSat
NASA’s new CloudSat satellite takes cross-section images of cloud interiors, allowing researchers to see cloud formations in 3D. The images are essentially transects rather than maps, but can supplement and inform weather-related satellite imagery the same way as ground… »
Posted on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 8:51 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Google Earth Imagery Update
Google Earth Blog and Ogle Earth report that more areas of the planet now have high-resolution imagery in Google Earth, many of which are low-population areas like South Georgia Island, Siberia, the Australian interior and — wow — the Himalayas…. »
Posted on Friday, June 9, 2006 at 8:06 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial
Indonesian Earthquake Update
Cartography links to more maps and imagery of the Indonesian earthquake, including satellite images here and here, as well as situation maps from ReliefWeb. See previous entries: Indonesian Earthquake; Indonesian Earthquake in Google Earth…. »
Posted on Tuesday, June 6, 2006 at 8:54 AM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Satellite Imagery Captures Settlement’s Destruction
While governments fret about losing security at the hands of publicly available, high-resolution satellite imagery, it’s worth remembering that revealing things that governments would rather leave hidden is frequently a very good thing. Last week, the American Association for the… »
Posted on Monday, June 5, 2006 at 11:34 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Indonesian Earthquake
Via Cartography and Catholicgauze, maps and satellite photos produced by UNOSAT of the earthquake-stricken areas of Indonesia, both before and after the quake…. »
Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 8:26 PM
Categories: Current Events, Satellite & Aerial
Severe Weather Imagery for Google Earth
Real-time data (or at least near real-time data) exists in the online mapping world, just not the real-time satellite and aerial imagery that uninformed people get exercised about — take traffic congestion data, for example. Weather data is another possibility… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 8:11 PM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, Weather & Climate
Earthshots
Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change is a collection of Landsat images of certain locations from different years (usually from 1972 to 2000) that show the changes to agriculture, urbanization and other activities in Landsat’s false-colour imagery, from the Ogallala… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 5:35 PM
Categories: Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Google Earth vs. World Wind
Via Ogle Earth, a comparison of Google Earth and World Wind. Though I detect a distinct preference for World Wind’s open/free terms of use (it is, after all, a page on World Wind Central’s wiki), it’s quite positive about both… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 31, 2006 at 9:55 AM
Categories: Google Earth, Satellite & Aerial, World Wind
Major Windows Live Local Update
Windows Live Local got a major update today; see the official blog for an overview of what they call “the biggest release yet of Windows Live Local.” The update includes real-time traffic data (the TechCrunch post covering the launch has… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 24, 2006 at 10:11 PM
Categories: Hacks & Mashups, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Views of the Earth
I love looking at the images on Views of the Earth: Artificial Images of Our Real Planet, where Christoph Hormann has taken satellite images and reprocessed them. The end results are astonishing: views from a height, on cloudless days, that… »
Posted on Tuesday, May 16, 2006 at 6:01 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
A Look at the Aerial Photography Business
A rising tide lifts all boats, it’s said, and the interest in the satellite and aerial imagery available through the online mapping services and Google Earth has been very good to the aerial photography industry, who are able to capitalize… »
Posted on Wednesday, May 3, 2006 at 7:32 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Major Google Maps European Update
First there was a massive update of Google Earth’s satellite and aerial photography, much of which affected (and improved) the imagery for Europe. Then that imagery was carried over to Google Maps, which again had an impact on European views…. »
Posted on Tuesday, April 25, 2006 at 7:27 AM
Categories: Driving Directions, Google Earth, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Triangulations: March 13
The Batch Geocoding Blog has a comparison of the Google, MapQuest and Yahoo! mapping APIs; it’s a quick outline of what the author sees as the pros and cons of each. Via Very Spatial. Alex Stengel says MapMemo 2.5… »
Posted on Monday, March 13, 2006 at 10:00 AM
Categories: Blogs, Collecting, Google Earth, Hacks & Mashups, Macintosh, Satellite & Aerial, Triangulations (Links)
Fake Tilt-Shift Photography with Photoshop
SF, the model city, uploaded by mathowie. Barbieri’s stunning photography, which I posted about in January, uses an expensive tilt-shift lens to make aerial photography look like photos of models rather than the real thing. But you can fake the… »
Posted on Wednesday, March 1, 2006 at 5:05 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for February 6
Now that it’s available for the Mac, Macworld reviews Google Earth. Robert Gelb reviews Chandu Thota’s Programming MapPoint in .NET: “The bottom line is that if you are developing anything mapping related with Microsoft components, you gotta buy this book…. »
Posted on Monday, February 6, 2006 at 7:15 AM
Categories: Books, Collecting, Satellite & Aerial, Software, Triangulations (Links)
One Planet, Many People Redux
The UN atlas One Planet, Many People has been making the rounds of the mapping blogosphere lately — see, for example, Very Spatial and Le Petit Blog Cartographique — probably due to it being featured on the Landsat project news… »
Posted on Saturday, February 4, 2006 at 1:35 PM
Categories: Books, Environment, Satellite & Aerial
Gateway to Astronaut Photography
The Gateway to Astronaut Photography is an enormous collection of photographs taken by astronauts over a period of decades. From the site: “Beginning with the Mercury missions in the early 1960s, astronauts have taken photographs of the Earth. Our database… »
Posted on Thursday, February 2, 2006 at 10:47 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 29
I’ve been off my feed a bit this past week, so I’ve got some catching up to do. I’ll start with a few random links from here and there about this and that. From the Google Blog: “Not only have… »
Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2006 at 6:05 PM
Categories: Current Events, GPS, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Olivio Barbieri’s Model World
Olivo Barbieri’s model world: “It’s often hard to convince people that Olivo Barbieri’s aerial photographs are real. They look uncannily like hyperdetailed models, absent the imperfections of reality. Streets are strangely clean, trees look plastic, and odd distortions of scale… »
Posted on Wednesday, January 25, 2006 at 2:11 PM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 21
A clickable map of Tlingit tribes, clans and clan houses in the Pacific Northwest. Via Plep. MapPoint B2B on the future of MSN Maps and Directions, viz., none: “The time has come to say good-bye to MSN Maps and Directions… »
Posted on Saturday, January 21, 2006 at 7:50 AM
Categories: Books, Historical Maps, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 17
I’ve got to hunker down and produce a big post about the controversial Chinese map that purportedly proves that the Chinese discovered the Americas, but in the meantime, here are a few links about satellite images, online maps and advertising…. »
Posted on Tuesday, January 17, 2006 at 9:44 AM
Categories: Censorship & Security, Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Virtual India
The first public build of Virtual India (the Microsoft Research project with imagery that satisfies Indian security concerns; see previous entry) is now online, according to the Virtual Earth blog. Four languages; street maps for Bangalore only; works in Firefox… »
Posted on Monday, January 16, 2006 at 9:48 AM
Categories: Online Maps, Satellite & Aerial
Utah Atlas of Panoramic Images
Dr. William Bowen writes to tell us about his project, the Utah Atlas of Panoramic Images: “This latest web publication includes 887 photorealistic mathematical simulations of Utah’s complex landscape.” He adds that “it is important to realize that the panoramas… »
Posted on Sunday, January 15, 2006 at 10:27 AM
Categories: Satellite & Aerial
Link Roundup for January 14
Ben Keene, the editor of Oxford University Press’s atlas program (see previous entry), looks at the changes in geography he had to deal with in 2005 (via World Hum). MapQuest has inadvertently left Edmonton off a map of Canadian cities… »
Posted on Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 8:32 AM
Categories: Blogs, Books, Cartography, Education, Mapping Errors, Satellite & Aerial, Software
Link Roundup for January 13
If I make these posts a regular occurrence, I’ll have to come up with a catchier title. Anyway, onward, w